How would players in the NHL do if they used wood sticks only for a season?

[HellebuyckOurSaviour]

How do you guys think players would do, say for this season, if each player had to use wooden sticks like back in the day? More goals, less goals, sloppier hockey, teams strategies different, etc?

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[Mbraunm]

Sloppier hockey, flubbed passes, much less goals…it would look ugly

 

[Dirty Dan]

idk they should do it for heritage classic or something. for lulz

 

[sting101]

i would rather see goalies with old gear and no helmets

 

[tny760]

i would rather see goalies with old gear and no helmets

 

[Channelcat]

Is it just me, or is there less broken sticks than 5-10 or so years back.

 

[Alexander the Gr8]

Is it just me, or is there less broken sticks than 5-10 or so years back.

Composite sticks have improved in durability. Material science is constantly evolving, they're able to make composites with lightweight carbons that reduce the weight and special resins that improve durability. They also have better properties in terms of feel and pop of the stick. They feel newer for a longer period of time now.

 

[Master P]

i would rather see goalies with old gear and no helmets

Ok, then the players should go back to wood sticks with no curve.

 

[hoglund]

The shots wouldn't be as hard, fewer goals, the truly skilled players would be pretty good, but the less skilled players would probably look like beer league players and overall it wouldn't work out very well.

 

[MakeTheGoalsLarger]

Ok, then the players should go back to wood sticks with no curve.

All good suggestions. I like this thread

 

[forsbergavs32]

Pass, Rantanen breaks enough sticks as it is. He’d waste a whole forest by the end of the season

 

[David Bruce Banner]

You'd have to similarly penalize the goalies or else there would be no scoring.

 

[The National]

Lots of splinters.

 

[TomppaKoo]

Pass, Rantanen breaks enough sticks as it is. He’d waste a whole forest by the end of the season

The wooden sticks do not break like these carbonite sticks. If Rants does the cross-checking stuff that he does with a stick made of wood instead of carbon - there would be dead bodies lying on the ice

 

[3074326]

The curmudgeons here would love it.

 

[HighNote]

Is that McMurray?

 

[57special]

Contrary to popular opinion, the shots would be as hard. Guys like the Hulls and Lemaire hammered the puck. What would change is the type of shot. The wrister and snap shot take a different technique when using a wood stick. The drag shot would make a comeback.

I grew up with wood sticks, and am old enough to have tried to steam a curve into my old straight sticks. I got back on the ice as a coach many years later, and when fooling around on the ice grew frustrated with the new sticks, especially on the point shots, as the trampolining effect on the new sticks caused my shots to be unpredictable. I could never get the hang of the new style of shooting where you are actually just flinging the puck more like a lacrosse player.

IMO, forwards would be the most affected, but I have no doubt that a guy like Ovi would figure things out pretty quickly. I think Dmen might love the way they could keep the puck down with the old wood sticks, and I know net front players would rather be deflecting pucks coming in below their knees than worry about one coming in at neck level.

The biggest game changer to me was the the curve on sticks, rather than the material they were made out of. Goalies freaked out when Hull and Makita started firing pucks at them that rose, dove, and wobbled in ways they had never seen before, and at higher speeds.

 

[D1az]

i would rather see goalies with old gear and no helmets

I don't get this however many times I see these images. I played goalie once as a kid without equipment, only with a helmet, with a group of 10-12 year olds and holy heck that was unpleasant and painful.
I could only imagine getting hit in the face, even back in those days with wooden sticks, by a puck at full speed.

 

[sting101]

I don't get this however many times I see these images. I played goalie once as a kid without equipment, only with a helmet, with a group of 10-12 year olds and holy heck that was unpleasant and painful.
I could only imagine getting hit in the face, even back in those days with wooden sticks, by a puck at full speed.

yes and they had to contend with players like this without being dressed like marshmallows with pads up to their waists

 

[Filthy Dangles]

Not than I'm an NHLer or anything but I was messing around with one the other day and it was terrible. Night and day difference between modern high-end composite sticks and vintage wooden ones.

With the high end composite stick, I feel like I can just lean on it and it does the work for me wipping the puck like a slingshot. With the wooden one, I felt like I had to use all my body and really be deliberate and sweep the puck towards the goal to get any mustard and accuracy on it. On top of it I felt like it slowed my skating a bit like an anchor. I'm sure NHLers would be better at it and adjust better but still, it would be hard to beat a modern goalie clean from distance with an old wooden stick imo, even for top NHL forwards.


Wood sticks aren't bad for loading up a big clapbomb but those are extinct nowadays, they aren't good for quick release snapshots/wrist shots.

 

[sdf]

They would do just fine

 

[notDatsyuk]

I don't get this however many times I see these images. I played goalie once as a kid without equipment, only with a helmet, with a group of 10-12 year olds and holy heck that was unpleasant and painful.
I could only imagine getting hit in the face, even back in those days with wooden sticks, by a puck at full speed.

One difference in those days was that the players seemed to have a lot more respect for each other, even when angry.

Goalies stayed on their feet a lot more, so even shots aimed at the top corners were well below head height. Even at that, goalies took a beating.

I remember Paul Henderson's father telling him to take his first shot high, to put the goalie off his game. He was one of the first to do that.

And that's a real photo of Terry Sawchuk, but some of the scars (all real) have been retouched to appear fresh. I think the eyes are the scary part.

 

[tarheelhockey]

It would fundamentally change the flow of offense. Easily half of the shots taken in an NHL game are not viable with a wooden stick. Think about all those shots they take from in between their skates, or at awkward angles to the body where the only leverage is in the wrists. Instead of flying high off the blade with slingshot momentum, a lot of those shots would just skid along the ice or flutter toward the net. The obvious solution is not to attempt those shots at all, but to regroup and look for something that can be properly loaded up.

And that’s just the shooting. Think about how hard players pass these days, basically shooting the puck at each other with a flick of the wrists. The velocity and accuracy of those passes would drop appreciably, so again the solution is to slow it down and look for something more wide open.

Defense would also suffer. Waving a composite stick around takes near-zero energy, so it’s nothing to do that gecko-tongue pokecheck, or raise the stick at the last second to bat a pass out of the air. A heavier stick moves slower, so a certain percentage of those pucks don’t get touched.

Even random little plays like batting the puck out of the air and into the net. If the stick’s heavier it’s going to move slower. A certain number of those pucks are going to be missed.

What you’d get would be a ton of sloppy/missed plays in the early weeks, followed by players adjusting and learning to slow down and create enough space to properly pass the puck and load their shots. Scoring would definitely go down, and the idea would really only work if you could somehow also make goalie gear go backward in time.

 

[Rabid Ranger]

The shots wouldn't be as hard, fewer goals, the truly skilled players would be pretty good, but the less skilled players would probably look like beer league players and overall it wouldn't work out very well.

The shots wouldn't be as hard, fewer goals, the truly skilled players would be pretty good, but the less skilled players would probably look like beer league players and overall it wouldn't work out very well.

Al Iafrate said that's a stretch.

 

[PatrikBerglund]

Ok, then the players should go back to wood sticks with no curve.

Ovechkin would score 200 goals vs those goalies, using a banana.