James Mirtle started it:
Leafs updated their players' weights on official roster. Basically everyone got heavier, including some by a lot https://t.co/7ginTiuX7R
— James Mirtle (@mirtle) January 17, 2016 So I got out my old saved table of the Leafs Roster from a previous post and compared the new weights to the old.
| # | Name | New Weight | Old Weight | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 46 | Roman Polak | 237.00 | 236.00 | 1.00 |
| 23 | Shawn Matthias | 231.00 | 223.00 | 8.00 |
| 3 | Dion Phaneuf | 227.00 | 214.00 | 13.00 |
| 21 | James Van Riemsdyk | 217.00 | 200.00 | 17.00 |
| 34 | James Reimer | 217.00 | 208.00 | 9.00 |
| 44 | Morgan Rielly | 217.00 | 205.00 | 12.00 |
| 19 | Joffrey Lupul | 211.00 | 206.00 | 5.00 |
| 47 | Leo Komarov | 211.00 | 198.00 | 13.00 |
| 25 | Rich Clune | 207.00 | 216.00 | -9.00 |
| 26 | Daniel Winnik | 203.00 | 207.00 | -4.00 |
| 32 | Josh Leivo | 203.00 | 195.00 | 8.00 |
| 52 | Martin Marincin | 203.00 | 203.00 | 0.00 |
| 56 | Byron Froese | 199.00 | 190.00 | 9.00 |
| 15 | Pierre-Alexandre Parenteau | 198.00 | 197.00 | 1.00 |
| 16 | Nick Spaling | 198.00 | 201.00 | -3.00 |
| 24 | Peter Holland | 198.00 | 194.00 | 4.00 |
| 28 | Brad Boyes | 198.00 | 195.00 | 3.00 |
| 20 | Frank Corrado | 197.00 | 190.00 | 7.00 |
| 51 | Jake Gardiner | 196.00 | 184.00 | 12.00 |
| 42 | Tyler Bozak | 195.00 | 195.00 | 0.00 |
| 2 | Matt Hunwick | 194.00 | 190.00 | 4.00 |
| 43 | Nazem Kadri | 193.00 | 188.00 | 5.00 |
| 40 | Michael Grabner | 185.00 | 187.00 | -2.00 |
| 45 | Jonathan Bernier | 184.00 | 185.00 | -1.00 |
| Average | 204.96 | 200.29 | 4.67 |
It's not a big change overall: The average size of the team hasn't even gone up 5 pounds, and we don't know if some of the old numbers were just out of date or not. But some of those big changes are reasonably significant.
Rielly and Gardiner, van Riemsdyk and Komarov, none of those guys are known for their size. Komarov, for using it maybe!
I don't want to judge anyone's body or disparage it, but I am wondering how you decide when weight is slowing you down or when more would provide better acceleration or a more powerful stride.
It's easy to fall into the habit of thinking of size as something that wins battles on the boards or helps you stand a guy up at the blueline, but hockey is a much more complex game than that, and agility and stopping time get you goals too--think here of any of the truly gifted smaller players like Johnny Gaudreau or Jeff Skinner.
Jaromir Jagr has talked about dropping weight to gain speed, but he was a very big man before he did that. I look at older, slower players like Phaneuf and I wonder a little.
But, one of the things the new order at Leafs headquarters has done is hire a
Imagine the Leafs lineup as it is now and then swap out Polak for Corrado. That's a big change in overall size. Not every coach is comfortable with that.