The era of the enforcer is dead? Not really

Leafland shook ever so slightly this past week when Brian Burke took center stage to take heat away (as he likes to do, and good for him) from his sometimes inconsistent team.  They've won twice since.  He went off on a few topics, perhaps most notably his impassioned announcement that “rats” are taking over the game.

He did this while explaining that, basically, it’s a sad day for hockey when there is no longer room for a player like Colton Orr.

Now, I’m not interested in commenting too much on one particular guy (Orr), who by all accounts is a “good guy” in the hockey world.  He has certainly been the classic team guy with various organizations through the years, protecting mates and taking on bullies.  But while I am not well-versed in the fine details of his career, my sense is he has largely been primarily that:  a perfectly nice tough-guy, a (at best) fourth-line guy who was on any team he was on not because of his hockey skills but because he was a good fighter who, in the traditional hockey parlance, “kept the opposition honest”.

As part of this discussion, I should address the “rat” point.  Yes, it’s always a concern when sneaky, dirty stuff infiltrates the game, especially if it’s not possible to shut those kinds of actions down.  But there have always been “rats” in hockey, in my view, guys who were/are sneaky, dirty but not really willing to stand up for themselves in any other way.  Kenny Linseman in the '80s was called "The Rat", but he was also  a pretty fine hockey player.  If Burrows in Vancouver is a modern-day "rat" (or Marchand in Boston for that matter), as per the discussion on "Coach's Corner" this past Saturday night, then maybe other teams need their own guys who play like Burrows and Marchand- players with skill who also play with a nasty edge.  And that's the thing...those kinds of "rats", like Matthew Barnaby a few years ago and Steve Downie today, can also "play". But an opposing team that has true team toughness won’t put up with it, and I don't think that you need one guy whose role it is only to fight to deal with it.  Most rats won’t fight anyway, and enforcers usually only fight enforcers, eh?  Maybe you look at it differently...)

To be clear, what exactly do we mean by rats?  I've identified guys who I think can play the game, but can by a bit nasty, maybe even dirty at times.  Of course I'd rather they not play that way.  I'd prefer that they play hard but within the rules.  But does an "enforcer" really get rid of the "rat" stuff?  Has it in the past?

Here’s the thing.  I’ve been watching hockey since the late 1950s.  That doesn’t make me an expert on rats and enforcers, but I’ve seen an awful lot of “tough guys” come and go.  Some could play, some couldn't.  But the best tough guys, in my memory, could also play the game.

I won’t go over the obvious with Gordie Howe.  Suffice to say that Howe built a reputation early in his career that he would gladly fight, if asked, and likely knock your lights out, if you were so inclined.  So not many guys bothered asking after a while (or even tried to bother him…period).  Howe, seen at right in early '60s action against Jacques Plante and the Rangers, wasn't a bad player, eh?

But more in line with what we think of as a classic, prototypical NHL “policeman” would be someone who was/is rugged, not superstar-skilled but was/is the resident team tough guy, but could also play—at least a bit.  I wrote a while back about two such guys, John Ferguson and Reggie Fleming.  In the old six-team NHL, and then into the early years of expansion, these guys were two of the toughest men in hockey.  They inspired some fear but could also play.  Ferguson scored more than 20 goals on more than one occasion it seems to me and helped Montreal win 5 Stanley Cups.  If we asked Jean Belieavu how important Ferguson was, he would tell us he may have been the most important Hab in that '60s era- because he could play but also kept the other team away from the Montreal skill players. (A while back, I penned a piece here about Colton Orr and Mike Brown, and how they were a throwback to the days of Ferguson and Fleming, but I'm not sure Orr has ever really reached that class of player...)

For his part, Fleming put up some decent offensive numbers with the Hawks (including helping a Cup win in 1961), Bruins and Rangers.  Believe me, those guys could find a job today because they weren’t just fourth-line guys who played three minutes a game.

But they weren’t alone.  I won’t list fifty guys, but clearly there have always been enforcers who could also play.  Butch Bouchard, the old 1950s Montreal captain, was one example.  Bert Olmstead, a star with the Habs and the Leafs, scored a lot, also fought and hit—a lot.  Winger Eddie "The Entertainer" Shack scored some big goals with the Leafs while still acting as a part-time tough guy in the ‘60s.  He won four Cups with Toronto.  Leaf great Bobby Pulford (seen at left), in his prime, was a gritty guy who scored big goals and would take on anybody.  He was a major part of those 1960s Cups in Toronto.

