Beating Up on the Little (or Big) Guys

by Hawerchuk on Dec 14, 2009 9:00 AM EST in Statistics

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...

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Comments

I assume the height distribution for the league is the same as the hit distribution (scaled appropriately).

by Mogen_david on Dec 14, 2009 4:12 PM EST reply actions

can you elaborate? not sure i know what you’re asking.

by Hawerchuk on Dec 14, 2009 4:46 PM EST up reply actions

I think he’s asking if the distribution of heights in the league matches the distribution of heights that hit/get hit. If he’s not, I’m now curious about it.

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by Cornelius Hardenbergh on Dec 16, 2009 10:59 AM EST up reply actions

I don’t think that’s his question. The heights of the players who hit is shifted to the right slightly; the heights of the players who get hit is shifted left.

by Hawerchuk on Dec 16, 2009 2:55 PM EST up reply actions

Interesting stuff, Gabe. As one of the seemingly small minority who actually puts some stock in the RTSS stats, I’ve long wondered if there is any place that tracks the “hittee”. I know the info is embedded in the play-by-play, did you just strip it out of there?

A few questions arise, of which you’ve tackled relatvie size here. Which players take the most hits? Do they tend to be the same guys who dish out the most, that are likely to be involved in both ends of the physical battle? Is there any correlation between, say, times hit and giveaways? (I’m thinking the guys who carry the puck the most are likely to rank highly in both areas, not so much that a causes b)

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by Bruce McCurdy on Dec 15, 2009 2:49 AM EST reply actions

I’ve got this piece in the hopper for you already. Just to give away the secret: defensemen get hit the most, and they tend to not be the ones who dish out the most hits. The give/take issue is an interesting one, I’ll look into it further.

by Hawerchuk on Dec 15, 2009 3:20 AM EST up reply actions