What teams had the all-time best collection of goons?
Waiting for the new season got me to thinking, what team had the best collection of goons/fighters? Calgary has had quite a few good ones, and if I had to ice a line of goons, I'd go with:
Eric Godard
Sandy McCarthy
Tim Hunter
Brian McGratton
Stu Grimsom
Edmonton's best goons were probably
Marty McSorley
Dave Hunter
Dave Semenko
George Laraque
Dave Manson
Vancouver had
Gino Odjick
Garth Butcher
Tiger Williams
Donald Brashear
Matt Cooke
Out of the 3 Western Canadian teams, I think Calgary had the best collection of goons. But who had the all-time best collection?
My favorite team back then...I still have about a dozen Flyers hockey cards(among others) from that year. The thing that stands out to me from troutmans link is the age of team. They dominated for a few years and of the top 14 players from the link, one is 32, one is 28, the rest are 26 and younger.
16 Bobby Clarke 26 C 76 30 89 119 83 136 16
7 Bill Barber 23 LW 80 50 62 112 74 104 16
27 Reggie Leach 25 RW 80 61 30 91 73 41 16
26 Orest Kindrachuk 25 C 76 26 49 75 32 101 16
12 Gary Dornhoefer 32 RW 74 28 35 63 14 128 16
10 Mel Bridgman 20 C 80 23 27 50 22 86 16
11 Don Saleski 26 RW 78 21 26 47 33 68 16
18 Ross Lonsberry 28 LW 80 19 28 47 29 87 16
19 Rick MacLeish 26 C 51 22 23 45 6 16 —
5 Larry Goodenough 23 D 77 8 34 42 45 83 16
3 Tom Bladon 23 D 80 14 23 37 45 68 16
6 Andre Dupont 26 D 75 9 27 36 40 214 15
20 Jimmy Watson 23 D 79 2 34 36 65 66 16
8 Dave Schultz 26 LW 71 13 19 32 24 307 16
If you're putting Matt Cooke on the Canucks list then Fleury better be on the Flames list. Neither were fighters but they both get under the oppositions skins.
Maybe our definitions of goon is different. When I think of goon, I think of a guy whose roll is to fight. The goon is the policeman.
Cooke is the pest. His roll is to keep the goon busy.
How exactly do you leave Krzysztof Oliwa off this list?
Godard as a Flame had a high of 17 fights in a season, McCarthy, 19, Hunter 22, McGratton 14, Grimson 3.
Oliwa in 03-04 racked up 31 regular season fights which lead the NHL. The guy was the biggest goon in the league, let alone on the team.
Not to mention he lead the league in 97-98 as well as a Devil, with 34 fights.
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Tiger Williams a goon? Maybe but he wasn't a heavyweight. He started a lot of brawls for sure but he didn't take on the other teams tough guy. In Vancouver at that time his linemate Ron Delorme had to step in and take on the tough guy. An underrated fighter on the Canucks of that era was Curt Fraser. He was more valuable on the ice. That was a tough team that went to the finals in 81/82.
What teams had the all-time best collection of goons?
Always liked the crazy eyes!
