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anon_0k9zlfz6lz9oy
Guest
Its do not believe so, I know so. The days of carrying 3 goons is over but you need to have a tough guy to protect your stars.This notion that rostering fighters somehow scares the opponents away from hitting your star players is a straight up myth. Do you actually think that the big hitters are going to shy away from hitting someone because they might be challenged to a fight? Do you think Trouba is afraid to throw his hits against teams that have fighters? The fighter isn't going to be on the same line as the star players anyway, so if there's going to be retribution for a big hit, it's most likely going to be later on, and nobody that sees an opportunity to throw a big hit is going to think about some guy on the bench trying to get revenge later in the game. Also in these days of the instigator penalty, you can't just start throwing punches on an unwilling opponent without hurting your own team. This idea of fighters protecting the stars is a very outdated concept.
Funny enough mike rupp just talked at length on a podcast about this on Saturday along with a ton of other topics. He said that while it wont prevent every hit that having a tough guys
A) makes the stars play with more confidence and looser
B) you cant quantify how many cheap shots DIDNT occur because of the tough guy
C) he said there were definitely some teams he didnt fvck around against because of their goons whereas by the end of his career he felt on top of the world because there were so few goons so hed run anyone on the ice
It very much still is a thing. Look at the past 5 champs
2019 Blues: maroon
2020 Tampa: maroon
2021 tampa: maroon
2022: macdermid (toughest in league imo and yes he didnt play in playoffs)
2023 vegas: kolesar not necessarily a goon but a top 20ish fighter in the league
And i “know” this because i have multiple friends in the league. One of whom i had lunch with Wed in jersey city, and no we didnt discuss this at lunch
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