Looking around at most NHL rosters these days, there aren't many of the throwback pugilists left. Few teams employ a guy whose sole purpose is to provide a physical edge and drop the gloves when necessary. Sure, there are plenty of guys who can and will drop the gloves, stick up for teammates, try to turn the momentum of a game, and there are still plenty of graters and agitators - too many, some might say. But the role of the fighter has been almost entirely phased out of the professional game at this point. And as the focus on player safety and mental and emotional health increases with each passing season, it sounds like fighting may not just decrease - it may soon become extinct.
"While I am still in the camp that believes the emotion of the sport dictates fighting will never be eliminated, more and more, coaches, managers and NHL executives are hinting there will come a day when stiffer penalties - perhaps a game misconduct -will be added to help further curb fighting and the health risks that go along with it," TSN NHL insider Darren Dreger wrote Friday.
Just this week, Montreal Canadiens forward Nathan Beaulieu took a hard punch from the Columbus Blue Jackets' Nick Foligno that seemed to shake him. Beaulieu went to the box and served his penalty, and wound up returning for the game's final period. Habs coach Michel Therrien said after the game that Beaulieu had gone through the league-mandated concussion protocol - visible signs of a concussion should result in a player being examined by trainers and sent by a quiet room for further evaluation by the team physician - during intermission and was deemed to have avoided a significant head injury.
But that answer didn't suffice for many in and around the league. ESPN's Pierre LeBrun penned a piece suggesting that perhaps the question wasn't whether the league's concussion spotter program was working, but whether the issue is that the game still allows bare knuckle fighting even as they attempt to increase the overall safety for their product - the players.
In the wake of Todd Ewen's suicide in late Sept., former Canadien great Guy Carbonneau suggested that fighting is no longer an integral part of the game that should, with time, weed itself out.
"In 10 years, we'll probably talk about: 'It's funny, I haven't seen a fight in a year or two years.'" Carbonneau told the Montreal Gazette. "I think it's just going to go away by itself. But it's always been a tough decision because the feelings are mixed among the organizations and the people that make those decisions. So we just have to give it time a little bit."
Those mixed feelings extend not just to the organizations and the league's decision-makers, but to the players as well.
Current Canadien Brandon Prust penned a piece for The Players Tribune earlier this year titled "Why We Fight" extolling the virtues of fighting - a "skill" that brought Prust to the top of his sport - and even going so far as to suggest that it makes the game safer.
"I realize I'm a bit biased, because fighting got me to the NHL, but I truly believe this: The NHL needs fighting to keep the game safe."
Prust followed by recounting a game against the Anaheim Ducks wherein he fought in an effort to protect elite Habs center, Max Pacioretty, who he believed had been targeted. And while Prust does have something of a point when it comes to protecting teammates, the idea of players self-policing is almost as worrisome as the line-stepping agitators who take unnecessary runs at the best players on the ice.
"I get that there are plenty of people out there who don't like fighting," Prust wrote. "Trust me when I say that everyone in the league takes head injuries very seriously now. But in a fight, there are no cheap shots. If you take away fighting, there's no real consequence for guys taking runs at each other. Sure, if it's a bad enough hit the league will suspend a guy for a few games, but what does that matter to a fourth liner, especially in the playoffs if you take out one of their stars? It can turn an entire series. If they take fighting out, and guys aren't worried about answering the bell, I guarantee more people will get hurt from an increase in open-ice body checks."
Again, a salient point from Prust, but it's the ideals behind it that probably keep NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and the rest of the NHL's decision-makers, already dealing with a concussion lawsuit levied against them by former players who allege that the league hid knowledge of the dangers of concussions from them, up at night.
According to Dreger, if there are changes to the penalties associated with fighting coming - and, per his report, those who "govern the game see it as inevitable" - they aren't expected for at least a couple of seasons.
With the league's concussion spotter program "believed to be functioning the way it was intended," it's surprising that Beaulieu was allowed back on the ice.
"I think there is no question that the concussion protocol is working," Bettman told LeBrun as the board of governors' meeting was wrapping up. "The spotter program as we refined it is working. The board was showed a couple of videos: (1) was what we use to educate the players on concussions and (2) what we use to educate the spotters. We're proactive in dealing with this issue, and I think the board was very comfortable with what they were hearing."
But already, questions of the spotters' independence have been raised. There are league spotters and there are team-appointed spotters. Would it really be surprising to hear that team-appointed spotters weren't as stringent in their determination of when a player must come off the ice, especially in a vital contest late in the season with playoff positioning or even a postseason berth on the line?
While many fans and even some of hockey's greatest heroes will likely continue to balk at the notion of removing fighting from the game altogether - or penalizing it to such an extent that it all-but disappears on its own - and, in turn, bastardizing the sport they so dearly love, if the game is to continue its march toward safety and a focus on offensive fireworks and not physical punishment, there just doesn't seem to be a place for pugilism.
