Anyone see the Crosby/Niskanen fight last night??
Hallco
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Not a great fight in comparison with real hockey fights in the NHL, but it's interesting to see the guy who is considered the next "Great One" drop the gloves!
Not a great fight in comparison with real hockey fights in the NHL, but it's interesting to see the guy who is considered the next "Great One" drop the gloves!
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<< <i>I hate it when one of the few players I like in the NHL gets worked by one of the biggest bags in the league. Oh well. >>
Which one do you like???
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<< <i>I think calling Crosby "a bag" may be a wee bit extreme, don't you? >>
At least Niskanen is still intact. Ask Boris Valabik about what happens when Sid really gets vicious.
Ovechkin doesn't fight his own fights. Matt Bradley will skate in off the bench taking the 3rd Man In penalty and clean up his mess as per the norm in WASH. Then Ovechkin will just knee on knee the perp in his next shift.
<< <i>well regardless, it's pretty stupid for elite level players to get into meaningless fights like that anyway. There wasn't anything to be gained, and obviously the Stars get the better end of a Crosby/Niskanen parade to the box. Crosby was frustrated, and just watched his buddy Kris Letang get pummeled by Morrow a few minutes earlier, and then likely realized he's still stuck skating on a line with Chris Kunitz and Pascal Dupuis. Aside from the aforementioned Valabik incident, Crosby is a pretty clean player. Ovechkin not so much. There's a lot of cheap shots that he hasn't been paid back for. The knee on knee to Gonchar comes to mind. The Hawks won't do anything to him regarding the Campbell hit. If they don't go after someone right there on the spot, they let it go. Since Ovechkin was tossed they didn't get that chance. I'm not a hockey fan bloodluster, I really dislike the contrived fights that come from a faceoff circle. "Wanna go?"...."ah I guess...let's do it". Besides, the fecal matter that is Kaleta, Cooke, Carcillo, Fedoruk, Chris Neil, Kronwall, Steve Ott are galactically worse. The guys who never hit anyone unless they can read the victims nameplate...or have their heads down or turned away. Jack someone up then skate away for their teammates to cleanup their mess. Speaking of which, Barrett Jackman headmasters the faux NHL School of Toughness...ie they're tough...as long as the opponent in their sights are at least 3 inches shorter and 20 lbs lighter than he is. There are a myriad of NHL players currently enrolled in that school. >>
I don't see Kronwall that way. I don't know if you're bunged up about the Havlat hit, but really- you could call that one either way. Kronwall hits hard, and he's not adverse to catching a guy when his head is down, but that doesn't make him any different from, say. Scott Stevens. You don't see the cheap stickwork behind the play with him like you do the others on your list.
One player you neglected to mention, however-- and it could be because he retired this year-- is Maltby. God, how I hated him. He made it hard to even root for the Wings, and I say this as someone who has watched this team ever since Yzerman first laced up his skates for the winged wheel. Aside from Cooke and (possibly) Neil, there has been no clearer example of the faux tough guy than Kirk Maltby in the last 20 years of the NHL.
Also, though I positively loathe Ott- one of my favorite NHL clips is the one where Iggy squares off against him, and demands they throw the helmets-- you can't throw him in this category. He's a tool, but at least he has some hockey skill.
Edit to add: I didn't see that you'd mentioned Jackman. I have to agree with you on that guy- he's practically unwatchable, he's so cheap. And the sad part is that he didn't come into the league that way, but over the years he's really regressed into a dime store thug. The league will certainly be better off once he trades the Coho for a Calloway.
Didn't mention Maltby because he's not in the league anymore. Finally Holland realized what a waste of space he was. Enlisting his and McCarty's services well past their expiration date is probably the one lone black mark on Holland's otherwise wildly successful tenure. Sure they were cost efficient, but they were also markedly useless. Perhaps Ville Leino (doubtful) will turn into someone who doesn't score all of his goals on getting bounces off of defenders' legs and Holland will take the worse of Ole Tollefsen Leino dump...but I doubt it.
