News Article: Why We Fight by Brandon Prust

[Mike8]

Not sure it's a question of tallying up rats vs. enforcers and declaring a winner. Nobody would call Prust a pure enforcer but he could certainly help a team win a Cup, for example.

Sure. But if we look at the players commonly thought to be rats, or the most egregious cheap shot artists, many of them have had great success. Cooke, Marchand are two of the more infamous in modern hockey (and both have won the Cup, and it'd be incorrect to claim that their respective clubs won despite their rat infestation).

If the thinking is that rats are almost always bad for teams, then it stands to reason that the more egregious 'rats' would also be bad for teams. Otherwise it's difficult to make such a claim.

 

[WhiskeySeven*]

Sure. But if we look at the players commonly thought to be rats, or the most egregious cheap shot artists, many of them have had great success. Cooke, Marchand are two of the more infamous in modern hockey (and both have won the Cup, and it'd be incorrect to claim that their respective clubs won despite their rat infestation).

If the thinking is that rats are almost always bad for teams, then it stands to reason that the more egregious 'rats' would also be bad for teams. Otherwise it's difficult to make such a claim.

Naturally Prust is quite biased in this respect. He has to justify his need to fight, and uses rats as a contrasting example.

 

[Jigger77]

I'm pretty sure they already are all over the place. Cooke even answered the bell and fought Thornton, yet that hasn't deterred him from continuing on.

What's peculiar about Prust bringing up the whole argument of deterrence is that he cites this case with Anaheim. So the Anaheim player knew Prust was there, and hit Pacioretty anyway. Prust claims that he needed to set the precedent; to let other teams in the league know that they can't hit Pacioretty and get away with it. Has he not had opportunity to set a precedent in the years he's been with the team? Or is it that the notion of a precedent is not particularly noteworthy?

He then discusses how a team like the Rangers didn't have anyone to deter him from making a dirty hit. And yet, Kreider must have thought the same if we're to view his play on Price as intentional and/or reckless. And so, in that scenario, either Prust concedes his point isn't all that realistic, or concedes that he himself isn't an adequate deterrent. Either way, there's a gap in the logic here.

I know what you're saying, and to be honest as much as I like Prusty's approach to the game I'm not sure he's the guy I'd go to first for a flawlessly logical argument. But like anything you can find cases to invalidate a point, and I still tend to think that he's right overall. Personally I'd make sure I have a guy like him on my team. But also a guy that doesn't hurt you just by playing too.

I and others have always made it a clear point to separate players like Prust to useless plug fighters. It's been repeated to you many times.
And Prust is simply giving out his opinion, just like other fighters or players have given theirs against fighting.

I agree with this. The fights between two big goons just for entertainment are being phased out as they should be imo. But I would be very wary of removing it al together. I'd also get rid of the instigator rule personally in cases where the fight is in retaliation to something like Kreider running a goalie for 10th time or something like that. Easier said than done though because then you put all that pressure of judgement on the refs.

Anyway, it's not as easy as remove fights and there you go we have a wholesome PG product for the kids and the american sponsors imo. I think it could get ugly out there without that knowledge that you will have to answer if you do something stupid. Teams could just "sacrifice" marginal players to go after stars in the playoffs etc. Too much at stake.

 

[Smokey Thompson]

Really? I'd guess that there are more rats on Cup winners than enforcers.

Not necessarily ... LA doesn't have any rats that come to mind but they have guys that can be considered "enforcers" in Greene, King, and Nolan among others. Chicago doesn't have any big time rats, but Shaw and Seabrook can drop the gloves. Boston has the biggest rat of our generation but they also have Lucic and Chara who will definitely keep opposing rats in line.

That's 1 rat in the past 5 cup winners. Yet Pittsburgh has the top 2 players in the league, but employed a handful of rats over the past few years; Cooke, Neal, Orpik, all guys that could be considered the scum of the league. That'd definitely not a way to create a winning culture.

Great article by Prust.

