Right handed team vs. Left

[authentic]

Similar to the all-time Canada team vs. World, we could agree the left handed team is better. But thought it would be fun to throw some teams together, the right handed team may even have a more imposing top 6 forwards based on the following lines…

Left

Hull-Gretzky-Jagr
McDavid-Crosby-Richard
Malkin-Beliveau-Makarov
Sakic-Forsberg-Kucherov
Bure, Fedorov

Lidstrom-Orr
Harvey-Bourque
Potvin-Robinson
Coffey

Right

MacKinnon-Lemieux-Lafleur
Ovechkin-Lindros-Howe
Kovalchuk-Yzerman-Bossy
Selanne-Oates-Hull
Sundin, Getzlaf

Makar-Chelios
Doughty-Shore
Karlsson-MacInnis
Fox

I know there are some better right handed players earlier in history I’m likely forgetting, so with help filling in the best possible roster could this team win against the left?

 

[BadgerBruce]

Orr is a southpaw who played the right side.

 

[authentic]

Orr is a southpaw who played the right side.

You’re right I wasn’t even paying attention to sides here.

 

[Primary Assist]

How about the goaltenders? Roy and Hasek for the lefties, Barrasso and Tony O for Team Righty (unless you put in Fuhr)

 

[authentic]

How about the goaltenders? Roy and Hasek for the lefties, Barrasso and Tony O for Team Righty (unless you put in Fuhr)

I didn’t even add goaltenders here as I feel that’s too heavy in the lefties favour. We can go with those though for more fun

 

[authentic]

Come to think of it, team right could just one time their way to victory couldn’t they?

 

[Michael Farkas]

Not if it's Hasek or Roy vs. those relative clowns haha

Team LHS has a much, much better defense and goalie combo.

 

[authentic]

Not if it's Hasek or Roy vs. those relative clowns haha

Team LHS has a much, much better defense and goalie combo.

This is why I didn’t add goalies really.

 

[alko]

Is there any player, who can play both hands? Except goalies

 

[Primary Assist]

Is there any player, who can play both hands? Except goalies

You'd have to go back to the flat stick era most likely. Gordie Howe was known to switch handedness on breakaways to fool goalies, but I feel like he's always a righty in the pictures I see of him

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

You'd have to go back to the flat stick era most likely. Gordie Howe was known to switch handedness on breakaways to fool goalies, but I feel like he's always a righty in the pictures I see of him

Chelios also could go lefty if impeded on the right side.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Would not want to be on the ice against righty's 2nd line.

 

[authentic]

Would not want to be on the ice against righty's 2nd line.

Front row seats would be cool though

 

[Batis]

I know there are some better right handed players earlier in history I’m likely forgetting, so with help filling in the best possible roster could this team win against the left?

I would add Anatoli Firsov to the right handed team. On top of being the best Soviet player during the years leading up to the Summit Series (ahead of a number of players that excelled in that series) Firsov was also a superb team player who was known for not having a problem with sacrificing some of his personal stats in order to make his linemates shine like never before. Which is something that likely would be an important ability on this kind of team full of superstar players. Add to that his positional versatility (could play both left wing and center) and him being one of the best Soviet penalty killers of all time.

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

Come to think of it, team right could just one time their way to victory couldn’t they?

I don't think so.

I get the sense that hockey is way more forgiving for lefties, which is why there are so damn many of them.

 

[Summer Rose]

How about the goaltenders? Roy and Hasek for the lefties, Barrasso and Tony O for Team Righty (unless you put in Fuhr)

What about Theodore and Vokoun? We’d have to consider those guys playing at their peak though, because team left wipes the floor with team right in overall career, mostly because there are just so many of them compared to glove right goalies.

 

[Summer Rose]

I don't think so.

I get the sense that hockey is way more forgiving for lefties, which is why there are so damn many of them.

