Best swedish fighter

[sr edler]

Fredrik Oduya, Johnny's older brother, had tons of PIMs in the AHL & IHL around 1995–2000. The amount of PIMs you'll not collect only through minor high-sticking penalties (unless you're Alex Semin).

Whether he was a good fighter or not though, I have no idea.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

In the earlier eras of organized NA hockey staged fighting didn't exist. If you read early match reports it's often full of over-the-top violence, but there's never a moment (to my recollection) where two players drop their gloves to box each other, to settle a personal beef (or for P.T. Barnum reasons). Though I'm not saying it could never not have happened, it probably could have, I just don't remember it, and I read an unhealthy amount of pre-consolidation match reports. If something happened it was because players got mad at each other and slashed at each other, swung their sticks, or elbowed or hit each other spontaneously or in retaliation.

I haven't read a lot of post-consolidation stuff (1925–1990) but I have a suspicion here that the staged fighting could have something to do with the televised game. To me, it feels synonymous to the 90s goon era with the glowing puck. Synonymously cheap and fake and dumb.

i have a random theory i've never looked into and have no evidence for.

in the early days of hockey, and i think most of north american pro sports, athletes would have nicknames like the early pro wrestlers. all the babes, dye, pratt, siebert, ruth. cyclone taylor, king clancy, shrimp worters, moose johnson, racial slur johnson, and so on. i don't know that much about early wrestling, but i'm imagining it was all good guys named gorgeous george and heels named, idk, nasty ned. i think it was a period of north american culture where there wasn't that much distinction between watching guys play ball sports or ice hockey or boxing or fake fighting. it was all different kinds of pt barnum.

and i feel like what you're describing coming in the 70s, with dave the hammer schultz and tiger williams and into the 80s and 90s with knuckles nilan, missing link gaetz, shawn the barbarian cronin, the grim reaper stu grimson, iron mike peluso, charlie manson, and so on. it all gets very cartoony the way the WWF did during this time. gino odjick's two nicknames were the algonquin assassin and the maniwaki mauler. those were straight up wrestling names.

 

[sr edler]

i have a random theory i've never looked into and have no evidence for.

in the early days of hockey, and i think most of north american pro sports, athletes would have nicknames like the early pro wrestlers. all the babes, dye, pratt, siebert, ruth. cyclone taylor, king clancy, shrimp worters, moose johnson, racial slur johnson, and so on. i don't know that much about early wrestling, but i'm imagining it was all good guys named gorgeous george and heels named, idk, nasty ned. i think it was a period of north american culture where there wasn't that much distinction between watching guys play ball sports or ice hockey or boxing or fake fighting. it was all different kinds of pt barnum.

and i feel like what you're describing coming in the 70s, with dave the hammer schultz and tiger williams and into the 80s and 90s with knuckles nilan, missing link gaetz, shawn the barbarian cronin, the grim reaper stu grimson, iron mike peluso, charlie manson, and so on. it all gets very cartoony the way the WWF did during this time. gino odjick's two nicknames were the algonquin assassin and the maniwaki mauler. those were straight up wrestling names.

I think Tie Domi also went by the name "The Albanian Assassin".

 

[Your Boy Troy]

Johnny Oduya’s older brother, Fredrik, was a very tough minor-league enforcer. He tragically lost his life in a motorcycle accident at the age of 36.

Edit: Wow, I cannot believe I missed the post above. It was almost plagiarism.

 

[JackSlater]

Lilja wasn't a bad fighter. He made a huge mistake when he picked a fight with Weber though. That was a career changer I'm sure he regrets.

Jonathan Ericsson is a better answer though. He could handle himself quite well. He reminded Corey Perry that Swedes still have that Viking blood running through their veins.

Ericsson came to mind for me, as he was randomly a solid fighter.

 

[Iapyi]

The only Swedish enforcers I’ve ever known of, are Ulf Samuelsson and Douglas Murray, and I have a feeling many enforcers would be insulted by being lumped together with Ulfie.

LOL. He was a dirty cheap shot artist coward. Probably the farthest thing from an 'enforcer' one could imagine. Sorry dude.

Having a "fight" where you hold on for dear life because you're being taken to task for another slime ball chickenpoop move doesn't make someone an enforcer.

 

[alko]

Can we change it to "Best Europe fighter"? Because there isnt much to discuss with other countries.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

LOL. He was a dirty cheap shot artist coward. Probably the farthest thing from an 'enforcer' one could imagine. Sorry dude.

Having a "fight" where you hold on for dear life because you're being taken to task for another slime ball chickenpoop move doesn't make someone an enforcer.

That’s why I added that “I have a feeling many enforcers would be insulted by being lumped together with Ulfie“, but I could have been clearer, I should have used another word.

 

[Franck]

Can we change it to "Best Europe fighter"? Because there isnt much to discuss with other countries.

The list doesn't really get much longer if you widen it to all Europeans. It's basically Oliwa and Ivanans and that's it.

 

[sr edler]

Can we change it to "Best Europe fighter"? Because there isnt much to discuss with other countries.

Not even Chara is a very good fighter technical speaking, or practically speaking. He just does well because he's so tall and strong and such an athletically gifted wrestler, plus the fact that his era is less specialized in fighting which makes the competition generally weaker, plus the fact that he's got some kind of anger issues which often helps in less disciplined sluggish hockey fighting.