 

[Ohashi_Jouzu*]

The Paccioretty story was interesting and the Rinaldo story underlined everything that's wrong with fighting. I still don't think it's necessary in today's game.

"Street justice" only occurs when the refs miss something. And if the refs miss something it should be up to the league to correct it. I see absolutely no reason why the league couldn't start to crack down on stuff more than they do. Lucic spears a guy in the nuts (again) BANG! suspension. You do it again? You're suspended again. Just because the refs miss this crap it doesn't mean it has to be tolerated. You want to get rid of the rats? Punish them afterwards.

Anyways, fighting is there for now and I don't really care. I suppose in some cases it serves a purpose, but it's not an essential part of the game at all. That other stuff can be policed by the league.

Still funny that the vast majority of the people who feel this way have never played the game at a level where the only detraction from someone feeding you your teeth for stepping over the line is a 5 minute sit in the box. The league will never hand out a first time suspension that matches or exceeds the recovery time from some of these hits (though the intent is often enough to deserve a pummeling, imo, even if the damage isn't so severe), so there's always going to be an imbalance somewhere that the players feel they have to balance for themselves - they KNOW they won't get it from the league in many (if not most) cases. 10 games for something that might put a guy out for months, and may affect how he approaches the game far beyond that? Imbalance that will likely never be accounted for in a first/second time offender. A system that primarily targets "repeat offenders" actually encourages bringing up minor league scrubs to do this kind of dirty work, rather than discourage it, and suspending these players isn't much of a deterrent if their pay for that one NHL game exceeds the minor league salary they may go without if suspended. Only the 50 contract limit keeps this in check in any sort of way.

And the refs miss a lot, btw. So much so, that they'll never be able to incorporate a "tattletale" system that would require teams to spend time compiling all the possibly relevant material from every game to be sent in for league review. What a player feels he or his teammates must tolerate isn't exactly outlined in clear black and white in terms of what the rules allow/forbid as it is. A snow shower to the goalie is just a 2 minute penalty in most cases because the worst thing you can say is that it was "unsportsmanlike", but isn't there always the chance that one could result in something that deserves more (eye injury or whatever)? Are players supposed to just ignore the whole situation (and possible intent) when results aren't as bad as they could have been?

I'm sure the prospect of a crybaby whine to mom (read: Player Safety Committee) approach to seeking justice is just as unbecoming to those in charge as "an eye for an eye", and it seems to take pretty serious incidents for them to step in on their own and administer punishment for transgressions that the refs miss/allow to begin with. If you think it will ever get to the point where the league watches every game with a fine-toothed comb in order to second guess every referee decision/non-decision, in an effort to catch all the missed calls, you're dreaming. Minor penalties found in replays aren't going to be assessed to anyone the next game or anything, for example, and I'm obviously not going to sit here and claim that minor transgressions can't be worth fighting over (slash, roughing, cross-check, etc). I don't think players should be suspended for minor penalties that go undetected, either.

Supplemental discipline is all about catching and dealing with the obvious/low-hanging fruit (optics and injuries, primarily associated with major penalty calls), and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, because the players SHOULD be fighting this out (pun intended) for themselves on the ice, for the most part. The athletes want as much of the sport in their own hands as possible, and I echo that priority.

 

[Mike8]

Not necessarily ... LA doesn't have any rats that come to mind but they have guys that can be considered "enforcers" in Greene, King, and Nolan among others. Chicago doesn't have any big time rats, but Shaw and Seabrook can drop the gloves. Boston has the biggest rat of our generation but they also have Lucic and Chara who will definitely keep opposing rats in line.

That's 1 rat in the past 5 cup winners. Yet Pittsburgh has the top 2 players in the league, but employed a handful of rats over the past few years; Cooke, Neal, Orpik, all guys that could be considered the scum of the league. That'd definitely not a way to create a winning culture.

Great article by Prust.

If you consider Orpik a rat, then Dustin Brown could certainly be one. And Shaw is closer to borderline rat than he is to willing combatant that answers the bell.

