The supposed benefits of big body presence have grown beyond what I would deem reasonably intuitive. We’ve gone from “difficult to push off the puck” and “possess a long reach” to “he has an undeniable net presence!”, “he’ll make room for his linemates” and my favorite variant, featured in a fanshot below, “defensemen will be forced to focus on him more!” – as if a bigger guys’ girth has a sort of irresistible gravitational pull.

As a Red Wings fan, I’ve heard this many, many times, my team having been the smallest in the league for the past decade or so. The cliche that overtook Wings message boards is “creating space.” The annoying cry has long been; “We need [big, talentless player X] to create space for Datsyuk and Zetterberg!”

In the Detroit-Calgary series from 2004, I remember, Dave Lewis, for two periods of one game, put McCarty, already clearly washed-up, in Hull’s spot on the Datsyuk and Zetterberg line. He played poorly (he always played poorly at that point) and, needless to say, failed to make extra room for his linemates. Nonetheless, when Lewis put Hull back in his spot the next game, the message board loonies exclaimed; “Why?! Couldn’t he see that McCarty was creating space!”

I think the idea was tied to conceptions of what “wins in the playoffs.” “Sure,” they would say, “that fancy stickhandling bullshit will work in the regular season, but wait till playoff time. Without [big, talentless players] to create space for them, those little guys won’t do anything.”

“Playoff Hockey” might be the source of more nonsense than anything in this game. Since 15/16 teams lose, anybody can find plenty of examples to support whatever asinine pet theory they have as to what “wins in the playoffs.” Fortunately for my sanity, the Wings’ recent string of deep runs has silenced the space fetishists. With the signing of Bertuzzi, though, it seems to have reentered the lexicon.

Been reading M&G all summer after being pointed here by my brother. Just wanted to say thanks to Kent and all the other contributors for the top quality posts like this. Hard to get good hockey news (namely Flames news) here in Iowa, especially now that the Baby Flames are back north.

Some of the math may be a bit over my head, but I’m its great to find such a well informed passionate crew to keep me posted!

Physical dominance is a factor, and does make up for lack of skill in various ways. Would Chara be a dominant defender with a booming shot if he were 6’1"? Would Nik Antropov be a 60 point scorer at 5’10"/175? Obviously the answer is not likely. The creation of space only works if the player is a threat to score if he’s dominating the weaker defender/defending center, and thus draws the Charas and Prongers away from the other guys on the line. McCarty? Not likely. Antropov, more likely. Sundin (in his prime), very likely.

Its a combination of size and attitude. Bertuzzi had it for about 2/3 of a season in 2002-2003 and GM’s have been thinking they are the ones who could recapture that ever since.

Skill – with the puck.
Size – bigger is better and willing to use it !
Speed – can be attention getting
Heart or determination – willing to work hard.

A marginal NHLer can make it with one of these elements, an average one with 2, an excellent one with 3 and a dominant one with 4. Bertuzzi made the transition from excellent to average since he displays only 2 of these qualities on a semi consistent basis – Size and skill.

Another example of an average player is Matthew Lombardi – top 5% in speed and probably below average in 3 other categories. Martin St Louis on the other hand has a giant heart, good speed and sick skills, and despite being small, not afraid to go to tough spots -hence an excellent player displaying top 10% of 3 of 4 of the categories.