Right-handed vs. Left-Handed Shooters

cjhallman · Post by **cjhallman** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 11:03 am

It seems that the number of right-handed hockey players has been increasing in the state of Minnesota over the years. Unless these right-handed shooters are naturally left-handed for everything else they do, I feel that this will make it more difficult for these players to accelerate to the highest level. Everyone knows that we live in a world where right-handed people make up the majority. However, if you look at the NHL, left-handed shooters make up 65-70% of the players. How is this so? If your right-hand is naturally more dominant, then it should be the control hand holding the end of the stick when you skate. So logically speaking, hockey is the only exception for the right-hand domination in the world. But for some stupid reason, more and more parents in the US who introduce their kids to the game of hockey are starting them off the wrong way with buying them a right-handed stick, thinking that's what hand they need to play hockey. And these young players must learn to adapt to what they are given. It seems the Canadian hockey parents are a lot smarter about this; they know exactly what's the correct stick to start their kids with. This mentality to make young hockey players right-handed may not hinder them from excelling to the level of high school hockey, or even college hockey, but it may prevent them from playing in the pros. Let's look at the top recruits of the University of Minnesota over the last several years. It seems that the majority of them have been right-handed. And some of them have even become first round draft choices like: Phil Kessel, Blake Wheeler, Kyle Okposo and Eric Johnson. Despite being picked high in the NHL draft, none of these players truly dominated the college game by scoring at least 60 points in a season. The last Gopher to score more than 60 points in a season was Ryan Potulny- a lefty shooter. Now these first round draft righties have done okay in the NHL, but not super dominant. Kessel, Wheeler and now Okposo are starting to pile up some points, but none are as good as Zach Parise- a lefty shooter that went to Shattuck and then UND. Since Lucia began recruiting more righties, the quality of U of M hockey has gone down the last several years. I feel, that unless this trend changes back to the old ways, MN will never be able to produce players as good as Neal Broten, Phil Housley, or some of the great Americans who became dominant players in the NHL.

PhantomoftheArena · Post by **PhantomoftheArena** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 11:11 am

I'm stupid. I think Alex Ovechkin thrives in the lefty dominated NHL. As does Ryan Getzlaf and Jarome Iginla. But those 3 are the only right-handed players in the top 10 NHL scoring.

But the argument you are trying to bring up is almost impossible. Would Sidney Crosby have been just as good if he would have been brought up right-handed? I don't think you can have this discussion until you meet a really good player that is ambidextrious. But I doubt that person would have practiced equally on both sides.

chiefofmedicine · Post by **chiefofmedicine** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 12:04 pm

wayne was a lefty

cjhallman · Post by **cjhallman** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 1:01 pm

Gretzky was a lefty. The best righty I have ever seen play the game was Lemieux. The three righties you list as among the top 10 fits the probability of the NHL, which is about 1/3 of the league being right-handed shooters. If 1/3 of all people are naturally left-handed, then this should be the number of right-handed shooters in hockey. But if your team has 50% or more right-handed shooters, then I would suspect that some of these players were brought up playing the sport using the wrong hand to shoot.

scoreboard33 · Post by **scoreboard33** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 1:19 pm

In Baseball, Johnny Damon is widely considered to have the worst throwing arm in the major-leagues, he was taught by his parents to throw and hit left-handed, even though he should have learned to throw righty. I wonder how that would have been different if he threw with his dominant hand.

Some players may be a dominant left, even though they are right-handed and that could explain the why their are 30-40% righty shooters, as opposed to 10% but, in general, it makes sense that Minnesotans are learning to shoot the wrong way and not as effective at scoring due to that reason.

cjhallman · Post by **cjhallman** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 1:46 pm

The last really good righties at the U o f M that could really pile up the points were Johnny Pohl and Thomas Vanek. I suspect that these players (as well as Mario Lemieux) are naturally left-handed in everything else they do. I don't know what Wheeler, Okposo or Johnson are naturally, but I think they probably would have been more productive scorers if they played left-handed.

PhantomoftheArena · Post by **PhantomoftheArena** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 10:23 pm

cjhallman wrote:The last really good righties at the U o f M that could really pile up the points were Johnny Pohl and Thomas Vanek. I suspect that these players (as well as Mario Lemieux) are naturally left-handed in everything else they do. I don't know what Wheeler, Okposo or Johnson are naturally, but I think they probably would have been more productive scorers if they played left-handed.

