LEAFS ON A ROLL IN RALEIGH
There have been 486 left-handed shooters in the NHL this season
Maple Leafs forward Tyler Ennis shoots and scores while Carolina Hurricanes goalie Petr Mrazek defends during Tuesday’s game in Raleigh, N.C. The Leafs had two unanswered goals in the third period and won 4-1.
When Boston Bruins defenceman Charlie McAvoy first picked up a hockey stick, he did it just like his father: Righthanded.
Makes sense. He’s right-handed. But looking back, he wonders.
“There are so many lefty defencemen, so many lefty players,” McAvoy says. “I never thought about it until I got to the NHL, and it’s a business, and you start hearing that the right-handed defenceman is a hot commodity. Every team needs right-shot defenceman.” Indeed, a common theme among critics and fans looking to pick apart the Toronto Maple Leafs these days is how much they need a right-handed defenceman.
Leafs coach Mike Babcock is among those who craves balance on the blue line — three lefties, three righties. But he has lefty Ron Hainsey on the right side with lefty Morgan Rielly.
In a way, it’s funny they can’t find one, because 90 per cent of the world’s population is righthanded. But not in hockey. At least not when it comes to the way a kid picks up a stick for the first time, and usually sticks with it.
There have been 486 lefthanded shooters in the NHL this season compared to 291 right-handed shooters, according to Toronto Star statistician Andrew Bailey
“Your top hand is a guide,” McAvoy says. “It’s just there. You do everything with your bottom hand. You stickhandle with your bottom hand. The top hand just guides it. You pokecheck with it, obviously. I can’t imagine being a lefty. There are times I grab a lefty stick and I wonder.” McAvoy is American, and American hockey players represent the closest to an even lefty-right split, with the U.S. producing 106 right-handed shots, 103 lefties. Anaheim defenceman Josh Manson, who grew up in the United States, is a righty, while his ex-NHLer father Dave, who grew up in Canada, played left-handed.
“My left hand is not as functional as my right,” Manson said. “I’ve tried to do lots of things with my left hand to see if that would help. Baseball is right. Golf is right. Everything I do is right.”
In golf, lefties make up between five and seven per cent of the industry, according to a Chicago Tribune story. In part, it was hypothesized, because lefty equipment was hard to find so natural lefties made-do with right-handed clubs.
In Major League Baseball, where left-handedness is revered and southpaw relievers pitch into their 40s, only 12.3 per cent of players throw and bat left, while another 19 per cent throw right and bat left, according to a 2017 study on handedness in the New England Journal of Medicine. And 63.2 per cent of players throw right and bat right; te remainder are switch-hitters.
But in hockey, more players shoot left than right. Even 10 years ago, only 34.8 per cent of players shot right-handed, compared to 37.5 per cent today. Columbus defenceman Seth Jones bats right when he plays baseball, but shoots left in hockey. “It just kind of happened that way,” said Jones. The number of left-handed shooters and right-handed shooters in the NHL, broken down by position:
Defence: 162 lefties, 112 righties
Left wing: 126 lefties, 15 righties Centre: 160 lefties, 81 righties Right wing: 38 lefties, 83 righties Total: 486 lefties, 291 righties
(Positions listed on NHL.com do not always reflect the actual position played.)