Historically, who are the great all-time tall players?

Moose Head

Registered User
Mar 12, 2002
4,957
2,101
Toronto
Visit site
For fun thought I would put together an all-time tall team:

Goalies
Ben Bishop - 6'7
Ken Dryden - 6'4
Pekka Rinne - 6'5


Defense
Chris Pronger 6'6 - Zdeno Chara 6'9
Tyler Myers 6'8 - Larry Robinson 6'3
Rob Blake 6'3 - Serge Savard 6'3
Kevin Hatcher 6'3 / Uwe Krupp 6'6

Forwards
Brendan Shanahan 6'3 - Mario Lemieux 6'4 - Mats Sundin 6'5
Pete Mahovlich 6'5 - Jean Beliveau 6'3 - Eric Lindros 6'4
Joe Thornton 6'4 - Evgeni Malkin 6'3 - Alexander Ovechkin 6'3
John Scott 6'8 - Derek Boogaard 6'7 - Peter Worrell 6'8
Keith Primeau 6'5 / Vincent Lecavalier 6'4 / Dave Andreychuk 6'4

Regarding Robinson and Savard, something doesn't seem right. Everytime I've seen them together, Robinson seems taller, even though both were listed as 6'3:

$_35.JPG


8192657.jpg


870387-big-three-larry-robinson-guy.jpg


Saw a old game from the 70's recently, and Robinson, in comparison to the other players looked like Chara does now. Just towered over everybody. I'm wonder when that measurement was taken and whether he grew afterwards and they never revised it.
 
Last edited:

sr edler

gold is not reality
Mar 20, 2010
11,845
6,290
Kariya was really a dwarf.

He's listed as 5'10" though [I've even seen him listed somewhere as 5'11"] which is the same height as Bure, but on that photo he looks a tad bit shorter than Bure.

Valeri Bure is strangely enough also listed as 5'10" on some sites, although he also looked smaller than his brother. And Pavel was pretty smallish himself.

One shouldn't take all those height measurements at 100 per cent face value.
 

GJB

Dr. Hook
Aug 12, 2002
2,085
627
Regarding Robinson and Savard, something doesn't seem right. Everytime I've seen them together, Robinson seems taller, even though both were listed as 6'3:

Saw a old game from the 70's recently, and Robinson, in comparison to the other players looked like Chara does now. Just towered over everybody. I'm wonder when that measurement was taken and whether he grew afterwards and they never revised it.

Well I found some sites that have Larry Robinson at 6'4 instead of 6'3, so that makes sense to me and I updated my list.

But it still seems like Savard could be shorter than 6'3, but seems to be listed everywhere at 6'3.
 

GJB

Dr. Hook
Aug 12, 2002
2,085
627
I think there are too many players at 6'3, so I will revise my all-time tall team and use 6'4 as the cut-off instead:


Goalies
Ben Bishop - 6'7
Ken Dryden - 6'4
Pekka Rinne - 6'5


Defense
Chris Pronger 6'6 - Zdeno Chara 6'9
Tyler Myers 6'8 - Larry Robinson 6'4
Shea Weber 6'4 - Derian Hatcher 6'5
Jay Bouwmeester 6'4 / Uwe Krupp 6'6

Forwards
Dave Andreychuk 6'4 - Mario Lemieux 6'4 - Mats Sundin 6'5
Pete Mahovlich 6'5 - Eric Lindros 6'4 - Ryan Getzlaf 6'4
Bobby Smith 6'4 - Joe Thornton 6'4 - Vincent Lecavalier 6'4
John Scott 6'8 - Derek Boogaard 6'7 - Peter Worrell 6'7
Trevor Linden 6'4 / Jason Arnott 6'5 / Keith Primeau 6'5

Honorable Mentions
F Eric Staal 6'4
F Blake Wheeler 6'5
F Joel Otto 6'4
F Eric Daze 6'6
F Rick Nash 6'4
F Jeff Carter 6'4
F Michal Handzus 6'5
F Viktor Kozlov 6'4
F Johan Franzen 6'4
D Victor Hedman 6'6
D Dustin Byfuglien 6'5
D Pavel Kubina 6'4
D Brent Burns 6'5
D Vladimir Malakhov 6'4
D Filip Kuba 6'4
G Sean Burke 6'4
G Kari Lehtonen 6'4


