The question of tall players hitting short players and whether these hits should be called as head shots came up in the SB Nation discussion list. So I started wondering if there are any consistent trends around size differentials in hits. First, there's a league-wide bias: taller players hit shorter players, though the average difference is small – just 1/4-inch. Here's the distribution of heights by hitters and guys who got hit:
This leads to a very slight change in the distribution of height differential in hits:
So are there any players who frequently hit players much smaller than themselves? No big surprises here – if you're really tall, there aren't many other players your size who you can hit!
Player | Avg Diff | Height |
Zdeno Chara | 8.1 | 81 |
Derek Boogaard | 6.3 | 80 |
Boris Valabik | 6.2 | 79 |
Hal Gill | 6.1 | 79 |
Jeff Schultz | 5.4 | 78 |
Chris Pronger | 5.3 | 78 |
Alexei Semenov | 5.1 | 78 |
Andy Sutton | 4.9 | 78 |
Brian Boyle | 4.8 | 78 |
Marek Malik | 4.7 | 78 |
Nik Antropov | 4.6 | 78 |
Derian Hatcher | 4.6 | 77 |
None of these players figure on the list of players who hit the tallest opponents on average. Again, this isn't surprising: defensemen are taller than forwards; but defensemen don't typically get a chance to hit other defensemen, so forwards will tend to hit taller players on average.
Player | Avg Height | Height |
Jeremy Reich | 74.06 | 73 |
Anton Babchuk | 74.00 | 77 |
T.J. Hensick | 73.94 | 70 |
Jeff Taffe | 73.89 | 75 |
Fabian Brunnstrom | 73.88 | 73 |
Chris Stewart | 73.86 | 74 |
Daniel Alfredsson | 73.86 | 71 |
Erik Cole | 73.86 | 74 |
Marc-Antoine Pouliot | 73.85 | 73 |
Steve Downie | 73.84 | 71 |
Here's the other end of the list. It's significant to note how small the spread is: it's rare for a player to hit an average opponent under 6-feet tall or over 6'2".
Player | Avg Height | Height |
Michael Nylander | 72.00 | 73 |
Andy Greene | 72.12 | 71 |
Martin Havlat | 72.25 | 73 |
Andrew Hutchinson | 72.27 | 74 |
Alexei Zhitnik | 72.29 | 71 |
Tobias Enstrom | 72.35 | 70 |
Brian Lee | 72.36 | 74 |
Adam Pardy | 72.39 | 76 |
Niklas Hjalmarsson | 72.39 | 75 |
Mike Lundin | 72.39 | 74 |
Just for completeness, here's the list of players who get hit by the tallest average opponent:
Player | Avg Height | Height |
Marian Hossa | 74.21 | 73 |
Max Pacioretty | 74.11 | 74 |
Patrick Eaves | 74.10 | 72 |
Colin Stuart | 74.09 | 74 |
Erik Christensen | 74.09 | 73 |
Brendan Shanahan | 74.08 | 75 |
Ilya Kovalchuk | 74.07 | 73 |
Peter Schaefer | 74.06 | 73 |
Erik Cole | 74.06 | 74 |
Rodney Pelley | 74.05 | 72 |
And the shortest average opponent:
Player | Avg Height | Height |
Matt Jones | 72.50 | 72 |
Jack Hillen | 72.55 | 71 |
Josef Melichar | 72.57 | 74 |
Mike Lundin | 72.58 | 74 |
Thomas Pock | 72.62 | 73 |
Nolan Pratt | 72.63 | 75 |
Henrik Tallinder | 72.65 | 76 |
Zach Bogosian | 72.68 | 74 |
Sean Hill | 72.71 | 72 |
Craig Rivet | 72.72 | 74 |
I'll come back to this in the future and look at weight imbalances in hitting…