My Karate Daisempai is a REAL New Jersey Devils fan and he recently sent me a question that many fans probably do not know the answer to, even though it happens quite often during a hockey game.  

He noted: “There was a faceoff in the Devils end.  Before the linesman dropped the puck, the players anticipated the drop and started to move their sticks.  The ref then made the Devils change the player for the faceoff.  My wife, Lori, asked why they had to change, and why the Devil player was the one who had to step out.  I could not answer - but I know you'd know.  Please illuminate me.”

My Daisempai got it all right in terms of what happened.  The reason the Devils player got tossed, was because he moved his stick before the puck hit the ice.  Neither player taking a face-off can move their stick until the rubber touches the ice, and if one does – thereby drawing an instinctual reaction from the other player to move his stick – that first player has to leave, while the other one can stay.  Winning face-offs is an art, as you probably know, and so having the best center-man you have on the ice to win a critical one in your own end zone or that of your opponent – particularly late in a game – can be the difference between winning and losing the game.  As such any player that pulls the trigger too fast is automatically thrown out, which also accounts for those occasions when one player gets thrown out, then the other one does too, before the face-off finally occurs.

As I’ve often said, while on the whole hockey is a wild and wooly sport, it is the subtleties of the game that are the difference between a successful team and one this is not.