from Amalie Benjamin of the Boston Globe,

... it will be telling to see what happens to the large number of free agent enforcers this summer, with quite a few set to be unrestricted, a quirk of enforcers mostly getting short-term contracts. In addition to Thornton, George Parros, Paul Bissonnette, Kevin Westgarth and John Scott, among others, are without deals.

“I think if you look across the league, you look at more and more teams rolling four lines and getting some production out of the fourth line, like we’ve had for a number of years,” Neely said.

“If you look at certain players, their ice time is two or three minutes a game. I think coaches probably look and say, ‘I could really use someone who could give me six, seven, eight, 10 minutes a game.’ I think that’s where you see things going, more than just fighting getting out of the game completely.”

That, of course, was what Thornton was for the Bruins.

“Everybody’s been talking about it for a few years that the guy that does nothing but sit on the bench and play one minute a game isn’t as relevant as they used to be, and I’ll definitely agree with that,” Thornton said. “But because there’s only a couple of them in the game, I’m not sure why the guys that can play and have played get thrown into that grouping.”

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