All-time hitters

[Hippasus]

How do Eddie Shore, Gordie Howe, Scott Stevens, Ulf Samuelsson, Darius Kasparaitis, Zdeno Chara, Niklas Kronwall, or Cal Clutterbuck figure in terms of all-time hitters? Are there others?

Edit: Perhaps Broad Street Bullies.

 

[Boxscore]

Hitters, as in body checkers?

Eric Lindros, Cam Neely, Bryan Marchment, Rich Pilon, Rick Tocchet, Vladimir Konstantinov, Wendel Clark...

 

[Hippasus]

Hitters, as in body checkers?

Eric Lindros, Cam Neely, Bryan Marchment, Rich Pilon, Rick Tocchet, Vladimir Konstantinov, Wendel Clark...

Right, I'm not talking about fighting.

Good suggestion on Konstantinov, I was just about to add him to my list. Maybe Matt Martin and Alex Ovechkin as well.

 

[Hippasus]

Rob Blake hip check. Chris Pronger, punisher.

 

[Crosby2010]

Larry Robinson, Denis Potvin, Dion Phaneuf in the first part of his career was pretty much unanimously known as a heavy hitter.

Bob Baun, Tim Horton come to mind too.

 

[carjackmalone]

Leo Boivin

 

[DaaaaB's]

Mark Tinordi and Steve Chiasson were big hitters who haven't been mentioned. Ed Jovanovski was another especially early in his career.

 

[Hippasus]

Just an example. Although, with the hitter falling, he also took himself out of the play, but still less than the other guy.



EDIT: Actually Ruutu got up quicker. Still, plays like that can change the game for the hitter's team.

 

[Air Budd Dwyer]

Konstantinov's hit on Trent Klatt in the 97 Finals is one of my all time favorites. The way Klatt bounces off the ice lol.

 

[David Bruce Banner]

Quantity? Quality? Within the rules (as they were enforced at the time)?

Kiefer Sherwood just set the record for most hits (since hits have been tracked), but he wasn't out there crushing guys by any stretch of the imagination.
Raffi Torres was a cannonball but could often go over the line.
Stevens' destroyed guys and never got suspended for his hits.

A couple of guys I'd add would be Bob and Barclay Plager as well as Hilliard Graves who were all very active hit-wise and were masters of the hipcheck.

 

[Hippasus]

Quantity? Quality? Within the rules (as they were enforced at the time)?

Kiefer Sherwood just set the record for most hits (since hits have been tracked), but he wasn't out there crushing guys by any stretch of the imagination.
Raffi Torres was a cannonball but could often go over the line.
Stevens' destroyed guys and never got suspended for his hits.

A couple of guys I'd add would be Bob and Barclay Plager as well as Hilliard Graves who were all very active hit-wise and were masters of the hipcheck.

Good questions. I didn't really think about it, but probably should have. I'd say all of the above in terms of what I bolded from your post. Quality and strategic hitting should be significant factors. I think we should indeed judge relative to the context of the league at the time, and within the given rules at the time. Quantity is interesting, but perhaps not as significant as the other factors you mentioned.

 

[MadLuke]

In Konstantinov highlight, a lot of them were really good at being "clean", not touching the head first but still like many of those today would cause a whistle with the team trying to respond right away...