Star Players at 6'3 (Below Cut-off)
F Brendan Shanahan
F Jean Beliveau
F Alexander Ovechkin
F Evgeni Malkin
F Ilya Kovalchuk
F John LeClair
F Corey Perry
F Jaromir Jagr
F Anze Kopitar
F Jason Spezza
F Dany Heatley
F Andrew Ladd
F James van Riemsdyk
F Bobby Holik
F Tomas Sandstrom
F Peter McNab
F Alexei Yashin
F Todd Bertuzzi
F Olli Jokinen
F Kevin Stevens
F Petr Nedved
F Tim Kerr
F Clark Gillies
F Charlie Simmer
D Kevin Hatcher
D Rob Blake
D Serge Savard
D Ed Jovanovski
D Al Iafrate
D Brent Seabrook
D Alex Pietrangelo
D Mattias Ohlund
G Roberto Luongo
G Tom Barrasso
G Olaf Kolzig
G Carey Price
 
Last edited:

Fugu

RIP Barb
Nov 26, 2004
36,952
220
϶(°o°)ϵ
Yes, the average human height has increased. Largely (wholly?) due to increased nutritional standards for children who then grow into taller adults.

I find it really interesting that mentions of the huge size of Hod and Bruce Stuart compared to other players of the time was credited to them being "corn fed." Now, basically everyone in the western world is corn fed.


Or you bring over a bunch of taller European nationalities.

I guess those are the two points-- everyone gets taller with each passing generation, but the mix of people is different today as well, going from mostly Canadian content (and its odd that Canadians are a smidge shorter on avg than Americans) to roughly 50%.
 

30Yonge

Registered User
Jan 24, 2014
688
0
Or you bring over a bunch of taller European nationalities.

I guess those are the two points-- everyone gets taller with each passing generation, but the mix of people is different today as well, going from mostly Canadian content (and its odd that Canadians are a smidge shorter on avg than Americans) to roughly 50%.

Maybe thermal expansion explains the difference between Americans/Canadians.

The Atlantic ran a piece last year on historical trends in height called "How We Get Tall" if anyone is interested.
Americans were 2 inches taller than Europeans in 1850 but plateaued around 1940.
Since then the Dutch, Danes, Norwegians and Germans have surpassed them in average height.
 

Sanf

Registered User
Sep 8, 2012
1,943
902
From NHL´s early years.

Clint Benedict was tall goalie for his era. Wikipedia lists him 6 ft 0 in. (Have seen other numbers too, but often mentioned as tall guy in old newspapers)

Lorne Chabot was another "giant" listed in Wiki 6 ft 1 in.

"Red" McCusker would be the third often mentioned tall goalie, but his height measurements has been from 5 ft 10 in to 6 ft 3 in so don´t really know.
 

GJB

Dr. Hook
Aug 12, 2002
2,085
627
Bobby Smith was another tall player (6'4) with a lot of skill, over 1000 pts.
 

BobbyAwe

Registered User
Nov 21, 2006
3,442
883
South Carolina
Regarding Robinson and Savard, something doesn't seem right. Everytime I've seen them together, Robinson seems taller, even though both were listed as 6'3:

$_35.JPG


8192657.jpg


870387-big-three-larry-robinson-guy.jpg


Saw a old game from the 70's recently, and Robinson, in comparison to the other players looked like Chara does now. Just towered over everybody. I'm wonder when that measurement was taken and whether he grew afterwards and they never revised it.

Robinson - 6'4
Savard - 6'2
 

billybudd

Registered User
Feb 1, 2012
22,049
2,249
For fun thought I would put together an all-time tall team:

Goalies
Ben Bishop - 6'7
Ken Dryden - 6'4
Pekka Rinne - 6'5


Defense
Chris Pronger 6'6 - Zdeno Chara 6'9
Tyler Myers 6'8 - Larry Robinson 6'4
Rob Blake 6'3 - Serge Savard 6'3
Kevin Hatcher 6'3 / Uwe Krupp 6'6

Forwards
Brendan Shanahan 6'3 - Mario Lemieux 6'4 - Mats Sundin 6'5
Pete Mahovlich 6'5 - Jean Beliveau 6'3 - Eric Lindros 6'4
Joe Thornton 6'4 - Evgeni Malkin 6'3 - Alexander Ovechkin 6'3
John Scott 6'8 - Derek Boogaard 6'7 - Peter Worrell 6'8
Keith Primeau 6'5 / Vincent Lecavalier 6'4 / Dave Andreychuk 6'4

Worrell seems to be listed at 6'7 in retirement, but I'm positive he was listed at 6'6 in programs during his career. I don't think he was ever listed as 6'8.