In the ‘70s, the Bruins were built on skill—and toughness.  Bobby Orr could really fight but mostly he just skated around people, the best player around.  But he also had teammates like Johnny McKenzie and Wayne Cashman who put up points and were tough as nails.  They didn’t allow the opposition to take liberties with Bruin superstars or their smaller forwards (though there weren’t, in truth, many “small” Bruin forwards in that ‘70s era.)  In the Don Cherry years (and later), they had all kinds of tough guys.  Stan Jonathan, Terry O’Reilly et all.  But again, not only would those guys drop the gloves, they would light the lamp enough to be offensive threats, too.

Same with the Rangers of that era.  Individuals like Vic Hadfield and Bill Fairbairn were big producers but also could fight.  The Flyers were thugs but even their muggers like Saleski and Schultz could score 20 goals a season in their “glory years”.

The beauty of the Montreal Canadiens throughout the 1970s was that they had tough guys, but for the most part they could also play.  Bob Gainey didn’t fight but was hard to play against.  So was Yvon Lambert.  Now, defenseman Gilles Lupien was mostly there because of his size, but Larry Robinson was the Zdeno Chara of his day.  Big, tall, talented—and tough.  He didn’t plan to fight, but if you insisted….

In more recent times, what about Claude Lemieux?  He helped different teams win Stanley Cups.  He avoided fights, but he could be nasty.  Was he a rat?

My point is, the history of the game that Burke talks about is not really about guys who basically were on a team to fight and only fight.  And if we're honest, is that not Orr's primary job with the Leafs?  Just look at his ice time.

I know Pat Quinn, for example, always hated the idea of having guys on his teams that could only fight.  His philosophy was, if you can’t play, he wasn’t interested.  Say what we will about Tie Domi, but under Quinn, he scored  a fair bit and contributed some energetic hockey quite often, in addition to keeping people away from Sundin and other more vulnerable Leafs.

So, if you have guys who are truly rugged, tough competitors and can play the game, that’s the ideal.  Isn’t that part of the Bruins’ success in recent years?  Guys like Lucic make you keep your head up.  You  don’t really want to have to fight them, so you may tread a little more carefully than you otherwise might.  And the guy is a scorer, too, a first-line player.

Brendan Shanahan was a great player who could look after himself.  Mark Messier, too.

And that’s where the game is going, and isn’t that a good thing?  In other words, if two players, two good players, are fighting for possession and tempers flare, well, they fight.  They sit for five minutes but then get back to playing their regular shift.  Whether their “fight” helped tilt momentum, or sent a “message”, well, only the players in that particular game know.

But unlike players who are essentially glorified fighters on skates, the aforementioned NHL’ers would have been high-end NHL players even if they never had a fight in their life.  When players like Colton Orr (and he’s not alone, I’m only using him as a reference point because Burke went on about it…) fight, they generally then spend the rest of the night glued to the bench, having “done their job”.

For me, that’s not a part of hockey that we have to keep.

Yes, there will likely always be a role for tough hockey players.  But they will be valuable, in the fine tradition of John Ferguson, Reggie Fleming, Wayne Cashman, Clark Gillies, Bob Probert and many others, for their combined talents:  toughness and skill.

If Burke is sad that Orr may lose his job because he sees Colton a person of integrity who has given everything he has to the game and has been a solid professional, I get that.

But lament that, not the loss of a “role” that really should never have been here in the first place.

If Burke thinks Orr is one of his 12 best forwards, then by all means give him a spot on the roster.  But clearly he is not one of the 12 best.  And it's not just because there are rats in the game.

So yes, let's deal with the "rats", if that really is an issue.  But in a more enlightened time, do we have to fill rosters with fighters as our best idea for a solution?

In short, for me, a real enforcer also brings other things to the table.  When the Red Wings retaliated against Lemieux and the Avalanche years ago, it was not just a matter of one "tough" guy/fighter standing up against what Lemieux had done to Kris Draper.  A number of Wings responded.  But they did it the right way- not like Todd Bertuzzi did, which was cowardly.  And Lemieux, who rarely fought, knew what he had to do and did it.

The Wings who stood up for Draper could also play the game.  And when I think "enforcer", those are the guys I think are the real deal.