The NHL's smaller, faster, younger players

[bapo!]

Hockey has always been a fast game. But shifts are shorter than ever, which means that players are skating harder. And with the league's occasional, half-hearted effort to eliminate hooking and interference, there's more room for players to operate. Just in the past five years, it seems that the game has gotten so must faster, as teams add as much speed as they can to their rosters.

Like any self-respecting SJW, I want all body types to be represented. And I've noticed that, with more of an emphasis on speed and skating, and less on size and toothlessness, there seem to be a lot of smaller players in the league. Patrick Kane and Johnny Gaudreau would be stars in any era. But guys like Conor Sheary (5'8”, 175) of the Penguins wouldn't have been in the league 10 years ago. But now his name is on the Stanley Cup, twice.

The Blackhawks are on tv tonight, and NBCSN is hyping Alex DeBrincat (5'7”, 165). I watched him score a bunch of goals as Connor McDavid's linemate in Erie a few years ago and thought that he was a good junior player, but would never be a big contributor in the NHL. He has 19 points in 27 games, and he scored a hat trick a couple of weeks ago.

Clayton Keller (5'10”, 170) is 19 and already one of the most important players on Arizona's roster. He's second among forwards in ice time. The hockey Internet drools over Mitch Marner (6'0”, 175), but how much would he have been able to do in 1996?

I'm enjoying this. There are smaller players contributing to the game, and I don't think they would have been doing this during the dead-puck era.

(These guys are also really, really young. Keller, Marner, and DeBrincat are all 19 or 20. And McDavid is 20. So, in addition to being a speed game, the NHL is a young man's game, much like music or the Internet. They make me feel slow and old and sad. At least I'm bigger than all of them.)

[mister d]

ZUUUUUUUCCCCCCC!!!!!!!!

[rass]

http://www.gettyimages.com.au/detail/news-photo/brian-gionta-of-the-new-jersey-devils-hoists-the-stanley-news-photo/2111745#brian-gionta-of-the-new-jersey-devils-hoists-the-stanley-cup-after-picture-id2111745

[degenerasian]

on the flip side, could you imagine Eric Lindros and Mario Lemieux in this no clutch and grab era? Would be unstoppable.
Surprised there hasn't been another similar player recently.

[sancarlos]

on the flip side, could you imagine Eric Lindros and Mario Lemieux in this no clutch and grab era? Would be unstoppable.
Surprised there hasn't been another similar player recently.

Were they fast enough skaters for this era? (Honest question - I don't know.)

[bapo!]

could you imagine Eric Lindros and Mario Lemieux in this no clutch and grab era?

Oh, man. I wish I could have seen Lemieux play in an era when he couldn't be pulled down from behind without a penalty. But goalies are so much better now than they were then. So it evens out, I guess.

Were they fast enough skaters for this era?

I'll use my 'would have been stars in any era' argument here. Talent is talent. Maybe a hypothetical 12-year-old Lindros would take more skating lessons today.

[mister d]

Flipside is would Lindros or Lemieux be all world in this era or was their size/strength simply ahead of their era?

[brian]

I'll be honest and admit I hadn't paid a great deal of attention to the NHL for about a decade or so even going back to when the Red Wings were still pretty good in the late 2000s, so now with having a team in Las Vegas and watching more games (and more random games) it's been a revelation to see how much faster the game is now than even back 10 or 15 years ago. And it helps (me) that Vegas is a very, very fast team. Especially now I wouldn't want to watch a plodding team.

[degenerasian]

I'll be honest and admit I hadn't paid a great deal of attention to the NHL for about a decade or so even going back to when the Red Wings were still pretty good in the late 2000s, so now with having a team in Las Vegas and watching more games (and more random games) it's been a revelation to see how much faster the game is now than even back 10 or 15 years ago. And it helps (me) that Vegas is a very, very fast team. Especially now I wouldn't want to watch a plodding team.

That is my world. The Flames are a very slow team (today's standards)

[bapo!]

Flipside is would Lindros or Lemieux be all world in this era or was their size/strength simply ahead of their era?

Maybe Lindros would have taken more HGH when he was 12 so that he would have been even BIGGER. Maybe he would have grown up to be 7'2”.

The Pens/Islanders first-round series in 2013 sticks out for me. It was a 1/8 series, with Pittsburgh clearly the better team, but the Penguins had a lot of trouble because the Islanders were so much faster. Guys like Michael Grabner were skating all over the place.

After that, the Penguins remade their roster. They got younger and faster. I've talked a lot about how huge the Carl Hagelin and Trevor Daley trades were a couple of years ago. They changed the team.

[mister d]

Yeah, they seemed to realize that filling out the bottom of the roster with high-end speed guys over guys who might be better in every other facet but skating works. Rangers skewed heavy that way too but their top six isn't nearly as good and their defense is "mostly shit" so the results didn't follow. And even while I concede its worked for the overall roster, especially last year, I still want Boyle back.

[bapo!]

I think it's fascinating when you can watch a sport change in real time. It's not as obvious as, say, football's move towards a horizontal-passing attack, but it's happening.