Also, though I positively loathe Ott- one of my favorite NHL clips is the one where Iggy squares off against him, and demands they throw the helmets-- you can't throw him in this category. He's a tool, but at least he has some hockey skill.
well Steve Downie, and even Avery, Carcillo, Cooke, and Neil to an extent have some skill. Cooke is very good on the PK, and Avery, Carcillo, and Neal are more than capable of double digit goals. Doesn't mean that they, like Steve Ott, aren't pieces of fecal waste. Prior to Cooke's hit on Savard last year, Ott and Cooke ran nose to nose in being the biggest jags in the league since Avery has calmed his act down....but Ott and Cooke were probably ahead of even Pronger (since he really isn't all that physical anymore being too glacierly slow to elbow players in the head from behind) and Jackman. Downie is rapidly moving up that list because quite frankly, that guy's elevator doesn't propel to the penthouse. I mean you can be an "agitator" without being a piece of crap. Adam Burish would probably be classified as an "agitator" by many people, but he's just a great trash talker...probably the best in the league. Aside from cracking a twig over Rene Bourque's back in the playoffs two years ago (retaliatory for Bourque's hit on Kane) he doesn't really take liberties on guys...and Burish and Bourque are actually good friends. He just says a lot of stupid, yet harmless and hilarious stuff.
Jackman was always a tool, in that the guys he targeted were routinely Paul Kariya/Patrick Kane size. He was a much better all around player back then, but he was always a total jag. I mean if he wound up having to mix it up with a bigger player it's because they were retaliating for one of Jackman's hits on one of their smaller or skill players, and Jackman wasn't able to hide behind the nearly two lines of uselessness that St Louis roles out each night with the Cam Janssens, Crombeens, McClements, Winchesters and those guys there to fight his fights like he often does now. Janssen has had to take a couple beatings at the hands of Ben Eager over the last three years when Jackman took runs at Kane.
<< <i>sure the hit on Havlat didn't help, but of course you don't see Kronwall that way...that's fine. The hit on Havlat was dirty and typically cowardly of Kronwall. A) he left his feet
Didn't mention Maltby because he's not in the league anymore. Finally Holland realized what a waste of space he was. Enlisting his and McCarty's services well past their expiration date is probably the one lone black mark on Holland's otherwise wildly successful tenure. Sure they were cost efficient, but they were also markedly useless. Perhaps Ville Leino (doubtful) will turn into someone who doesn't score all of his goals on getting bounces off of defenders' legs and Holland will take the worse of Ole Tollefsen Leino dump...but I doubt it.
Also, though I positively loathe Ott- one of my favorite NHL clips is the one where Iggy squares off against him, and demands they throw the helmets-- you can't throw him in this category. He's a tool, but at least he has some hockey skill.
well Steve Downie, and even Avery, Carcillo, Cooke, and Neil to an extent have some skill. Cooke is very good on the PK, and Avery, Carcillo, and Neal are more than capable of double digit goals. Doesn't mean that they, like Steve Ott, aren't pieces of fecal waste. Prior to Cooke's hit on Savard last year, Ott and Cooke ran nose to nose in being the biggest jags in the league since Avery has calmed his act down....but Ott and Cooke were probably ahead of even Pronger (since he really isn't all that physical anymore being too glacierly slow to elbow players in the head from behind) and Jackman. Downie is rapidly moving up that list because quite frankly, that guy's elevator doesn't propel to the penthouse. I mean you can be an "agitator" without being a piece of crap. Adam Burish would probably be classified as an "agitator" by many people, but he's just a great trash talker...probably the best in the league. Aside from cracking a twig over Rene Bourque's back in the playoffs two years ago (retaliatory for Bourque's hit on Kane) he doesn't really take liberties on guys...and Burish and Bourque are actually good friends. He just says a lot of stupid, yet harmless and hilarious stuff.
Jackman was always a tool, in that the guys he targeted were routinely Paul Kariya/Patrick Kane size. He was a much better all around player back then, but he was always a total jag. I mean if he wound up having to mix it up with a bigger player it's because they were retaliating for one of Jackman's hits on one of their smaller or skill players, and Jackman wasn't able to hide behind the nearly two lines of uselessness that St Louis roles out each night with the Cam Janssens, Crombeens, McClements, Winchesters and those guys there to fight his fights like he often does now. Janssen has had to take a couple beatings at the hands of Ben Eager over the last three years when Jackman took runs at Kane. >>
What you're forgetting is that how often you take someone out at the head is in large part a function of how often you hit, period. The guys who do the most hitting will, it stands to reason, issue the most hits to the head. What you're interested in-- or at least what should be of interest to you-- is the percentage of hits issued by a player that are issued to the head. There is, so far as I know, no data on that.
In any case, I think there's a difference between questionable hits and cowardly play. If you see it differently then we just have to agree to disagree. And not taking a run at a monster like Byfuglien isn't 'cowardly'-- it's just smart hockey. You hit that guy and the odds that you'll end up with a separated shoulder are fairly high. The only place where you're going to see guys running at players built like Chara, Pronger or Byfuglien in order to 'preserve their sense of honor' is in a Hollywood movie.
