Tough guy

[Ice Poutine]

Especially when the cost is just a roster spot and about 1% of the total salary cap.

Not like you have to take up 6-8% of the cap to get a player for limited minutes.

EXACTLY! _If you own a team it means you have put hundreds of millions in it; it only stands to reason that you'd take a tiny part of that to add a player that will act as an "insurance" that things wont get out of hand.

Its called "Protecting Your Investment". Just like having big guy at the door in a club is a BIG deterrent to not having fights in that club that night.

Not doing so would only prove how bad a businessman one is...

 

[Monctonscout]

EXACTLY! _If you own a team it means you have put hundreds of millions in it; it only stands to reason that you'd take a tiny part of that to add a player that will act as an "insurance" that things wont get out of hand.

Its called "Protecting Your Investment". Just like having big guy at the door in a club is a BIG deterrent to not having fights in that club that night.

Not doing so would only prove how bad a businessman one is...

To be fair, even a good enforcer won't stop ALL cheap shots and bullying...but it should make it a lot more manageable.

 

[Dominator13]

No thanks, goons are 100% useless and a waste of a roster spot

Ooohh, now that you tell us we know that most GM's are crazy, thanks.

 

[Ice Poutine]

To be fair, even a good enforcer won't stop ALL cheap shots and bullying...but it should make it a lot more manageable.

No, of course it wont. But some hockey players are real "tough" when they know that they can be be violent in a game when no one is going to correct them.

Those players that have a yellow streak sometimes do some physical damage to your good players cause they know there is NO PRICE TO PAY.

That wouldnt happen if you had some muscle on your roster that would make other opposing players accountable...

 

[sandysan]

To be fair, even a good enforcer won't stop ALL cheap shots and bullying...but it should make it a lot more manageable.

That's true but it's also true that no one ( aside from the anti-fighting zealots) has ever suggested that fighting provides absolute safety. Ever.

 

[Monctonscout]

No, of course it wont. But some hockey players are real "tough" when they know that they can be be violent in a game when no one is going to correct them.

Those players that have a yellow streak sometimes do some physical damage to your good players cause they know there is NO PRICE TO PAY.

That wouldnt happen if you had some muscle on your roster that would make other opposing players accountable...

Agree. With certain teams, like Toronto 2 years ago with their goon squad, not having a HW dressed gives them the green light like the Bourque sucker punch and going after Gorges and Plekanec.

That's true but it's also true that no one ( aside from the anti-fighting zealots) has ever suggested that fighting provides absolute safety. Ever.

Exactly...

 

[sandysan]

To be fair, even a good enforcer won't stop ALL cheap shots and bullying...but it should make it a lot more manageable.

That's true but it's also true that no one ( aside from the anti-fighting zealots) has ever suggested that fighting provides absolute safety. Ever.

 

[Corncob]

That's true but it's also true that no one ( aside from the anti-fighting zealots) has ever suggested that fighting provides absolute safety. Ever.

So how exactly do you quantify whether an enforcer is doing his job or not?

The 'useless goon' advocates keep banging on about Orr punching Bourque. An isolated incident that happened 16 months ago. But you can't have it both ways and claim that that exact thing didn't happen this season so Parros must have been doing his job on the one hand yet leave yourself the out of 'of course enforcers can't prevent everything' in case it does. And, as we've established many times (a) there's no reason to think that the Bourque/Orr incident doesn't happen exactly the same way if Parros was sitting on the bench (Thierrien chose to put out Pekanec's line against Orr/Mclaren) and (b) Orr did exactly the same thing to a Bruins player the same month when Thornton was on the ice.

Parros was so bad last season (and I don't mean bad at hockey, because that's expected, I mean bad at doing the job he was alledgedly brought in to do) that he wasn't even getting dressed for the games against the teams that everyone used to justify his signing in the first place.

 

[Monctonscout]

So how exactly do you quantify whether an enforcer is doing his job or not?

