Long gone are the days of the legendary Bruise Brothers, consisting of the late Bob Probert along with Joe Kocur, patrolling the ice at Joe Louis Arena for the Detroit Red Wings nad forcing the opposition to constantly be looking over their shoulders.
Since those days, the Red Wings have employed multiple hard-nosed players who routinely brought the crowd to its feet when they dropped the gloves, including Brendan Shanahan, Darren McCarty, and Martin Lapointe.
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More names who were primarily known for their physicality during their time with the Red Wings included Jordin Tootoo and Aaron Downey, along with Brad May.
In terms of overall physicality, the current Red Wings rank near the bottom of all 32 NHL teams. According to a recent RotoWire ranking of team physicality, Detroit tied for 29th overall.
How were the rankings determined?
"We ranked teams based on total number of hits and fights from the 2024-25 season," the site explained. "The lower the average ranking, the higher the team was for both total fights and hits during the regular season."
Overall, the Red Wings had nine fights during the 2024-25 regular season, which included a bout from first-year Red Wings forward Austin Watson. Now-former Red Wings forwards Joe Veleno and Christian Fischer each dropped the gloves once, while Michael Rasmussen fought twice.
Additionally, defenseman Ben Chiarot fought once, as did Simon Edvinsson. Up front, 39-goal scorer Alex DeBrincat fought for the second consecutive season, while minor-league forward Dominik Shine did so during his call-up from the Grand Rapids Griffins.
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