One of the more popular theories I’ve heard is that a very good number of people are taught to play with your dominant hand as your top hand because it results in better natural ability for stickhandling, and for shooting you can simply train yourself up quite well. On the other side of it, you can give yourself an advantage towards modeling your game as a pure shooter by playing with your dominant hand as your bottom hand. Looking at team left and team right without knowing their actual dominant hand outside of their hockey handedness, but knowing that about 90% of people are right handed, the picture I see is that there are quite a few great shooters/goal scorers on team right.

Side note, the only player I knew in all my years playing who was a natural lefty but shot left was… myself. I did, however, know quite a few left handed people who shot right. As for current NHL players, I only know the off-ice handedness of three current players. Clayton Keller (from seeing him sign autographs with a pen in his right hand) who shoots left, Brayden Point (left handed, shoots right), and Andrei Vasilevskiy (left handed, catches left). I also know that Vasilevskiy’s story is similar to the story of a few goalies I knew when I played: while left handed, they ended up catching left because it was easier to find equipment as a kid playing that way. I started playing in net as an adult, and while I found it pretty simple to wear a catching glove on either hand, I could not for the life of me ever get comfortable holding a stick in my right hand, so I ended up catching right. Since I shot left while skating out, that was an absolute headache if I ever tried handling the puck, so I mostly just didn’t.

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

One of the more popular theories I’ve heard is that a very good number of people are taught to play with your dominant hand as your top hand because it results in better natural ability for stickhandling, and for shooting you can simply train yourself up quite well. On the other side of it, you can give yourself an advantage towards modeling your game as a pure shooter by playing with your dominant hand as your bottom hand. Looking at team left and team right without knowing their actual dominant hand outside of their hockey handedness, but knowing that about 90% of people are right handed, the picture I see is that there are quite a few great shooters/goal scorers on team right.

Side note, the only player I knew in all my years playing who was a natural lefty but shot left was… myself. I did, however, know quite a few left handed people who shot right. As for current NHL players, I only know the off-ice handedness of three current players. Clayton Keller (from seeing him sign autographs with a pen in his right hand) who shoots left, Brayden Point (left handed, shoots right), and Andrei Vasilevskiy (left handed, catches left). I also know that Vasilevskiy’s story is similar to the story of a few goalies I knew when I played: while left handed, they ended up catching left because it was easier to find equipment as a kid playing that way. I started playing in net as an adult, and while I found it pretty simple to wear a catching glove on either hand, I could not for the life of me ever get comfortable holding a stick in my right hand, so I ended up catching right. Since I shot left while skating out, that was an absolute headache if I ever tried handling the puck, so I mostly just didn’t.

I'm straight up obsessed with that theory and have been ever since my parents bought us our first hockey sticks and my brother couldn't shoot righty. Great f***ing post, everyone should read it.

 

[MadArcand]

One of the more popular theories I’ve heard is that a very good number of people are taught to play with your dominant hand as your top hand because it results in better natural ability for stickhandling, and for shooting you can simply train yourself up quite well. On the other side of it, you can give yourself an advantage towards modeling your game as a pure shooter by playing with your dominant hand as your bottom hand. Looking at team left and team right without knowing their actual dominant hand outside of their hockey handedness, but knowing that about 90% of people are right handed, the picture I see is that there are quite a few great shooters/goal scorers on team right.

Side note, the only player I knew in all my years playing who was a natural lefty but shot left was… myself. I did, however, know quite a few left handed people who shot right. As for current NHL players, I only know the off-ice handedness of three current players. Clayton Keller (from seeing him sign autographs with a pen in his right hand) who shoots left, Brayden Point (left handed, shoots right), and Andrei Vasilevskiy (left handed, catches left). I also know that Vasilevskiy’s story is similar to the story of a few goalies I knew when I played: while left handed, they ended up catching left because it was easier to find equipment as a kid playing that way. I started playing in net as an adult, and while I found it pretty simple to wear a catching glove on either hand, I could not for the life of me ever get comfortable holding a stick in my right hand, so I ended up catching right. Since I shot left while skating out, that was an absolute headache if I ever tried handling the puck, so I mostly just didn’t.

