Florida Panthers leading shocking new NHL trend involving all players
Photo credit: USA Today Sports
The Florida Panthers have been identified at the forefront of an NHL trend seeing successful teams get much smaller in average height.
This may come as a shock to fans who have long seen NHL GMs covet size and physical dominance as an asset - but now things seem to be changing.
Florida Panthers leading NHL trend of much smaller players
NHL analyst Jonathan Willis has found that the Florida Panthers were one of the smallest and lightest teams in the league. Only Tampa Bay and Colorado are smaller, and both teams were great last season.
The Panthers aren't just not big. They're small.
On the height side, nothing has changed. In every season of the salary cap era, the median NHL skater has been 6'1». Weight is a different story.
In 2013, when the Blackhawks knocked off the Kings in the third round (en route to their own title) their average skater was 11 pounds lighter than the average King.
The success of teams like Chicago and then Pittsburgh made it clear that some of the smallest teams in the playoffs could win titles, and that's when the trend really accelerated.
- Jonathan Willis
On the height side, nothing has changed. In every season of the salary cap era, the median NHL skater has been 6'1». Weight is a different story.
In 2013, when the Blackhawks knocked off the Kings in the third round (en route to their own title) their average skater was 11 pounds lighter than the average King.
The success of teams like Chicago and then Pittsburgh made it clear that some of the smallest teams in the playoffs could win titles, and that's when the trend really accelerated.
- Jonathan Willis
The 2017 St. Louis Blues are considered the toughest team to win in recent memory, but even they were much lighter than teams before 2013. Since then, teams are only getter smaller and lighter.
This is important for the Oilers as they introduce two undersized forwards in Matthew Savoie and Ike Howard this season. The smaller forward don't seem to hinder team success at all, but they'll still need to hold up to the physical trials of the NHL.
If anything, the only area where size appears to matter in the NHL is on defence. Bigger and taller defenceman still have much more playoff success than smaller defenders - which may give the Oilers some thought with Troy Stecher and Ty Emberson.
The Panthers have become the class of the NHL with team building on all fronts in recent years. If they're on a trend of building a smaller and lighter forward group, it'll likely be something the rest of the league replicates.
| POLL | ||
JUILLET 30 | 284 ANSWERS Florida Panthers leading shocking new NHL trend involving all players Have you noticed the NHL trending towards smaller and lighter players? | ||
| Yes | 165 | 58.1 % |
| No | 119 | 41.9 % |
| List of polls | ||
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