Quote:
Originally Posted by Oil Stain
That average is skewed by bottom of the roster players that are only in the NHL in part because they are big. Size can overcome some lack of skill.
Star players will be smaller on average because of guys of Gaudreau or Quinn Hughes size that aren't making the NHL as defensive specialists.
I just looked at the top 20 scorers from last season and 6 were 6'2" and taller. 5 were under 6 feet. 2 guys were 6'3 or taller.
The top 20 in games played has 6 guys 6'3" or taller. That's 3 times what I found in the random sample of stars we just looked at. Then 3 of the 4 guys that have a chance to make it into the top 20 in the next 2-3 years are also 6'3"+.
Maybe its just an aberration that the top 20 for NHL games played has a lot of very large men. It is a small sample size of course.
Size does offer some good advantages though. Reach, strength, less likely to be checked in the head, often more mass which helps a player fend off collisions, etc. A lot of stuff that could help a player when he starts to lose some speed in his later years.
We won't know for sure if size does equate positively to longevity unless someone runs the stats on a big sample size, but it sure looks like it is the case.
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I think that in the past, yes, size correlated to long term durability.
But in the modern NHL, the correlation would seem to be quite a bit weaker. Shifty guys like Gaudreau, Keller, Hughes, DeBrincat, Zuccarello, Marchessault, are pretty durable.
Fleury was such a unicorn at the time. Unless most of the aforementioned players, he actually had some edge.