Did Scott Stevens blow up his fair share of guys with hits directed above the neck? Yes. But he also blew up hundreds of guys with clean checks to the body. When you hit as much as Scott Stevens did you're going to end up looking like a heel sometimes. And I say this as someone who watched Scott Stevens completely obliterate Kozlov in the '95 Finals, and almost single-handedly dissuade any Red Wing from skating into the offensive zone for the rest of the series. If you want a real picture of what a cowardly hockey player looks like go back and watch some of the Dale Hunter clips, or some Ulf Samuelsson/ Brian Marchment 'highlights'. THOSE guys were cheap shot artists, what with the can openers in the corners, stick work behind the play, knee-on-knee hits, and so on.
Nice bit about those horribly soft Swedes playing for the Wings. Somehow the Sedins, Hornqvist, Modin or Alfredsson never enter this discussion, but you mention Franzen or Zetterberg and you can get the average NHL fan just spitting mad in about 15 seconds.
I'm not forgetting about it, it's not something quantifiable so I can't really comment on it. Obviously there are going to be accidental headshots due to the speed of the game, but everyone knows the individual players who go out of their way to elbow or land shots to domes. Elbows Pronger topped the list for years, but Kronwall is one of them whether you want to believe it or not. He might not be as cheap as younger Pronger, Cooke, or Ott, or the older players you mentioned, but he's on the next tier.
in any case, I think there's a difference between questionable hits and cowardly play. If you see it differently then we just have to agree to disagree. And not taking a run at a monster like Byfuglien isn't 'cowardly'-- it's just smart hockey. You hit that guy and the odds that you'll end up with a separated shoulder are fairly high. The only place where you're going to see guys running at players built like Chara, Pronger or Byfuglien in order to 'preserve their sense of honor' is in a Hollywood movie.
there is a difference on some hits, but in most cases, they seep into one another. We can agree to disagree on that. To me the cowardly factor enters into the equation. Some might call it smart, some call if soft. If I were a pro I probably wouldn't target any skill guys unless they were also hitters ie Dustin Brown or Kesler etc. There is never a reason to land a headshot on a guy like Selanne. The goal of a hit is to separate a player from the puck. You don't need to lead with a shoulder or elbow high to the head to do that. A simple hipcheck on the boards will erase a guy like Selanne or Havlat. None of those Kronwall "big hits' are cases of him playing the puck. It's intent to injure. If he wants to do that, sack up and take runs at players who they themselves do likewise. His entire hitlist is Kaleta and a bunch of finesse guys. He is what he is, and outside of Michigan and Sweden he's a ~expletive~. You can refer to it as smart, most will go with women's slang anatomy. A picker and chooser and a nameplate runner.
If you want a real picture of what a cowardly hockey player looks like go back and watch some of the Dale Hunter clips, or some Ulf Samuelsson/ Brian Marchment 'highlights'. THOSE guys were cheap shot artists, what with the can openers in the corners, stick work behind the play, knee-on-knee hits, and so on.
I'm sure you're accurate, but like the majority of Stevens' career, those guys are mostly before my time so I can't really comment on players whom I haven't seen much of aside from NHL Network classic games. I do know Ulf had a bad rep, Kasparaitis too from what I recall of the 90's Penguins. I did see a couple years of Marchment from the early 90's Blackhawks as a young kid, but I don't remember anything terribly cheap about him during those years anyway. I wouldn't doubt it as he had some heavyweights to back him up during that era. My memories of early 90's Blackhawks center around Roenick blowing by human pylons and crushing mofos in the open ice, and Chelios dropping the canopener on much larger skaters. Oh and taking every chance he got at elbowing Larry Murphy. Those must be interesting conversations around the Joe when both are in town. Also Dirk Graham's stache and Grimson and Manson beating on Probie and Kocur.
Nice bit about those horribly soft Swedes playing for the Wings. Somehow the Sedins, Hornqvist, Modin or Alfredsson never enter this discussion, but you mention Franzen or Zetterberg and you can get the average NHL fan just spitting mad in about 15 seconds.