It really does depend on how you define these criteria. I suppose the overall takeaway for me is that there's a real logical fallacy going on here, and for those that point out that certain NHLers favour enforcers, thinking that substantiates the position of the pro-fighting crowd, there's clearly been a strong trend against not only the traditional enforcer, but all types of enforcing.

Another trend seems to be the the correlation of the number of rats and enforcers dwindling. Where conventional wisdom informed us that the latter prevented rats from running rampant and infesting the league, we're actually seeing fewer rats in the game today than we used to. The peak of the cheapshot era was probably right before the instigator rule was implemented, our first indication that there was no causal link stemming from enforcers' ability to deter.

 

[Ohashi_Jouzu*]

I and others have always made it a clear point to separate players like Prust to useless plug fighters. It's been repeated to you many times.
And Prust is simply giving out his opinion, just like other fighters or players have given theirs against fighting.

It's not his "opinion" that I want you to read, Kriss, it's the hows and whys that he touches on that you seem to be baffled by every time they're brought up in discussion. There's obviously skill and strategy involved for starters, and the timing isn't always something a player can control, sometimes creating fights that outsiders are fond of referring to as "staged". Among other tidbits, obviously.

And yes, I know your stance on "goons". If it's worth sticking up for your teammates, though, it has to be worth it on some level to have a guy that can stand up to anyone. Teams used to try fairly hard to find that guy, now there's relatively less importance/focus on it, which is fine. It's fun to pretend that they've all been pluggers that would be lucky to find work in the ECHL, let alone the NHL, but most people know that they've all been better than that in their respective day. Pointing a finger at such guys at/near the end of their careers (ex: Parros) doesn't erase the role they were valued in during their "prime".

 

[Smokey Thompson]

If you consider Orpik a rat, then Dustin Brown could certainly be one. And Shaw is closer to borderline rat than he is to willing combatant that answers the bell.

It really does depend on how you define these criteria. I suppose the overall takeaway for me is that there's a real logical fallacy going on here, and for those that point out that certain NHLers favour enforcers, thinking that substantiates the position of the pro-fighting crowd, there's clearly been a strong trend against not only the traditional enforcer, but all types of enforcing.

Another trend seems to be the the correlation of the number of rats and enforcers dwindling. Where conventional wisdom informed us that the latter prevented rats from running rampant and infesting the league, we're actually seeing fewer rats in the game today than we used to. The peak of the cheapshot era was probably right before the instigator rule was implemented, our first indication that there was no causal link stemming from enforcers' ability to deter.

The difference between Brown and Orpik is that Brown will drop them. There's a reason Thornton sucker punched Orpik, you can't run around hitting guys with your elbows up and never answer the bell. Similarly he was going around hitting all our guys earlier this season, face washing / punching guys with his gloves on after the whistle, but the second Prust showed up he put his head down and went to the bench. That's the definition of a rat, especially considering Prust is 2 inches shorter and 25lbs lighter.

Shaw will actually drop them against guys his own size, and he's not particularly dirty.

As for the peak cheap shot era coming right before the instigator rule, it was also a time where scum bag Cooke ended a PPG player's career, and when all the media started jumping on the concussion issue. I think the decline in cheap shots has more to do with the exposure around concussions and the league stepping up on the "chicken wing elbow" hits.

 

[Mike8]

As for the peak cheap shot era coming right before the instigator rule, it was also a time where scum bag Cooke ended a PPG player's career, and when all the media started jumping on the concussion issue. I think the decline in cheap shots has more to do with the exposure around concussions and the league stepping up on the "chicken wing elbow" hits.

Fair points, re: Orpik, Shaw, Brown.

I think your last line speaks to the point that enforcers were never a deterrent and that the league's stance really is the one, and likely only, way to deter such cheapshot behaviour. And that's the point that I'm making here too: enforcers don't serve that purpose. The evidence is overwhelming.