Yes, there is no doubt that some could have been better. But like I said, there is no way of knowing. All we have are assumptions. But the reasoning does show that they all would have been better had they been left-handed.

my2cents · Post by **my2cents** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 10:56 pm

I offer this most likely worthless theory, but here it goes anyway:

Goalies are predominently righty, and strongest on their glove side. From center ice, a lefty shooter has a more direct angle when shooting at the stick side than a right handed shooter who typically has to cross the goalies body to do so. The geometry favores the lefty over the righty when shooting at the stick side.

cjhallman · Post by **cjhallman** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 11:19 pm

Here is an interesting coincidence. After Stoa (a lefty) went down at the beginning of last season, everything for the Gophers started going down hill fast. Without enough good lefties to play LW, Lucia tried to put his three best righties (Bariball, Okposo and Wheeler) on the same line. That was a total disaster. Bariball went from having a very productive freshman season to becoming a mediocre college player, Wheeler never got any better, and Okposo ended up quiting. Many Gopher fans had very high expectations of these three players at the beginning of the season. And never before has anyone witnessed such a highly talented Gopher team that couldn't put some pucks in the net. Why were the Gophers so bad last year? You probably can't blame it on the coaching. Lucia has already proven that he can win the big one. However, you can look at who he recruits. Sometimes picking the best prospects in the state of MN doesn't mean they will all play well together. And sticking Wheeler, Okposo and Bariball on the same line is good proof of that. Lucia really needs to recruit more lefties. This season is much better now that Stoa is back, and the addition of a good scoring lefty defenseman Aaron Ness, but I still forsee them running into some potential problems down the road if Lucia can't figure out how to balance some of those lines with too many righties. Don't get me wrong, Jordan Schroeder is a great right-handed center, but keeping him on the same line with Stoa helps balance the line with Bariball playing RW.

cjhallman · Post by **cjhallman** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 11:34 pm

my2cents wrote:
Goalies are predominently righty, and strongest on their glove side. From center ice, a lefty shooter has a more direct angle when shooting at the stick side than a right handed shooter who typically has to cross the goalies body to do so. The geometry favores the lefty over the righty when shooting at the stick side.

This makes total sense. As dominant as Mario Lemieux was in his prime, he could never quite catch any of Wayne Gretzky's scoring records. If lefties have an obvious advantage over righties then why do some many hockey parents in the US encourage their kids to play right-handed?

halla · Post by **halla** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 8:20 am

I understand the argument for having right-handed people learn to play hockey left. I, myself, am a right-handed person who shoots left, and I cannot imagine having my non-dominant hand on top. That being said, I have always played that way since before I can remember. There are right-handed people I know who always have played with a right-handed stick who are far better than I am and who, I am sure, cannot imagine playing with their right hand on top.

I also happen to swing a baseball bat left-handed. I use a putter left-handed, but I swing the rest of the clubs right-handed. In all of these things, it feels very natural to do it the way I learned to do it and awkward when I try to do it the opposite. When it comes to these things, it's really all about how you first learned to do it. Over time, and especially if you started very young, the hand you write with or throw with or do whatever else with just doesn't matter in my opinion. My very slight preference, I suppose, would be for beginning hockey player to learn with the dominant hand on top, but it just won't matter in the long run.

I've also heard the argument that shooting right-handed is actually preferable because it give you a better angle for shooting high, glove-side. I could see low, stick-side possibly being the advantageous place to shoot (as earlier commentors have suggested), but are so many goalies necessarily that much weaker on that side? If you're going up top, there is definitely more room on the glove side. In any case, I don't see it as an obvious advantage to shoot lefty.

The last thing I'll say is that my impression is that today's high-school players are actually less skewed toward right-handed shooters than when I was in high-school in the mid-nineties. Can't say I have any idea of the actual numbers though, then or now.

woodley · Post by **woodley** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 9:10 am

my2cents wrote:I offer this most likely worthless theory, but here it goes anyway:

Goalies are predominently righty, and strongest on their glove side. From center ice, a lefty shooter has a more direct angle when shooting at the stick side than a right handed shooter who typically has to cross the goalies body to do so. The geometry favores the lefty over the righty when shooting at the stick side.

Sorry, not going to fly!!!

Goalies are taught to play the puck, not the shooter's body!!! Therefore, with the puck as the focus, the angles are identical.

