At this time of the year, the MLB post-season is taking up much of the attention on the sporting calendar. One of the great parts of baseball is players who can switch-hit and give themselves and their team a great advantage at the plate.
However, ambidextrous talents typically don't exist in other sports. For instance, there are very few elite golfers who swing both left-handed and right-handed. Certainly, in pro hockey, it's rare to see ambidextrous players.
One NHLer who has shown signs of shooting both ways is Colorado Avalanche superstar center Nathan MacKinnon, the right-handed veteran who recently put on a display of practicing with a left-handed stick.
Another ambidextrous NHLer – Toronto Maple Leafs right winger Calle Jarnkrok – has had a great start to the season, scoring three goals in three games. The 34-year-old Jarnkrok has been known to shoot left- and right-handed for years now.
“That’s quite a skill,” former Calgary Flames associate coach and current Washington Capitals assistant coach Kirk Muller said in 2022 of Jarnkrok’s ambidextrous talent.
“I can’t do it. A lot of guys can’t. Faceoffs, and he took a shot the other night on his…I wanted to say backhand but his other hand. Not many people can do that. It’s actually quite a skill. I had trouble shooting one way. It’s a pretty good skill he has. Not many guys can do it.”
The odd talent of MacKinnon and Jarnkrok makes you wonder – why don’t we see more ambidextrous shooters in the game?
We asked a few of Jarnkrok’s teammates that question after a recent Maple Leafs practice.
“It’s tough – the game is so fast,” Leafs left winger Steven Lorentz said. “If you flip your stick over, if you don’t have a straight curve, then you’re playing on your backhand. But maybe one day. We’ll see. The game is always evolving, right?”
Leafs left winger Bobby McMann added, “I think it’s gotta be the fact that it’s an isolated matchup every time in baseball (that makes it different)," he said.
“Your feet are positioned in a certain spot. You know the dynamics of it. Hockey’s just way more dynamic, there’s way more flow to it. There’s a lot more unpredictability and things you have to be ready for. So I think you have to be that much more specialized on one side, because you have to be able to twist and turn in any way.”
The final word on it goes to Maple Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly. When The Hockey News asked him about the lack of two-way shooters. He agreed that it may just come down to the fact that players now play with curved sticks from their formative years, and whatever comes naturally for them winds up being the only way they shoot.
“It’s not really a switch sport,” Rielly said. “It's just taught how it’s taught, so until a person tries to do it from the jump, going both sides, I think it’s going to be really tough.”
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