Otherwise, good list.

A top 3 D of Robinson, Pronger and Chara is stupidly unfair.

I'll also second that Robinson looked a lot bigger than he was listed. Lemieux, too. In person, 66 looks quite a bit bigger than 6'4. He seemed to tower over my 6'3 friend when we were in an elevator with him at Mellon Arena.
 

vadim sharifijanov

Registered User
Oct 10, 2007
28,590
15,949
another guy who seemed taller than he was listed was joel otto. you'd see him on the faceoff dot matched up against a 6'4 guy like trevor linden and otto just seemed longer and bigger.

in basketball, they have this term "octopus" for elite long-armed defenders with quick hands, because it's like the guy has extra limbs. i felt like the only guy who could ever match up against prime, freak-of-nature messier was otto. as in, it took an octopus smothering him.
 

GJB

Dr. Hook
Aug 12, 2002
2,085
627
One thing seems to be clear after looking over all these names, it seems if you are 6'4 or taller then you're most likely to be successful playing center or playing defense.

Big centers: Lemieux, Lecavalier, Lindros, Thornton, Sundin, B.Smith, Arnott, Primeau, Getzlaf, Carter, Staal brothers.

The list of star wingers 6'4 and above is much, much shorter: P.Mahovlich, Andreychuk, Linden (RW/C), Rick Nash.

Of course you have some tall lesser-lights who played wing too like Antropov or Ponikarovsky but you have those types at center too with guys like Brian Boyle and Dave Steckel etc...
 

TheDevilMadeMe

Registered User
Aug 28, 2006
52,271
6,980
Brooklyn
One thing seems to be clear after looking over all these names, it seems if you are 6'4 or taller then you're most likely to be successful playing center or playing defense.

Big centers: Lemieux, Lecavalier, Lindros, Thornton, Sundin, B.Smith, Arnott, Primeau, Getzlaf, Carter, Staal brothers.

The list of star wingers 6'4 and above is much, much shorter: P.Mahovlich, Andreychuk, Linden (RW/C), Rick Nash.

Of course you have some tall lesser-lights who played wing too like Antropov or Ponikarovsky but you have those types at center too with guys like Brian Boyle and Dave Steckel etc...

Just a nitpick, but Pete Mahovlich was mainly a center, too (which furthers your main point).
 

Killion

Registered User
Feb 19, 2010
36,763
3,211
Just a nitpick, but Pete Mahovlich was mainly a center, too (which furthers your main point).

Ya quite correct. I remember seeing him on a line with 5'7" Henri Richard which really underscored his height, Peter there towering over everyone at 6'5". Rap against him was that he was just too easy going, didnt use his size to his advantage the way the blood & guts gang demanded elsewhere. Great passer, stick handler. Clearly Sam Pollock saw something in him and he was quite right. Peter had been up & down, toiling in obscurity in Detroit for years.
 

Killion

Registered User
Feb 19, 2010
36,763
3,211
Rather amusing to me.... old school, perhaps old fashioned, that size ever mattered.... most dangerous person's you'll ever meet in life are short...
bordering on Midgets.... those Freaks you wipe the floor with... very simple, and just basic common sense at one time.
 

billybudd

Registered User
Feb 1, 2012
22,049
2,249
One thing seems to be clear after looking over all these names, it seems if you are 6'4 or taller then you're most likely to be successful playing center or playing defense.

Big centers: Lemieux, Lecavalier, Lindros, Thornton, Sundin, B.Smith, Arnott, Primeau, Getzlaf, Carter, Staal brothers.

The list of star wingers 6'4 and above is much, much shorter: P.Mahovlich, Andreychuk, Linden (RW/C), Rick Nash.

Of course you have some tall lesser-lights who played wing too like Antropov or Ponikarovsky but you have those types at center too with guys like Brian Boyle and Dave Steckel etc...

I think a lot of coaches in development just put the tall kid on D or at center (or in goal, nowadays), more than that tallness is some sort of inherent disqualifying factor for success at wing.

Lemieux spent a decent portion of his career at left wing because of his back and he wasn't particularly less effective. Jordan Staal also played left wing as a rookie and set his career high for goalscoring.
 

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Ad

-->