Mite-dad · Post by **Mite-dad** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 9:13 am

All of my sons are right handed. My oldest has a right handed stick. Why? Because being a non-hockeyplaying dad, I didn't know any better. I thought because he was right handed, I get him a right handed stick. I assumed you wanted your right hand powering your shot. It made sense to me. Now I know better and my younger boys have lefty sticks. My oldest boy is at the squirt level and I'm afraid to change him to a lefty stick.

My question is, is it as critical for defensemen as it is for forwards?

cjhallman · Post by **cjhallman** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 10:45 am

Thank you for sharing your story. I am sure that many parents like yourself have done the same to their kids. You know, with your oldest being a squirt, it might not be too late even at that age. In my family growing up, I was naturally left-handed, so I played hockey right. And I had two siblings who were right-handed, so they played hockey left. One day my father acquired a bunch of brand new hockey sticks from the 1980 Olympic Hockey team. But unfortunately for my brothers, most of them were from right handed shooters (Strobel, Pavelich, etc.), so I was in hockey heaven. My oldest brother took all the remaining lefties without sharing them with my younger left-handed shooting brother. Feeling left out at the time, my younger brother, who was a squirt at the time decided to switch over so he could be entitled to some of the right-handed sticks. Although it was awkward at first, within a month of playing hockey every day down at the pond and ice rinks, he was able to successfully do it. The very next year he was good enough to make the Squirt A team. So with some dedication, practice, good attitude and perserverance, it can be done.

cjhallman · Post by **cjhallman** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 11:25 am

To answer your question, is it as critical for defensemen as it is for forwards?

It is to become a more offensive defenseman. Look at all the great defensemen like: Bobby Orr, Paul Coffey, Ray Borque, Phil Housley and Brian Leetch. All of these lefties were very productive offensively. Chris Chelios is a great righty defenseman, but more so for preventing goals, not producing them. As long as he's played, one would have expected him to reach the 1000 point plateau by now. The last good offensive defenseman at the U of M was Jordan Leopold (a lefty) and before that it was probably Mike Crowley (another lefty). Aaron Ness has the potential to top these guys offensively as he is starting to show signs of brilliance on the ice for the U.

warrior2132 · Post by **warrior2132** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 8:01 pm

It also helps the be a righty though. There are less righty D so teams need them. If you are a Right shot D and have a powerful shot and and put up offensive numbers it helps because righty D like that are hard to come by

cjhallman · Post by **cjhallman** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 8:46 pm

Oh there is no question that righties are needed to play RD. I just wish they were more productive offensively for the U. If you look at right-handed RJ Anderson's numbers at Centennial HS, he was an incredible college prospect scoring 85 points! There were high expectations for him when he signed with the Gophers. Unfortunately he only scores a goal once every blue moon in college. Another right-handed defenseman at the U David Fischer is a first round draft pick of the NHL, but he hasn't really produced that much offensively for the U until this year.

hero12 · Post by **hero12** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 3:52 pm

woodley wrote:
my2cents wrote:I offer this most likely worthless theory, but here it goes anyway:

Goalies are predominently righty, and strongest on their glove side. From center ice, a lefty shooter has a more direct angle when shooting at the stick side than a right handed shooter who typically has to cross the goalies body to do so. The geometry favores the lefty over the righty when shooting at the stick side.
Sorry, not going to fly!!!

Goalies are taught to play the puck, not the shooter's body!!! Therefore, with the puck as the focus, the angles are identical.

But the angle for the shooter is different. We had a lefty goalie and a righty goalie and I loved shooting on the righty goalie (im a lefty) even though he was much better than the other goalie. The reason is I could go top shelf stick side so easily.

jBlaze3000 · Post by **jBlaze3000** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:54 pm

I would think that years of practice would negate any advantage that you would have by shooting with one hand versus another. People can teach themselves to write left-handed when they break their arm so why wouldn't the same apply to hockey? It's also pointless to compare NHL players as a way to determine which hand is better. Maybe the reason Chelios hasn't broken 1000 points is because he lacks the offensive talent to do so. Maybe Gretzky would have scored more goals had he played righty his whole career. Who's to say?

cjhallman · Post by **cjhallman** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 6:51 pm