The 'useless goon' advocates keep banging on about Orr punching Bourque. An isolated incident that happened 16 months ago. But you can't have it both ways and claim that that exact thing didn't happen this season so Parros must have been doing his job on the one hand yet leave yourself the out of 'of course enforcers can't prevent everything' in case it does. And, as we've established many times (a) there's no reason to think that the Bourque/Orr incident doesn't happen exactly the same way if Parros was sitting on the bench (Thierrien chose to put out Pekanec's line against Orr/Mclaren) and (b) Orr did exactly the same thing to a Bruins player the same month when Thornton was on the ice.

Parros was so bad last season (and I don't mean bad at hockey, because that's expected, I mean bad at doing the job he was alledgedly brought in to do) that he wasn't even getting dressed for the games against the teams that everyone used to justify his signing in the first place.

The way I measure an enforcer is wether he protects teammates. Laraque was great at fighting but not a great enforcer because he refused to get involved if it wasn't a planned fight. Last year Parros' fights were not what they were in the past, but his presence calmed a lot of things down in the cheap shot/intimidation category.

 

[sandysan]

So how exactly do you quantify whether an enforcer is doing his job or not?

The 'useless goon' advocates keep banging on about Orr punching Bourque. An isolated incident that happened 16 months ago. But you can't have it both ways and claim that that exact thing didn't happen this season so Parros must have been doing his job on the one hand yet leave yourself the out of 'of course enforcers can't prevent everything' in case it does. And, as we've established many times (a) there's no reason to think that the Bourque/Orr incident doesn't happen exactly the same way if Parros was sitting on the bench (Thierrien chose to put out Pekanec's line against Orr/Mclaren) and (b) Orr did exactly the same thing to a Bruins player the same month when Thornton was on the ice.

Parros was so bad last season (and I don't mean bad at hockey, because that's expected, I mean bad at doing the job he was alledgedly brought in to do) that he wasn't even getting dressed for the games against the teams that everyone used to justify his signing in the first place.

I'm sorry I can't give you the values to enter into your excel spreadsheet. Perhaps you might want to actually watch some games pointdexter.

Look at our previous heavy. When we traded for stashy, who was the first to publically welcome him to the team? Brandon prust. Dressing parros makes prust a better player because it now gives him discretion as to whether or not HE fights when the situation calls for it.

We have not had a heavy for so long, we get one and one who is willing and from the jump he does his job. You think subban rips stashy a new one for peeling Colton Orr off of him and feeding him it but good?

We don't need brawls every game. We don't need to be the toughest team in the league. But over an 82 game season I am certain there will be times we will need a guy to throw, and if we choose not to have one we end up sending roster players into situations where they have no chance of winning or we are left to appealing to their better angels or begging for protection from the refs.

I've seen enough of that for my entire lifetime, thanks

 

[sandysan]

So how exactly do you quantify whether an enforcer is doing his job or not?

The 'useless goon' advocates keep banging on about Orr punching Bourque. An isolated incident that happened 16 months ago. But you can't have it both ways and claim that that exact thing didn't happen this season so Parros must have been doing his job on the one hand yet leave yourself the out of 'of course enforcers can't prevent everything' in case it does. And, as we've established many times (a) there's no reason to think that the Bourque/Orr incident doesn't happen exactly the same way if Parros was sitting on the bench (Thierrien chose to put out Pekanec's line against Orr/Mclaren) and (b) Orr did exactly the same thing to a Bruins player the same month when Thornton was on the ice.

Parros was so bad last season (and I don't mean bad at hockey, because that's expected, I mean bad at doing the job he was alledgedly brought in to do) that he wasn't even getting dressed for the games against the teams that everyone used to justify his signing in the first place.

I'm sorry I can't give you the values to enter into your excel spreadsheet. Perhaps you might want to actually watch some games pointdexter.

