Sizing Up the NHL by Height, Weight, and Age

There has been and will continue to be a lot of articles talking about ranking players and teams by how well do they on the ice; goals, points, wins, etc... That's boring. Nobody cares about those kind of stats. What people really want to know is stuff like "Who's the oldest team in the league?" "What about the youngest?" "Are the Canadiens really the shortest team in the league?" "How fat is Martin Brodeur compared to other goalies?" etc....

Well your long, excruciating wait is over because I've collected the data and created a spreadsheet detailing height, weight, and age per team and position. You can check it out here: NHL Height, Weight, and Age Stats

(All data was collected from NHL.com's active rosters on October 14th, 2010)

After the jump: the findings of my research.

Here's how the teams stack up

• Shortest team: New York Islanders - Average height 72.55" (6' 1/2")
• Tallest team: Washington Capitals - Average height 74.76" (6' 2 1/2")
• Lightest team: Carolina Hurricanes - Average weight 198.23 lbs
• Heaviest team: Atlanta Thrashers - Average weight 210.96 lbs
• Youngest team: Los Angeles Kings - Average age 25.04 years
• Oldest team: Detroit Red Wings - Average age 30.71 years

And how the players stack up

• The average NHLer is 73.33" (6' 1 1/3") tall, weighs 204.42 lbs, and is 27.36 years old.
• The average forward is 72.93" (6' 1") tall, weighs 202.4 lbs, and is 27.1 years old.
• The average defenseman is 73.87" (6' 1 7/8") tall, weighs 209.66 lbs, and is 27.49 years old.
• The average goalie is 73.94" (6' 2") tall, weighs, 198.39 lbs, and is 28.54 years old./

Some random player facts

• Shortest player in the league: Nathan Gerbe of the Buffalo Sabres - 5'5"
• Tallest player in the league: Zdeno Chara of the Boston Bruins - 6'9"
• Lightest player in the league: Steve Sullivan of the Nashville Predators - 161 lbs
• Heaviest player in the league: Tie between Dustin Byfuglien of the Atlanta Thrashers and Derek Boogaard of the New York Rangers - 265 lbs
• Youngest player in the league: Nino Niederreiter of the New York Islanders - Born September 8th, 1992 (18)
  
• Oldest player in the league: Mark Recchi of the Boston Bruins - Born February 1st, 1968 (42)

Some other fun little tidbits

• The Montreal Canadiens forwards are in fact the shortest in the league averaging just under 6' tall. (71.85")
• Montreal also has the fattest heaviest goalie team in the league weighing in at 217.5 lbs on average. (Alex Auld 216, Carey Price 217 219)
• The belief that Toronto has big, bruising defensemen is somewhat of a fallacy. At only 73.29" in average height, they're 5th shortest in the league. But thanks to Luke Schenn's growth spurt, they are also the 5th heaviest at 214.86 lbs.
• Without Byfuglien, the average weight of the Thrashers drops by a whole 2.5 lbs.
• Thanks to old fogies like Rolston, Arnott, and Langenbrunner the Devils have the oldest forward corps in the league with an average age of 30.45 years. Detroit has the oldest defensive corps at 31.25 years old.
• Carolina is the only team with an average weight under 200 lbs. Somebody get them some protein shakes.
• Former Leaf Tuukka Rask is the skinniest goalie at only 169lbs, but stands 6' 3".
• New Jersey has the oldest goalie tandem in the league at 37.5 years of age. The next oldest is Florida at 33.5 years.
• Phoenix updated their roster not more than 3 hours after I first collected all the data. In those three hours, Bryzgalov gained 3 pounds (213 now) and LaBarbera lost 4 pounds (now 230). That now makes Dallas goalie Brent Krahn the heaviest in the league at 232 pounds.
• Despite being identical twins, Henrik Sedin is listed as 1" taller and 1 pound heavier than brother Daniel.

Take some time to peruse the spreadsheet to find out other interesting trends and statistics and share them in the comments.