The Toronto Maple Leafs have welcomed analytics into their front office and the numbers show there is zero value in playing a player simply because they can pound on the opposition.
The way the game is played today doesn’t require the use of a player for the sole purpose of playing 4-6 minutes a night looking for a scrap. I love hockey fights – and I have a soft spot for enforcer’s dating back to the days of Dennis Bonvie with the Cape Breton Oilers – but the one-dimensional tough guy is a useless mold.
That doesn’t mean that the tough guy is a breed that has to disappear – he just has to be able to avoid negatively impacting his team while he’s on the ice.