Red Wings

[jaadam4]

Good to get the 2 points but Zetterberg getting hurt with a cheap shot is BS. I know we don't have room on the team for an enforcer but I sure wish we had a Probie, McCarty type player

[Malto Marko]

Good to get the 2 points but Zetterberg getting hurt with a cheap shot is BS. I know we don't have room on the team for an enforcer but I sure wish we had a Probie, McCarty type player

Why? Fighting doesn't solve anything in the NHL.

[WingsFan]

Report he got punched in the head Que bitter person chemiclord to give us an educational on fighting in the NHL

[Malto Marko]

......and when a player with limited skills can take out a premier player with a dirty hit, I still suggest that sending out an answer for that, does make a difference.

The game was way crazy though and I thought the zebras did a very good job of letting them play.

[jaadam4]

Why? Fighting doesn't solve anything in the NHL.

That's why I said a Probie or McCarty type. I wasn't referring to a Stu Grimson sit on the end of the bench taking up a roster spot from a skilled player incase we need someone to get beat up. We've been lucky over the years to have tough forwards that could drop the gloves if needed. Probert, McCarty, Shanny, Lapointe, Dallas Drake, Bertuzzi.

Besides Ericsson we don't have many that would (not can) drop the gloves.

[chemiclord]

And yet with all those tough forwards, skill players continue to take cheap shots from goons paid in all ways but officially to make those cheap shots.

Wanna solve cheap shots in the NHL? Lets say some thug from Boston takes a run at a player. Instead of THAT player getting to sit two weeks... the wronged team also gets to tell Zdano Chara or Tuuka Rask to take a vacation.

Pittsburgh? Have a seat, Crosby. We'll see ya in 10 games.

Cheap shot artists would disappear overnight.

[chemiclord]

And yet with all those tough forwards, skill players continue to take cheap shots from goons paid in all ways but officially to make those cheap shots. It works because some goon knocking Zetterberg out of a game or two is worth a marginal player getting a marginal suspension. No amount of fighting is going to change that bullshit.

Wanna solve cheap shots in the NHL? Lets say some thug from Boston takes a run at a player. Instead of THAT player getting to sit two weeks... the wronged team also gets to tell Zdano Chara or Tuuka Rask to take a vacation.

Pittsburgh? Have a seat, Crosby. We'll see ya in 10 games.

Cheap shot artists would disappear overnight.

[Malto Marko]

Don't count out Abdelkader.

....he just does not have the size of a heavyweight.

[Malto Marko]

And yet with all those tough forwards, skill players continue to take cheap shots from goons paid in all ways but officially to make those cheap shots.

Wanna solve cheap shots in the NHL? Lets say some thug from Boston takes a run at a player. Instead of THAT player getting to sit two weeks... the wronged team also gets to tell Zdano Chara or Tuuka Rask to take a vacation.

Pittsburgh? Have a seat, Crosby. We'll see ya in 10 games.

Cheap shot artists would disappear overnight.

Ha!

Sure, let the other team pick someone to sit?

Your bloody mary's must be very good this morning.

Why don't they just suggest the team has to forfeit the next 10 games. Makes about as much sense.

No need to settle it now, in fact, if they suspended the team with the called infraction for the rest of the season, that would do the trick too!

Eh?

[chemiclord]

Ha!

Sure, let the other team pick someone to sit?

Your bloody mary's must be very good this morning.

Why don't they just suggest the team has to forfeit the next 10 games. Makes about as much sense.

No need to settle it now, in fact, if they suspended the team with the called infraction for the rest of the season, that would do the trick too!

Eh?

Of course it's extreme... but that's kinda the point. THAT'S the sort of response it would take to change the "culture" of hockey. Fighting sure as hell isn't going to do it. It never has. Fighting deters jack shit, and that's proven multiple times every single year since the dawn of professional play.

[Malto Marko]

Fighting sure as hell isn't going to do it. It never has.

......and that is where I call bullshit!

I have seen it first hand from the bench and from just behind the scorers box at the professional level.

It does make a difference?

Does the jackass that is keeping his career alive do it again somewhere down the road? Absolutely, especially if the other team does not have someone that is going to be put out just to make him pay the price.

Fighting also puts fannies in the seats but, the rules are strong enough that someone is not going to go out and pick a fight for no good reason.

Say what you will (or erroneously think) but, you will never convince me that McCarty taking out LeMiux and then Vernon, and later, Osgood taking out Roy did not teach the Fallen Snowflakes not to mess with Detroit.

[chemiclord]

You HONESTLY think some guy getting paid to be an irritant is going to pull up and say, "Man, I better not do what I'm getting paid more money than I'd ever see otherwise because someone else might punch me"?

Bullshit. They're going after that skill player's knees, and they really don't give one tenth of one shit about having to fight someone after the fact. It's a consequence of their job, they know it, and they'll be out on the ice the very next game doing the exact same thing.

You can't be more wrong about this... but ya know, youth league play where there's no money on the line is TOTES the same! It's an entirely different animal once people are getting paid to wreak havoc.

And considering that those same two teams erupted in a similar brawl less than a year later due to Colorado taking some liberties with checking tells me... no, the "Fallen Snowflakes" DIDN'T learn anything about messing with Detroit.

Or more accurately, they knew all along that a brawl was going to be the likely end result... and did it anyway. Because fighting deters jack shit.

Hell, if you look at some of the most egregious cheap shot artists over the history of the NHL... they're actually becoming a dying breed SINCE the rules changes on fighting. Ironically, making fighting a serious penalty is already starting to weed the goons out of the league because they aren't worth taking up roster spots any more. People like Marty McSorley or Bob Probert don't really exist in the league much nowadays... they wouldn't have the skill level to be worth giving a spot on the bench to.

[chemiclord]

What you're seeing nowadays are highly skilled players like Chara who are big and aggressive. And even Chara's most famous "cheap shot" was more a consequence of where they were on the ice rather than anything particularly blatantly malicious.

Listen, I don't SERIOUSLY advocate my "solution" to the cheap shot problem. Mostly because I'm not convinced it's all that much of a problem, especially nowadays. You simply aren't seeing the blatant, malicious attacks like Bertuzzi on Moore, or Pronger on Yzerman, or McSorely on Brashear, etc... etc...

What I see nowadays more and more are the sort of happenstance "cheap shots"... like when Kronwall obliterated Havlat. That was unfortunate circumstance that Havlat got caught with his head down because of a fluky bounce of the puck.

Do you think Kronwall stopped laying out people because some Blackhawks tried hunting him down? Or when Clowe chased down Kronwall after he turned Heatley into a skid mark? No. Because that's what he's paid to do. I get that the idea of "frontier justice" is a strong one... but it's a sideshow. It's part of the entertainment. It doesn't really deter anything, at least not at the professional level.

[Panoptes]

When I took 3 young girls to their first hockey game last year, the fight in the 3rd period had them standing and cheering more than even the home team goals did.

Watching humans fight is innate/instinctually entertaining.

And if it pays some a hole back for taking a run at a player, more power to the defender.

[chemiclord]

Watching humans fight is innate/instinctually entertaining.

That right there is the entire reason for fighting in hockey. That's why it endures. That initial surge of payback after a borderline hit appeals to the masses and to the bench of the aggrieved team. And I fully understand and accept that.

The difference between Marko (and other hockey purists) and I is that I don't pretend it accomplishes anything more than that. There is absolutely NO ONE at the NHL level who pulls up out of fear that they might have to fight someone else later.