Why is Left Wing a lower scoring position?

Question

One often hears talk of Luc Robitaille being the highest scoring left winger. Why is it difficult for a Left Wingers to score as compared to Centers or Right Wingers?

Answer 1

The majority of centres in NHL history have shot left, and passing naturally took them to the right wing side of the ice, and the left winger stayed back to cover them.

Wayne Gretzky shot left
Phil Esposito shot left
Bryan Trottier shot left
Stan Mikita shot right, and lo and behold, his Left Winger (Bobby Hull) scored 600 goals.

http://www.oldtimershockey.com/players/mikita.html


71% of Canadian born players in the NHL have been left-handed shooters.

Because of this, Viktor Tikhonov made all his players shoot left-handed. There was a great article about this during the 1987 Canada Cup in the Hockey News because 22 of the 23 Russian players shot left.

Luc Robitaille on the other hand was man of fortune (hence the nickname Lucky Luc)


Another note: In the 70s, 98% of all left wings shot left, while 52% of right wings shot left (Jaromir Jagr and Maurice Richard are right wingers who shot left - although Richard played both wings during play he always lined up as a right winger on face-offs)


Note: Wikipedia has Maurice Richard listed as a 'Left Winger' but during Richard's 18 seasons, he was named either 1st team or 2nd team all-star at RIGHT Wing 14 times.

Answer 2

In my league, I score the most goals and I'm a left winger. I think it's because I am actually a left shooter, and most people are right shooters and get put in the left position when they are used to the right.

Answer 3

Well I was going to pretty much say what LITY already did but, I guess there's no sense saying it twice. He of course managed to cover the entire topic and provide a superior example of what happens to a left winger when his centre shoots right so about all I can say is nice job LITY (again). And point out once more that not only do you provide good answers, you use solid facts to back it up. Classic example of why you moved to the top of the heap.