Quote:
Originally Posted by Flames Fan, Ph.D.
In fairness to him, in his interview last week he explicitly noted that the league in Germany was not nearly as physical or tough as the AHL. In that respect, I got the impression that he played that way in Germany because he knew it gave him an explicit edge, but that he wouldn't have a similar edge in the AHL.
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The rules for fighting are very different in the leagues over here. In Germany, fighters used to get a match penalty and an automatic one game suspension, but they changed it a couple of years ago ... now it's still pretty strict (I believe fighters automatically get 14 penalty minutes and there can still be match penalties and suspensions). Fighting is just not that common over here, it's pretty rare. It also kind of explains Wolfs number of penalty minutes in his DEL career ... he'd have 3 fights per season and rack up around 50 minutes just for those.
Wolf was simply a bull in a china shop in Germany. He always played more of an NA game than others and loved hitting and getting under the skin of his opponents.
EDIT: found this in the thread back then in regards to his PIM in Germany.
Quote:
Originally Posted by devo22
PIMs don't tell the whole story because the DEL is far stricter about fights and scrums. Here's how his 152 PIMs divide:
13 x Roughing
7 x Tripping
6 x Slashing
5 x High Sticking
5 x Hooking
4 x Interference
1 x Checking to the Head
2 x Game Misconduct (20 min)
3 x Misconduct (10 min)
It's worth noting that the refs would sometimes hand out 2 + 2 (for roughing each) + 10 (misconduct). Wolf had three of those ... so no wonder his PIM total is quite high. He'd rack up 15-20 PIM in one game, then go five or six games without a single penalty. One of the two game misconducts was for the checking to head and the other one was for a scrum.
As to the question whether he's dirty. From the games I've seen, no I wouldn't call him dirty in general. Thing is he's an extremely physical player who likes to go the dirty areas and who isn't shy of scrums, pushing and shoving etc. He can be like a bull in a china shop out there. I believe the NA game will suit his playing style a bit more than the DEL.
Also worth noting is that he's a guy that has been known for having a short fuse in the past and I think other teams liked to provoke him. He's improved in that area though. In one of the PO games against Ingolstadt, however, he was given a misconduct after banging his stick on the glass in frustration ... because an opposing fan spit on him.
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