Look at our previous heavy. When we traded for stashy, who was the first to publically welcome him to the team? Brandon prust. Dressing parros makes prust a better player because it now gives him discretion as to whether or not HE fights when the situation calls for it.

We have not had a heavy for so long, we get one and one who is willing and from the jump he does his job. You think subban rips stashy a new one for peeling Colton Orr off of him and feeding him it but good?

We don't need brawls every game. We don't need to be the toughest team in the league. But over an 82 game season I am certain there will be times we will need a guy to throw, and if we choose not to have one we end up sending roster players into situations where they have no chance of winning or we are left to appealing to their better angels or begging for protection from the refs.

I've seen enough of that for my entire lifetime, thanks

 

[Corncob]

Lol @ 'watch some games pointdexter' (whatever that means?!). You guys might have more success with your arguments if you spent more time trying to actually find some facts and less time misrepresenting counter arguments and characterising anyone who disagrees with you as 'anti-fighting'.

So, sandysan, you felt Brandon Prust was a better player last season than in his first season with the Habs?

 

[Monctonscout]

Lol @ 'watch some games pointdexter' (whatever that means?!). You guys might have more success with your arguments if you spent more time trying to actually find some facts and less time misrepresenting counter arguments and characterising anyone who disagrees with you as 'anti-fighting'.

So, sandysan, you felt Brandon Prust was a better player last season than in his first season with the Habs?

The facts cannot be quantified, so it's hard to put them on a message board.

If you did a poll through the Habs roster, I'm sure the response would be overwhelmingly positive if you could sign a Westgarth or Engelland for 700-900 k/year.

 

[JoelWarlord]

The facts cannot be quantified, so it's hard to put them on a message board.

If you did a poll through the Habs roster, I'm sure the response would be overwhelmingly positive if you could sign a Westgarth or Engelland for 700-900 k/year.

Nobody is going to publicly come out and say the team doesn't need a goon. They aren't going to implicitly throw Parros under the bus and call the GM an idiot.

 

[Ineverplayedthegame]

Look at our previous heavy. When we traded for stashy, who was the first to publically welcome him to the team? Brandon prust. Dressing parros makes prust a better player because it now gives him discretion as to whether or not HE fights when the situation calls for it.

Prust was absolutly terrible last year.

 

[sharks9]

The facts cannot be quantified, so it's hard to put them on a message board.

If you did a poll through the Habs roster, I'm sure the response would be overwhelmingly positive if you could sign a Westgarth or Engelland for 700-900 k/year.

What is quantifiable is wins and it's been shown that someone winning a fight makes zero difference on whether or not you win the game.

 

[Corncob]

The facts cannot be quantified, so it's hard to put them on a message board.

Not everything can be 100% factual, but people could make arguments that contain actual examples or evidence rather than completely baseless assertions.

For instance, SouthernHab made the assertion in a previous thread that Parros playing against Boston stopped Milan Lucic throwing any cheapshots because he was 'scared that Parros' would jump him and beat him up. I refuted this by (a) pointing out Lucic's long fightcard against legitimate heavyweights and stating that it's quite unlikely that Parros gives him sleepless nights and (b) pointing out that Parros is not that kind of enforcer and challenging SouthernHab to give just one example of Parros doing something like that in his long nhl career. Following which SouthernHab slunk away, but yet here he is again in this thread repeating the same claim and still without any evidence of any kind at all.

sandysan made the claim just now that having Parros on the roster makes Prust a better player. Clearly this is an opinion, but I think most people's opinions would be that Prust was significantly worse last season than the season before (and that this was completely unrelated to Parros). Sandysan could try to find some evidence that Prust is better when an enforcer is on the roster. But, for instance, if you look at Prust's career season with the Rangers. They signed Derek Boogard to be an enforcer that season, but Boogard tragically only played 22 games for the Rangers and none after the start of December. Of Prust's 29 points that season, only 6 came in games where Boogard was dressed. If anything the actual empirical evidence is more in favour of Prust historically playing better when the responsibility is on him to do the enforcing/protecting/whatever you want to call it.