Dominant hand on top is the natural order of things (just imagine how you'd hold a spear), the opposite may generate more shooting power but is extremely unnatural to me and that's why I can't golf for shit. And since the majority of population is right-handed, the majority of hockey players has to be left-shooting.

 

[authentic]

Dominant hand on top is the natural order of things (just imagine how you'd hold a spear), the opposite may generate more shooting power but is extremely unnatural to me and that's why I can't golf for shit. And since the majority of population is right-handed, the majority of hockey players has to be left-shooting.

I’m right handed and shoot right in everything, golf, hockey, baseball, and funny enough my stickhandling is absurdly superior to my shot.

 

[MadArcand]

I’m right handed and shoot right in everything, golf, hockey, baseball, and funny enough my stickhandling is absurdly superior to my shot.

That probably indicates you're naturally left-handed and have been taught to be right-handed as a child (can happen even inadvertently). Or you might be ambidextrous. Would you hold a spear with right hand closer to the head?

 

[authentic]

That probably indicates you're naturally left-handed and have been taught to be right-handed as a child (can happen even inadvertently). Or you might be ambidextrous. Would you hold a spear with right hand closer to the head?

I imagine at the back but using a spear seems different to me (never used one before though)…

Actuallt I could imagine doing both with a spear now that I really think of it.

Ask me to write with my left hand and good luck. Although I’ve tried left hand in hockey for fun a few times and doesn’t seem impossible I could learn to shoot that way.

 

[Summer Rose]

Dominant hand on top is the natural order of things (just imagine how you'd hold a spear), the opposite may generate more shooting power but is extremely unnatural to me and that's why I can't golf for shit. And since the majority of population is right-handed, the majority of hockey players has to be left-shooting.

Comparing a hockey stick to how you'd hold a spear is an interesting one. I've never tried it but I imagine I'd definitely hold a spear with my right hand in front of my left hand, so I can thrust with my right foot forward. Golf is also an interesting one. I golf right-handed because I had to learn that way due to the lack of availability of left-handed clubs for kids, but it feels okay, because in my swing I'm more pulling the club through the swing with my dominant hand on top than I am "pushing" the club through the swing with my right hand. You'd think I'd have batted right-handed in softball because of this, but I didn't. I tried, and actually ended up being slightly better at making contact that way, but it "felt more natural" to bat left-handed, plus there's the advantage that the left-handed batter's box is closer to first base, and your momentum from swinging turns you towards it. However I throw right-handed... and now I realize I'm drifting quite off topic so I'll just finish up by saying that like most left-handed people (defining handedness by which hand you write with), my left/right dominance in various activities and sports is all kinds of wonky.

But to bring it back to the topic of hockey, the last time I looked up the numbers on it, 57% of NHL players shoot left. Another thing I've noticed is that American players tend towards shooting right more than, say, Canadian players, because the school of thought that you should play with your dominant hand on top has been historically a bit less prevalent in the United States. I would imagine that it's a bit more clear cut which way you should play with goalies, which is why the vast majority of goalies catch left. I'd be interested to see the actual numbers on it, since based on my personal observation watching and playing the sport, it seems like that even though a left-handed person "should" probably play glove right, far fewer than 10% of goalies catch right, whether in the NHL or down to rec league. I'd have to assume that it's partly because of the availability/cost of goalie equipment when starting out, so you end up with players like Andrei Vasilevskiy, who is left-handed but catches left. Another factor that could be in play is that left-handed people might be discouraged from playing goalie at all because of equipment availability and cost, kind of the opposite of how left-handed people are encouraged to become pitchers in baseball, which is how you end up with statistics like about 25-30% of MLB pitchers being left handed.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Ovechkin is actually left handed but was taught to shoot right....because in Hrussia chair sit on you!

 

[Overrated]

It’s quite the opposite, isn’t it? Shooting left is usually done by right handed people. I think in baseball it’s the other way around but not in hockey.