well we weren't talking about the Children of the Corn - Sedins or the others. Those guys don't play like Zetterberg or Franzen or Kronwall anyway. They're total finesse players. Those guys' hit totals would resemble those of Patrick Kane...ie one per week if they're lucky...and that one hit would be more of a bump on the half-board. Although in Alfredsson & Hornquist's cases, they do park themselves around the net. I wasn't calling out JaredLetoBerg anyway. I like Hank, aside from the stickwork behind the play. Aside from Forsberg and Sakic, Lidstrom is probably my favorite non-Blackhawk hockey player ever, though Dustin Brown is rapidly moving up the list..and sadly another Wing will be on that list when Riley Sheahan arrives in The D in a year or two. Not Swedish obviously, but I love watching Datsyuk too. He'd be on that list of fave non-Hawks. Besides the average hockey fan is going to hate on the Wings' Swedes more than any other club because well, jealousy. I mean they're Duke of the NHL. No good reason to hate them (aside from Bertuzzi), no real jags off the ice, people just get tired/jealous of their success and having media mouthpieces like Pierre Maguire (when he removes his nose from Crosby's backside) slurp them like Dukie V. The team has been so successful over the last 20 years, and their Swedes make up a large part of that success. They just happen to be mostly good to great to elite level players...and of course they comprise half of the Wings roster. Plus some are tough in different aspects. ZetterLeto is a pretty good hitter when he wants to be. Not terribly physical but cerebral in his physical play. Holmstrom while galatically tough in front of the net taking those slashes and cross checks, isn't all that physical anywhere else on the ice. He's always in net-front dust-ups but he's mostly just flailing away, slapping, and wrestling. Franzen is a wuss. No other way to sugarcoat that. He's a small guy targeter when it comes to his toughness...Kane is more apt to be the harassee at the hands of Mule when leaning on someone against the Hawks. He is after all, the guy who ripped Kane's mouthpiece out...and he has elbowed guys in the head from behind on more than the Jackman occasion and skated away from the dust-ups. Plus I think you can tell how much other players around the league dislike Franzen's act by how much he has been targeted. He's a very good goal scorer and everything, but I highly doubt they're targeting him because of that...esp in Orpik's case. I'm guessing it has to do a lot more with his behind the play slashing when he's trying to slow up the guys blowing by his fat arse. It's not like he's a great skater with the puck. I don't think anyone slows down more with the puck than Franzen, and he's clumsy and glacierly to begin with. I just like cracking on Wings fans (and there are a lot around me and even in my family in Dearborn) about Franzen, because you know how much the knuckledragger sector of Wings fans love to crack on Claude Lemieux being a "turtler" at the hands of a blindside shot from McCarty many moons ago. I know the hit on Draper was a pure cheapshot, but no Wings fan seems to want to admit how marbleless McCarty was by blindsiding and throwing punches at Lemieux before he had his gloves off or even knew what the heck was going on. That and no one turtles quite like the Mule even when face to face. What has he been in two fights? I don't think he's even attempted to throw a punch in either as he tried to bellyflop on the ice. That's not his game of course, but the dude is a huge guy. Learn to handle yourself, or quit throwing elbows and taking runs at members of the lollipop guild. I don't recall Big Buf trying to squash the Datsyuks and Hudlers on the boards. That's what I'm getting at.
"Did Scott Stevens blow up his fair share of guys with hits directed above the neck?"
Can someone say Lindros.
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Edit to add: now looking at his wiki page.
Marchment has been suspended for deliberate attempts to injure other players numerous times throughout his playing career. He was suspended 13 times by the league in his first 12 NHL seasons On February 3, 1995, while the Toronto Maple Leafs were visiting Marchment's Oilers, a hit by Marchment partially collapsed one of Gartner's lungs; the severely injured Gartner had to return to Toronto by train.
1997. Brian Marchment took a header into the open penalty box door during a playoff game in Dallas. He lunged with such force that he had a concussion on the ice and, to the crowd’s horror, began convulsing on the ice for several minutes. Yikes.
1) Nobody is going to confuse Franzen with Tony Twist or Stu Grimson in a dark alley.
2) Holmstrom does waaayyy more flopping around in the front of the net than the guys from whom he learned the trade (Lucky Luc, Dino, etc).
3) Zetterberg isn't afraid to get a little out of line behind the play, and that's something I could do without. I could have also done without Kronwall's hit on Selanne, who I agree is a total class act and hands-down one of my top 5 favorite players of the past twenty years, right there with Iggy, Yzerman, Lidstrom and Sakic. Although while we're speaking of dirty Swedes, go ahead and lower the boom on Hjalmersson whenever the mood strikes you.
My recollection of the McCarty/Lemieux fight is that they were jawing at each other-- or at least McCarty was jawing-- before the puck dropped. Either way, c'mon- Claude was not a fresh-faced rookie. He knew what was coming. There was a reason why McCarty was lined up next to him. And I don't blame him a bit for turtling, because McCarty just would have blown him up in a fight. The smart play was to turtle, wait for the refs, and then move on.