 

[Smokey Thompson]

Fair points, re: Orpik, Shaw, Brown.

I think your last line speaks to the point that enforcers were never a deterrent and that the league's stance really is the one, and likely only, way to deter such cheapshot behaviour. And that's the point that I'm making here too: enforcers don't serve that purpose. The evidence is overwhelming.

I guess it's a case of the chicken and the egg. The thing is, enforcers in the purest form (i.e. Parros) are dying. If you can't fill a role on the PK or on the 4th line, then you're out. That's where guys like Prust differ from the the typical enforcer. These guys are useful in that they fill a role but will also step up for their teammates.

 

[Blind Gardien]

Yes it is the exception to the rule, but I have to admit it's a pretty telling exception and I never thought of that. You can also say a rat running at guys and not answering for it can piss off the other team and get them off their game.

But point is, you want to see tons more rats like Averys, Cookes etc? If so, get rid of fighting. They'll be all over the place.

There's a pretty fine line between some breeds of rat and some breeds of enforcer anyways. Always has been. They both break the rules of the game, selectively, and hurt people. Prust is probably the biggest diver on the team, for example. Guys like Neil, for example, they yap and agitate, and sometimes they will go, and other times not, and I think that's pretty much par for the course. Prust is one person, and one person can choose to interpret everything a certain way, or promote himself in a certain way, but in reality, the lines are constantly blurred.

And anyway, the league has dramatically reduced the prominence of fighting, and enforcers are almost extinct. Are there more rats than ever? I really really don't think so. There are a few hybrids, Downie, and...? Hardly any. They both seem to be going extinct together, interestingly enough.

 

[crystal ball]

If there's a perceived concern for the safety of players requiring fighting to keep rats in check, shouldn't general managers have a role in just not hiring the type of guy who'd cheap shot a star? Yet the Cooke's of the league still have jobs.

 

[Lshap]

And anyway, the league has dramatically reduced the prominence of fighting, and enforcers are almost extinct. Are there more rats than ever? I really really don't think so. There are a few hybrids, Downie, and...? Hardly any. They both seem to be going extinct together, interestingly enough.

The deterrence factor of the enforcer is, more and more, being filled by the league's discipline board.

 

[googlymoogly]

If there's a perceived concern for the safety of players requiring fighting to keep rats in check, shouldn't general managers have a role in just not hiring the type of guy who'd cheap shot a star? Yet the Cooke's of the league still have jobs.

That's why the best way to get rid of rats is fine the owners. If a rat causes an injury both the rat and team should be fined. Also until the injured player returns the offending team suffers a cap hit for the injured player for up to one year. If the player injured has to retire then the offending team must pay his contract off. Rats will be extinct very fast.

So in Cooke's case when he injured Savard if it was illegal hit which in this case at the time was not the Pens would have to pay a fine to the players amount of suspension. So if Cooke had gotten 5 games then his salary for those 5 games would be the fine to the team. Second if the injured player misses games then his salary counts as a cap hit to the Pens until he returns. This is only for one year max. If the player can't return to play then the Pens would of had to pay his salary for the full amount withing 90 days of knowing the player has retired from injury.

You think teams with employ Cooke's and Avery's after this.

Edit: Maybe all fines to a team should count against next years cap hit as well.

 

[Lshap]

Still funny that the vast majority of the people who feel this way have never played the game at a level where the only detraction from someone feeding you your teeth for stepping over the line is a 5 minute sit in the box. The league will never hand out a first time suspension that matches or exceeds the recovery time from some of these hits (though the intent is often enough to deserve a pummeling, imo, even if the damage isn't so severe), so there's always going to be an imbalance somewhere that the players feel they have to balance for themselves - they KNOW they won't get it from the league in many (if not most) cases. 10 games for something that might put a guy out for months, and may affect how he approaches the game far beyond that? Imbalance that will likely never be accounted for in a first/second time offender. A system that primarily targets "repeat offenders" actually encourages bringing up minor league scrubs to do this kind of dirty work, rather than discourage it, and suspending these players isn't much of a deterrent if their pay for that one NHL game exceeds the minor league salary they may go without if suspended. Only the 50 contract limit keeps this in check in any sort of way.

