It's Enforcer Week at The Hockey News, and the Fantasy site ranks the top five players in banger leagues who contributed with their skill and their fists.
It's Enforcer Week at The Hockey News, and the Fantasy site ranks the top five players in banger leagues who contributed with their skill and their fists.
It’s Enforcer Week at The Hockey News!
Traditionally, the NHL’s most infamous pugilists have been ignored in fantasy hockey, which normally favors offensive categories. That’s changed in recent years, especially after the league started to officially track hits following the 2004-05 lockout.
By adding hits and blocked shots to the usual offensive categories, it’s added fantasy value to players who play lower in the lineup. Players who were previously ignored because they don't score any points now deserve some consideration, and it’s made fantasy hockey much more varied and challenging.
Even penalty minutes, once derided as a category that should be assigned a negative value due to its detrimental effect to the team, or otherwise completely omitted as a category, suddenly carries more value.
In fantasy hockey, we call players who excel in both the offensive and physical sides to the game as ‘bangers.’
Here are the top five bangers in the cap era, taking into consideration point production, penalty minutes, blocks, hits and fighting majors.
Dustin Byfuglien, D
Career: 869 GP. 177-348-525. 1,094 PIM. 786 Blocks. 1,897 Hits. 16 Fights.
Best season: 2015-16. 81 GP. 19-34-53. 119 PIM. 105 Blocks. 222 Hits. 1 Fight.
At his peak, ‘Big Buff’ was the most physically dominant player in the league. Don’t let the relatively small number of career fights fool you – nobody was dumb enough to take him on.
Who could ever forget the time Byfuglien pushed three players into the end boards, or the times he managed to rag doll two players at once? And the times he laid big hits on Milan Lucic and Chris Pronger?
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv4N773gVP0[/embed]
Byfuglien’s physical play overshadowed his equally outstanding game. In his best season in 2015-16, Byfuglien finished fifth among defensemen in goals (19), eighth in points (53), first in PIM (119) and sixth in hits (222). So far in the cap era, Byfuglien is only one of three defensemen to have recorded at least 100 goals and 1,000 penalty minutes, the other two being Zdeno Chara and Dion Phaneuf, who also makes this list.
Dion Phaneuf, D
Career: 1,048 GP. 137-357-494. 1,345 PIM. 1,372 Blocks. 2,058 Hits. 53 Fights.
Best season: 2007-08. 82 GP. 17-43-60. 182 PIM. 88 Blocks. 194 Hits. 10 Fights.
Phaneuf peaked early in his career, and the heights he reached were glorious. No defenseman in the league could punish his opponents both offensively and physically they way he did. Phaneuf's open-ice hits were the stuff of legends, including the famed ‘Double Dion’ at the 2005 World Juniors, which featured arguably the greatest Canadian team ever.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6v4-2a1lCU[/embed]
In just his third season, Phaneuf was just one of five defensemen to score at least 60 points early in the cap era when offense hadn’t exploded yet, and also ranked 16th in hits (194) and ninth in penalty minutes (182). He was the Norris Trophy runner-up, the only time he was a finalist in his highlight-filled, 14-year career.
Milan Lucic, LW
Career: 1,173 GP. 233-351-584. 1,299 PIM. 341 Blocks. 3,523 Hits. 88 Fights.
Best Season: 2010-11. 79 GP. 30-32-62. 121 PIM. 22 Blocks. 167 Hits. 7 Fights.
Lucic was a throwback to the power forwards of the ‘90s, and what better market for his rugged style than Boston, a city that never forgot its blue-collar roots? Despite a lack of footspeed and being diagnosed with Scheuermann's disease at 15, which caused his back to hunch, Lucic was a reliable second-line scorer with first-line nastiness.
Though Lucic would go on to record at least 200 hits in nine other seasons, the 2010-11 stands out as Lucic’s only 30-goal season, which led the Bruins and tied him for 28th in the league. He embodied the Bruins’ physical style while Patrice Bergeron’s career was just taking off, helping the Bruins end their 39-year championship drought that season.
David Backes, C/RW
Career: 965 GP. 248-313-561. 1,148 PIM. 610 Blocks. 2,617 Hits. 31 Fights.
Best Season: 2011-12. 82 GP. 24-30-54. 101 PIM. 72 Blocks. 226 Hits. 1 Fight.
The long-time Blues captain has had one of the most underrated careers in the cap era, and he should be considered one of the original bangers in fantasy hockey. The case for Backes? In the cap era, there have been only 13 instances of a player hitting the banger trifecta: a minimum of 20 goals, 100 penalty minutes and 200 hits. Backes alone did it four times.
During Backes’ 10-year peak from 2007 to 2017, he was a model of consistency. He missed an average of just 3.4 games per season, finished top-5 in Selke voting four times, and ranked 33rd in goals (213), 12th in penalty minutes (1,001) and fourth in hits (2,272). As an added bonus, Backes ranked seventh in blocked shots (531) among forwards to provide coverage in four categories.
Brady Tkachuk, LW
Career: 359 GP. 125-150-275. 493 PIM. 126 Blocks. 1,237 Hits. 27 Fights.
Best Season: 2022-23. 82 GP. 35-48-83. 126 PIM. 242 Hits. 8 Fights.
Remember the stat above with 13 instances of a player hitting the banger trifecta? Well, Tkachuk has done that three times already in his five-year career, making him the modern-day banger-league unicorn. Truly, there’s no other player like him in fantasy, with elite coverage in multiple categories. Tkachuk really stands out on this list because of his ability to score, finishing 25th in scoring last season.
At his current pace, Tkachuk’s going to be the most valuable banger league player ever. Since entering the league, Tkachuk already ranks 37th in goals, first in penalty minutes and first in hits among forwards.
Bonus:
Alex Ovechkin, LW
Career: 1,347 GP. 833-663-1485. 797 PIM. 459 Blocks. 3,110 Hits. 2 Fights
Best Season: 2007-08. 82 GP. 65-47-112. 40 PIM. 44 Blocks. 220 Hits. 0 Fights.
How could we forget Ovechkin? In both traditional fantasy and banger leagues, Ovechkin is the lone superstar who is elite in both formats. Since penalty minutes were a consideration for players on this list, Ovechkin falls a little short, but he makes up for it by being arguably the best goal scorer the league has ever seen.
It’s worth noting that Ovechkin’s hit totals have begun to decline in recent seasons, but since entering the league he ranks first in goals (obviously) and fourth in hits.