It's interesting how the discussion on cheap shot artists has changed over the years. In the '80 and '90's I don't recall anyone ever really being accused of taking liberties if what they were basically doing was hitting with some part of their body (elbows, hands, whatever) before the whistle was blown. Guys got called out on the stickwork, and the after-the-whistle stuff, but that was about it. I look at a hit like Johnson on Beukeboom, or the one Domi put on Ulf, or Hunter on Turgeon, and I wonder what would happen if those occured now. Would the league just shut down for 3 days while the investigation took its course?
Everything, I think, has to be looked at in context. Someone like Scott Stevens may never hear the end of a hit like the one he put on Kariya (still one of the most vicious looking hits I've ever seen) if it happened today, but at the time it just seemed like business as usual. He's certainly a player whose reputation has diminished over time. My memories of him are of a guy who could just positively lay the lumber, and who did- in the case of Lindros, Kariya, and others-- sometimes get his hands up. But it's hard to call a player dirty when he does it in front of the refs and the whistle doesn't blow. It was a different time, and I guess a different game.
Your recollection of the Lemieux/McCarty incident was that of round 2. The actual fair fight where the outcome was a lot more even.
Round 1 if you consider a sucker punch a round.
Round 2
It's interesting how the discussion on cheap shot artists has changed over the years. In the '80 and '90's I don't recall anyone ever really being accused of taking liberties if what they were basically doing was hitting with some part of their body (elbows, hands, whatever) before the whistle was blown. Guys got called out on the stickwork, and the after-the-whistle stuff, but that was about it. I look at a hit like Johnson on Beukeboom, or the one Domi put on Ulf, or Hunter on Turgeon, and I wonder what would happen if those occured now. Would the league just shut down for 3 days while the investigation took its course? Everything, I think, has to be looked at in context. Someone like Scott Stevens may never hear the end of a hit like the one he put on Kariya (still one of the most vicious looking hits I've ever seen) if it happened today, but at the time it just seemed like business as usual. He's certainly a player whose reputation has diminished over time. My memories of him are of a guy who could just positively lay the lumber, and who did- in the case of Lindros, Kariya, and others-- sometimes get his hands up. But it's hard to call a player dirty when he does it in front of the refs and the whistle doesn't blow. It was a different time, and I guess a different game.
yep, although you can say that about a lot of the aspects of the game. Like football, no one paid attention to concussions back then. There was no baseline testing like there is now. If Stevens played today, he'd probably be thought of as being worse than Matt Cooke. A much more physical version of Cooke, with more headshots so if he played like that today, he'd miss half of the season due to suspensions. Then of course you had virtually no defensive systems, and back then there were seemingly only a few forwards that actually played defense in the 80's. It was like Curt Fraser, Troy Murray, and a couple other guys that actually entered their own zone. You look at a lot of those classics games on NHL Net and see once a forward enters his own zone, he's peeling off at his own blueline. It's like watching 3 Rick Nashs cherry-picking. Anyway, you can be a big hitter without going high. I look at a guy like Seabrook. He's generally at the top of the hit totals for d-men every year, and has landed a ton of big hits hello Aaron Downey but he's never put anyone out with a headshot or really ever targeted anyone in a situation where there wasn't a play on the puck. The only one I can think of is Seabs upending Cleary over the boards and that was strictly retaliation for Cleary's hit on Kane. He's taken a lot of players out with hits (including Franzen last year) but they're usually innocuous body checks that crumple knee ligaments and the like from the sheer force. He's the silent assassin. I think Shea Weber falls into that category as well. I don't watch many non-Hawks vs Nashville games since I don't hate myself, but i don't recall Shea ever cheapshotting anyone aside from the last punch in his fight with Kesler...Kesler down, Weber threw a late punch anyway. No cheap hits that I could fight though. Anyway, if Stevens did alter his game in the modern NHL, he'd probably be Kevin Bieksa.
edit to add...and I've heard this recently from guys like Cheli and even Stu Grimson was on local radio recently talking about whether he could play in this era. Grim noted that if he did play now, he'd be even more specialized ie Boogaard, John Scott, because of the speed of the game, and they got around to talking about Hjammer's hit on Pominville. Grimson said that in today's game "a big hit is now a reason to go". "That wasn't the case in my day unless someone who shouldn't have been taking a run at Savvy, JR, or Larmer did, which rarely happened"...which I totally agree with. So I guess you can probably chalk that up to one of the differences. If anyone cares, Grimson said Dave Brown was the toughest fighter of their era which surprised me a little.