Rather than create a made-up formula for balancing injury with retribution, shouldn't the goal be to reduce injury? If so, you should be happy that dirty hits are down thanks to league discipline. The NHL's rules are doing what every enforcer through history failed to do: reduce dirty hits.

 

[Mike8]

That's why the best way to get rid of rats is fine the owners. If a rat causes an injury both the rat and team should be fined. Also until the injured player returns the offending team suffers a cap hit for the injured player for up to one year. If the player injured has to retire then the offending team must pay his contract off. Rats will be extinct very fast.

This is a pretty amusing concept. Imagine the league creating a Rat List, and distributing that list to each team, stating that any time a rat causes an injury, the rat's team is fined, etc.

 

[CupInSIX]

Give me 2 points over a loss with 'momentum' any day. Give me a big hit over a good scrap.

 

[Ohashi_Jouzu*]

Rather than create a made-up formula for balancing injury with retribution, shouldn't the goal be to reduce injury?

Not necessarily. That's why there's still body contact in hockey, obviously. There are parts of the game you have to be able to endure, and fighting ("within the rules") is simply one of them (a relatively minor one at that). Dedication to "enforcing" and dedication to a physical style of play are no different in that regard. If you can't, and/or aren't willing, then your play better reflect that, and you better contribute significantly in some other way. That's hockey, no matter what role you're talking about, actually.

The "made up formula" you're talking about, btw, is governed and maintained by the players, and I don't think anyone else is more qualified to add/amend to or erase from it, nor weigh in on the who/what/when/where/why of it all. I know some people can't live without formulas of clearly defined or distillable variables, but that's not even how it works (or COULD work). Boundaries constantly get pushed this way or that over time, and while certain specifics do eventually get established (over time the "mob the transgressor" mentality evolved to more of a man-to-man "duel", for example - 3rd man in penalty would come soon after), the players do judge each other on their ability to "respect the code", regardless.

 

[Ohashi_Jouzu*]

Give me 2 points over a loss with 'momentum' any day. Give me a big hit over a good scrap.

Easy for the guy who presses the "Simulate" button to say. Makes a difference to the pros on the bench playing, though, since they obviously think, talk, and strategize about it on some level. Too bad you don't get to go ahead in time to see the final box score before deciding, though.

 

[CupInSIX]

Easy for the guy who presses the "Simulate" button to say. Makes a difference to the pros on the bench playing, though, since they obviously think, talk, and strategize about it on some level. Too bad you don't get to go ahead in time to see the final box score before deciding, though.

Of course it's easy for me to say

 

[Brainiac]

These articles are so ridiculous. Why pretend it's written by the guys when it's clearly a ghost writer? I mean, it's not even close. I don't think Prust knows the meaning of 'oxymoron'.

And the thing is, all these articles have exactly the same style. It's not like NHL players just suddenly all learned how to write in a very specific way.

 

[Kriss E]

I agree with this. The fights between two big goons just for entertainment are being phased out as they should be imo. But I would be very wary of removing it al together. I'd also get rid of the instigator rule personally in cases where the fight is in retaliation to something like Kreider running a goalie for 10th time or something like that. Easier said than done though because then you put all that pressure of judgement on the refs.

Anyway, it's not as easy as remove fights and there you go we have a wholesome PG product for the kids and the american sponsors imo. I think it could get ugly out there without that knowledge that you will have to answer if you do something stupid. Teams could just "sacrifice" marginal players to go after stars in the playoffs etc. Too much at stake.

