Yep. Sestito is worth keeping around for those goon laden tank team games but otherwise press box fodder.
Why?
The two answers we always get are 'well, otherwise their heavyweight will run around causing trouble!!' and 'well who's going to fight their heavyweight then?'
Both are rubbish.
McGrattan or whoever runs around just as much whether an opposing goon is dressed or not, and Sestito didn't stop Alberts from getting clocked last year. Statistics show that injuries actually go *up* when you dress a goon, for the record. And if we don't have Sestito, McGrattan probably doesn't even dress.
Similarly, there is no correlation between not dressing a goon and other players fighting more. McGrattan only fights goons. If we don't have a goon dressed, he fights no one. Again, we recently went two years without a goon, and this 'top players fighting goons' problem simply didn't happen.
Oh, and Kevin Bieksa had a career high in fights last year, with Sestito dressing every game.
Yeah, you have to almost wonder sometimes if the "goons are a waste " crowd just started watching hockey, or at least spend too much time breaking down corsi data to understand the real life requirements for putting together a cohesive TEAM.
I've been hearing for 30 years now that the goon was going the way of the dodo, but they're still around (and I don't consider Sestito a pure goon, he's a reasonably effective role player). Talking about our President Trophy teams would be relevant if the league reset officiating standards back to those years, but they're not going to.
I don't think there's any doubt Sestito makes the squad as a "13" forward that will dress when a bigger body is needed to match up against some of the heavyweights we will see this season.
Maybe when there is an overabundance of pure skill players in the world the league will move to a no contact brand of hockey. It would suck, but might happen one day. In the meantime some teams are going to try using aggression and intimidation to win games. It's the job of a competent GM to provide his coach with a roster with some versatility so he can get favourable line ups vs any given night's opponent. That's what Sestito provides, and does so cheaply and without drama. The days of "making them pay on the PP" were short lived and now behind us.
Long live tough, physical hockey.
Absolutely long live tough, physical hockey. And I'm all for team toughness.
But goons are dying and again, almost no quality teams around the league still dress them. For a reason. They're crap players who don't add anything positive and make your team worse.
Jordan Nolan.
Sure he's a bit faster, but his role is the same. Get in on the forecheck, hit the opposition hard, defend teammates. He had 1 more goal than Sestito and his teammates won the Cup, didn't finish 25th overall in a 30 team league.
Give me Sestito over a Welsh/Dalpe anyday as the 13th/14th. You surround a guy like Sestito (who as I've said has underrated skills) you may be able to get some more pop surrounding him with skilled NHLers, like Jordan Nolan has been given not AHLers like Welsh and Dalpe.
Jordan Nolan is a big physical forward who skates well and plays a good three-zone game. He only fights occasionally, isn't remotely a goon, and had 54 PIM last year.
I'd love to have Nolan on this team over a defensive liability stuck in sand like Sestito.
100% agree.
If Sestito wasn't in the lineup last year, I wonder how many of those scraps would have involved Kassian or Bieksa instead??
I don't want guys like that to risk breaking a hand/finger/face fighting Brian McGratton or Luke Gazdic. That's Sestito's job.
Again, Bieksa had a career high in fights last year.
And when we didn't have a goon from 2010-2012, Bieksas fights were down, not up.
No matter how many times people repeat these stupid myths about goons, it isn't going to make them true.
Better hockey player - undoubtedly.
Better fighter - not vs heavy weights
And again, who cares?
If Sestito isn't in the lineup, McGrattan fights nobody.
And carrying a worse roster because of some useless lump who'll play 4 minutes/game 6 times against us next year is just ludicrous.