Because I still love playing hockey myself, I really enjoy the thrill of going to different outdoor ice rinks throughout the metro to get my weekly hockey fix in. This year I've been paying closer attention to the shooting hand of all the different rink rats. On any average day I would say righties outnumber lefties by nearly 8 to 2. At first I thought this was some kind of isolated anamoly, but then I noticed this at every single rink I've been to! When I was growing up in the 70's and 80's, lefties dominated the rink by 7 to 3. Now it appears everything has flipflopped. There is something quite strange about this change within the last 20 years. And I don't think it has anything to do with the water, although everyone back then drank tap water because there was no such thing as bottled water. One can argue that it shouldn't matter which hand one chooses when learning how to play the game. But if you look at offensive productivity for both professional and the collegiant level, lefties have done far better. Gordie Howe is the only player to my knowledge who could play both right and left handed. If you look at old photos of him, he appears right-handed most of the time, probably because there weren't as many righties back then so he play right-handed more to fullfill a big void. As great as Gordie Howe was, he never scored more than 105 points in a season in the 26 years he played spanning 5 different decades. Although he has played in more games than anyone else, he still ranks 3rd all time in scoring behind two lefties (Gretzky and Messier).

jBlaze3000 · Post by **jBlaze3000** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 10:47 am

Here are some stats copied from a similar topic that I started recently in the youth forum:

-71% of Canadians shoot left compared to only 57% of Americans.
-The younger you are when you start playing hockey, the more likely you are to shoot with your dominant hand on top (younger kids are more likely to grab for a stick with their dominant hand, older kids are more likely to hold it like a baseball bat). This holds true for my boys, my oldest started playing at 6 and shoot right, my middle started playing at 4 and shoots left.
-Only 24% of NHL defensemen shoot right handed. This seems odd to me because I would think teams would want a righty playing the right side.

Also, this is a few weeks old but here were the top 5 goal scorers in the NHL at the time:

1. J. Carter - shoots right
2. A. Ovechkin - shoots right
3. T. Vanek - shoots right
4. P. Kessel - shoots right
5. Z. Parise - shoots left

cjhallman · Post by **cjhallman** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 5:51 pm

Thanks for sharing these stats. I imagine this will change in the next several years as more and more Americans become right-handed players. I don't anticipate this changing for the Canadians, so I boldly predict they will continue to show their superiority over Americans in the game of hockey, not only in quantity, but quality. Back in the 2002 olympics, many people would have thought in the early rounds of the tournament that the Americans had finally become the top hockey powerhouse in the world as they dominated their opponents with big numbers. After they beat a very good Russian team, many were predicting another gold medal after 22 years. But there was a rude awakening in the gold medal game. The Canadians established control in the first period, and then broke it wide open in the third period. As the cinderella story came to an end for the Americans, the Canadians once again proved that they were on top of the hockey world.
The top 5 goal scorers in the NHL right now are:
Ovechkin (right)
Carter (right)
Parise (left)
Vanek (right)
Marleau (left)

Kessel is out with an injury, which explains why he is no longer a top scorer. However, statistically speaking, an assist is worth just as much as a goal. Here are the top point leaders:
Malkin (left)
Crosby (left)
Ovechkin (right)
Getzlaf (right)
Datsyuk (left)

So only Ovechkin made this list.

Teak · Post by **Teak** » Sat Jan 24, 2009 1:40 am

Can we extend this topic further to include the question of which position is better for a left-sided shooter: left wing (the usual position) or right wing?

Being right-handed, I always used that hand on top of the stick so that I was a left-sided shooter, thus, played left wing. But upon reflection, it seems that it would have been better to have played right wing.

I watched some of the World Junior (read Canadian) World Championship games and noticed that John Tavares, a left-sided shooter, played right wing. A lot of his goals were picked up from the right side of the goal from passes across from the left side. With the stick being to the inside of the rink, it seemed to give him quicker chances, i.e., not having to wait for the puck to cross his body.

Any other opinions on this?

cjhallman · Post by **cjhallman** » Sat Jan 24, 2009 10:10 am

I think you make a valid point, which explains why a lot of left-handed shooters play right wing (and also right defense).

scoreboard33 · Post by **scoreboard33** » Sat Jan 24, 2009 11:25 am

cjhallman wrote:I think you make a valid point, which explains why a lot of left-handed shooters play right wing (and also right defense).

There are so few righty d that I'm not sure it is a valid comparison, but I'd think it is easier for defenseman to play on the same side as their shot. That would make it easier to pinch and probably easier to pass down low on the same side of the ice. It also makes a boomer from the point come from father outside, reducing the chances it gets blocked and increasing the chances for an odd rebound. Maybe in some powerplay systems you would want it different but if the systems are centereed around the forwards, you'd probably want defenseman playing on their shot side.