Call it the end of an ice age, the beginning of a sea change or just the latest trend in professional hockey. But NHL teams are cutting back on their use of designated fighters early in this 2014-15 season.
A number of so-called NHL 'enforcers' were sent to the minors or left unsigned ahead of the season opener Wednesday. Instead, many teams have opted to fill their rosters with players who can score, over players who do nothing but fight.
For now, at least, a sport often associated with bare-knuckle fighting on ice appears ready to evolve into something else.
For proof of how much the league has shifted, one need look no further than the NHL's opening game Wednesday between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens.
The Leafs led the NHL in major penalties for fighting last year, but on Wednesday, their two designated tough guys weren't in the lineup. In fact, enforcers Colton Orr and Frazer McLaren weren't even on the team. The Leafs could only keep 23 players on their roster for the start of the season, and they opted to keep younger, more talented players like five-foot-eight forward Brandon Kozun over six-foot-three Orr and six-foot-five McLaren.
It's a stark change from last year's season opener between Montreal and Toronto, when Orr beat up Canadiens' tough guy George Parros. Parros lost the fight and struck his head on the ice, knocking him out cold in the middle of a nationally-televised game and touching off renewed conversations about violence in hockey.
Big changes for the league's top brawlers
When newly-named Leafs general manager Brian Burke held his inaugural press conference in November 2008, he listed three qualities he expected from his team: pugnacity, testosterone and truculence.
Burke was only a few years removed from winning a Stanley Cup as manager of the Anaheim Ducks, who triumphed despite leading the league in fighting penalties. He said he could transplant Anaheim's same black-and-blue blueprint to Toronto by signing players like Colton Orr. But the Leafs never made the playoffs under his watch and he was fired in 2013.
Now Burke is the boss of the Calgary Flames, a team loaded with fighters and expected to finish near the bottom of the league standings this season.
Meanwhile, the fighting trend seems to be passing Burke by.
Fighting on the decline
According to the website hockeyfights.com, fisticuffs have been on the decline for about five years now. There were 734 fights in the 2008-09 regular season, and that number declined every season since. Last year, players fought just 469 times.
The Leafs signaled a change in their approach by demoting Orr and McLaren, but they weren't the only team to get rid of their tough guys for the start of the season.
The Boston Bruins trailed only the Leafs in fighting last year, yet they allowed top brawler Shawn Thornton to leave via free agency in the summer. The Philadelphia Flyers fought third-most often last year, yet they demoted tough guys Jay Rosehill and Zack Stortini before this season started.
Tough scorers survive
More than half the teams in the NHL are expected to ice lineups without a designated enforcer, but that doesn't mean their players won't fight.
Most teams have at least one player who can both score goals and win fights, if need be. For instance, Dallas Stars scrapper Antoine Roussel had 11 fights last season to go with 14 goals and 29 points. Montreal's Brandon Prust had six goals, 13 points and 11`fights while killing a lot of penalties for the Canadiens, and Bruins winger Milan Lucic had seven fights along with an impressive 24 goals and 59 points.
Still plenty of fighters
Fighting may be on the decline, but there's not enough evidence yet to say it's on its way to extinction. The New York Islanders, Vancouver Canucks, Edmonton Oilers, Calgary Flames and San Jose Sharks all employ multiple tough guys, and a number of other teams still have at least one fighter who dropped the gloves more than 10 times last season.