You made the claim just upthread that having Parros 'calmed down the cheapshots'. This should be an easy thing to back up with at least some kind of evidence (if not 100% fact because, again, we're depending somewhat on subjectives). If teams with enforcers get cheapshotted less than teams without, there should be an observable trend that you can show over a number of seasons showing that to be the case. Any reason why no-one has ever done that?

 

[CupInSIX]

He's my guy. Took on Chara and Orr over the last 2 seasons and didn't look stupid at all.

He was embarrassed by Orr twice last year, even got mad at the ref for not saving him. If he was a Hab and that happened people on these boards would be losing their minds.

 

[vokiel]

how about Engelland ( UFA ) or McQuaid ? both are RH dman

Sure I'd take Engelland. Do you let Weaver walk though, it would be a must in this case.

**** McQuaid...

 

[overlords]

Sure I'd take Engelland. Do you let Weaver walk though, it would be a must in this case.

**** McQuaid...

Going from Weaver to engelland is a pretty giant leap backwards.

 

[Dominator13]

He was embarrassed by Orr twice last year, even got mad at the ref for not saving him. If he was a Hab and that happened people on these boards would be losing their minds.

Embarrassed? Lol. He wanted to the fight to stop cause had no jersey to hold on too. And 1st of all let's get something clear here, EVERYBODY GET EMBBARRASSED. It happened to Orr, Scott, Thornton, Brashear, Nilan, Simon, Semenko and everybody else that did him. What we want is 2 things.

1) somebody that does his job

2) somebody who won't be a liability on the ice.

Players like Thorburn and Brody bring both.

 

[vokiel]

Going from Weaver to engelland is a pretty giant leap backwards.

Yes, but the kids want some toughie. What do to?

 

[CupInSIX]

Embarrassed? Lol. He wanted to the fight to stop cause had no jersey to hold on too. And 1st of all let's get something clear here, EVERYBODY GET EMBBARRASSED. It happened to Orr, Scott, Thornton, Brashear, Nilan, Simon, Semenko and everybody else that did him. What we want is 2 things.

1) somebody that does his job

2) somebody who won't be a liability on the ice.

Players like Thorburn and Brody bring both.

You're kidding yourself if you think most people wouldn't be sore after Lucic feeds him his lunch 2-3 times next season.

And before you bring up Prust, that's not his role, and people expect him to lose to bigger guys.

 

[Hoople]

So how exactly do you quantify whether an enforcer is doing his job or not?

The 'useless goon' advocates keep banging on about Orr punching Bourque. An isolated incident that happened 16 months ago. But you can't have it both ways and claim that that exact thing didn't happen this season so Parros must have been doing his job on the one hand yet leave yourself the out of 'of course enforcers can't prevent everything' in case it does. And, as we've established many times (a) there's no reason to think that the Bourque/Orr incident doesn't happen exactly the same way if Parros was sitting on the bench (Thierrien chose to put out Pekanec's line against Orr/Mclaren) and (b) Orr did exactly the same thing to a Bruins player the same month when Thornton was on the ice.

Parros was so bad last season (and I don't mean bad at hockey, because that's expected, I mean bad at doing the job he was alledgedly brought in to do) that he wasn't even getting dressed for the games against the teams that everyone used to justify his signing in the first place.

You want the answer?

Dress for an NHL game and listen to the conversations on the ice and the benches.

Your request for quantification is a "straw man".

 

[Monctonscout]

What is quantifiable is wins and it's been shown that someone winning a fight makes zero difference on whether or not you win the game.

Having an enforcer is less about winning or losing a fight as it is how others behave with them in the lineup.

Guys like Lucic, Carcillo, Rinaldo etc are a lot more behaved if you have a true HW dressed and the threat is there that they'd have to face him.