Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

"Enforcers Don't Help Teams Win Games"

10/07/2014 at 5:37pm EDT

from Dave Naylor of TSN,

It's now a question of whether teams can afford to carry players who have limited ability to possess the puck, can't keep up with the game and have no offensive or defensive upside that would give them any sort of advantage. In other words, do whatever benefits exist from having fighters on the roster overcome the liability of dressing players who would not be playing in the NHL if they couldn't fight?

And here's where the analytics side of the game makes things interesting. Advocates of the role of fighting in hockey have always relied on an argument built on strategic intangibles, the notion that skilled players feel protected when enforcers are in the lineup, that somehow everyone plays an inch taller just knowing that kind of guy is sitting on the end of the bench, even if he only plays a few minutes a night.

Whether or not any of that was actually true became a matter of hockey ideology, depending on which camp you fell into. But there was no reliable way to actually measure or test that theory.

Presumably, through the introduction of analytics into the game, now there is.

And the fact that teams such as the Maple Leafs and Philadelphia Flyers (huh?) will be begin the season without enforcers, suggests that what teams are learning is that enforcers don't help teams win games and are in fact liabilities.

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Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.

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