The only argument by some is that removing fighting would increase the cheap shots but there's no actual evidence of this. If I recall correctly, data was brought forward that showed no difference in terms of cheap shots given to teams that didn't employ enforcers.
All in all, there's really no evidence to back up this idea that cheapshots would rise.
Cheap shots are penalized and suspendable. Plekanec wouldn't start throwing elbows around like a madman or slash Marchand in the face because fighting is out of the game.
Would a guy like Ott or Marchand do more?? I don't think so. Not if the NHL suspends properly. It's not like these guys have to fight, they can just duck down and wait for refs to step in. Cooke never changed his game because he was scared of getting punched. He did it because he kept getting suspended. So keep doing that and I see no reason why there would suddenly be a rise. It really doesn't make any sense.

 

[Kriss E]

It's not his "opinion" that I want you to read, Kriss, it's the hows and whys that he touches on that you seem to be baffled by every time they're brought up in discussion. There's obviously skill and strategy involved for starters, and the timing isn't always something a player can control, sometimes creating fights that outsiders are fond of referring to as "staged". Among other tidbits, obviously.

The ''hows'' and ''whys'' are part of his opinion. I was never baffled by them. It's part of this old belief and back in the 80s early 90s, I completely agree with them.
We're in 2015. Players don't have to respond to anything they don't want to.
We know fighters don't deter anything.
Can a fight swing momentum your way? Sure. So can killing a penalty. Shall we take some? Of course not.

 

[Whitesnake]

And again, it's pretty understandable where the guy is coming from. And he's not even hiding it. He went to his junior team asking what he had to do to stick around. He knew he didn't have the skills. So he went with what he could do better which was bang around. But since fighting is allowed, and that in any league where being banged means you HAVE to fight....he then had to learn fighting. Not sure why we are surprise that he agrees with the principle of fighting...that's actually why he makes that living. Strangely, a lot of guys that made fighting their living too, once out, believes it's no longer needed. But when they were in the league...you can BET they thought it was really important. Reasons he's giving? Momentum. Well sorry....you can bring some fights that you think changed momentum....I could give you 1000 more fights that didn't change anything. I could probalby give you quite a few bodychecks that I think changed the momentum....you could retaliate by saying that tons of them didn't do anything. Or goals that changed momentum until.....the opponent scored and then THEY got the momentum until their opponent scored and then THEY got the momentum.....

Accountability? Yep....well it depends. I haven't seen Prust fighting Marchand a whole lot. I haven't see guys like Cooke, Kaleta, Torres changed a whole lot their way of playing the game 'cause they would have to respond to big mean fighters. So yes....a Prust who hits hard...WILL fight against the tough guys of the other team.....but he couldn't care less as he knows he can hold his grounds. Who cares about Lucic or Prust accountability. They could probably welcome the fight after as they could knock out the guy who "defends" their player that was just hit. Accountability was true in an era where there were clearing bench brawls. When there was no real instigation penalties. When you were actually REALLY afraid to really have your head cut off by the couple of maniacs that were playing against you. Where the "code" didn't really exist. When Semenko couldn't care less if you were 4'8'' or 7'2'', if you touched Gretzky, you were going to get your head cut off no matter what. THAT'S accountability. I obviously don't want to go back there again....we couldn't anyway. But with the present rules, with the world we are in right now, that, for me, is just so far off. It belongs to another era.

And the whole refusing to fight versus losing a fight or whatever.....so Subban keeps losing his team's momentum based on how he refuses to fight? Lucic refusing some fights loses his team momentum? You HAVE to fight or else? Again, not for me. Of course, that's what a fighter thinks. He is who he is because of this and believes in it. Not going to blame him for that. Just not going to agree that it's necessary with where we are at and where we are headed.

 

[S Bah]

The Players' Tribune has been doing a series of really cool articles by NHL players. They've previously featured Logan Couture, Sean Avery and Tyler Seguin. Brandon Prust contributed their newest piece titled "Why We Fight". Very good read regardless of your stance on fighting in the NHL:

http://www.theplayerstribune.com/why-we-fight/

Nice to hear Prusty tell it like it is, more people should be so open and honest, IMHO.