As soon as Chara is up against someone more specialized in fighting who can throw with him he always "loses" his balance (yes, I mean that he does it on purpose) and the fight is over.

 

[sr edler]

I think there's been a thread in the fighting section of this site on best (?) European fighters. It's basically Oliwa, Nazarov, Helenius, Koci, Ivanans and (perhaps) Chara.

Koci and Helenius were never regular NHL players though and none of them ever played a full NHL season.

Nazarov thrice played 60 or more games in the NHL.

Oliwa was actually a full time player for the Devils between 1997–2000, in the regular season. As soon as there were playoffs though he was gone, which goes to show his actual value. When the going got tough (as in higher quality of games/competition), the tough got benched.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

Can we change it to "Best Europe fighter"? Because there isnt much to discuss with other countries.

Here are the Europeans I could find with at least five fights in the NHL regular and postseason, you go ahead and go with it:

Krzysztof Oliwa: 167
Andrei Nazarov: 132
Zdeno Chara: 72
Ed Kastelic: 59*
Antoine Roussel: 56
Raitis Ivanans: 55
David Koci: 45
Jarkko Ruutu: 38
Igor Ulanov: 33
Jan Ludvig: 28
Olli Jokinen: 25
Ronald Petrovicky: 25
Sami Helenius: 24
Jiri Slegr: 25
Radko Gudas: 23
Roman Vopat: 23
Darius Kasparaitis: 21
Frantisek Musil: 21
Petr Svoboda: 21
Peter Stastny: 20
Ole-Kristian Tollefsen: 20
Luca Sbisa: 19
Roman Polak: 18
Uwe Krupp: 16
Pavel Kubina: 16
Michal Grosek: 15
Bobby Holik: 15
Timo Blomqvist: 14
Miroslav Frycer: 14
Vladimir Konstantinov: 14
Vladimir Malakhov: 14
Ladislav Smid: 14
Alexei Semenov: 13
Boris Valabik: 12
Ruslan Salei: 12
Rostislav Klesla: 11
Nikita Zadorov: 11
Evgeny Artyukhin: 10
Kari Eloranta: 10
Esa Tikkanen: 10
Josef Beranek: 9
Jiri Fischer: 9
Martin Hanzal: 9
Ilya Kovalchuk: 9
Marian Stastny: 9
Vaclav Varada: 9
Dainius Zubrus: 9
Evgeni Malkin: 8
Tuomo Ruutu: 8
Vladimir Sobotka: 8
Valeri Zelepukin: 8
Radek Faksa: 7
Ruslan Fedotenko: 7
Roman Hamrlik: 7
Ladislav Kohn: 7
Vladislav Namestnikov: 7
Jaroslav Pouzar: 7
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare: 6
Alexander Godynyuk: 6
Jannik Hansen: 6
Uli Hiemer: 6
Alexei Kasatonov: 6
Tomas Kloucek: 6
Dmitry Kulikov: 6
Ivan Majesky: 6
Josef Melichar: 6
Milan Michalek: 6
Boris Mironov: 6
Branko Radivojevic: 6
Michael Raffl: 6
Christian Ruuttu: 6
Dennis Seidenberg: 6
Alexander Svitov: 6
Vitaly Vishnevski: 6
Marek Zidlicky: 6
Maxim Afinogenov: 5
Christian Ehrhoff: 5
Alexei Emelin: 5
Jochen Hecht: 5
Andreas Martinsen: 5
Stan Neckar: 5
Petteri Nokelainen: 5
Alexander Selivanov: 5
Richard Smehlik: 5
John Tripp: 5**
Josef Vasicek: 5
Jakub Voracek: 5
Richard Zednik: 5
Alexei Zhitnik: 5

* Born and raised in Canada, but played several years for HK Olimpija Ljubljana and apparently represented Slovenia in the world championship qualifiers, age 35.
** Born and raised in Canada but represented Germany internationally.

 

[alko]

Not even Chara is a very good fighter technical speaking

Chara isnt a fighter, that is clear. Norris Trophy winner cant be a fighter.

Btw, this list above is very good. But could it be updated with games played?

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

Chara isnt a fighter, that is clear. Norris Trophy winner cant be a fighter.

Btw, this list above is very good. But could it be updated with games played?

Not now, not by me: but feel free to do it!

 

[Franck]

Oliwa was actually a full time player for the Devils between 1997–2000, in the regular season. As soon as there were playoffs though he was gone, which goes to show his actual value. When the going got tough (as in higher quality of games/competition), the tough got benched.

I remember Oliwa being mentioned in a thread about enforcers who weren't completely awful at hockey many years ago, there are many Devils fans on this forum who will know better but from what I remember he was described as a serviceable 4th liner, he wasn't a Brashear or Laraque by any means but he wasn't a wasted roster spot like a Boogaard or John Scott either.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

a wasted roster spot like a Boogaard

Hm.

 

[Phil McKraken]

I'm not really interested in fighting but it's a shame we don't get 'full' credit for Douglas Murray just because of his name, as if he's half Scottish or something. He has a Scottish ancestor from the 18th century, which makes him like 95% Swedish. He was a great fighter.

 

[Franck]

Hm.

Derek Boogaard did absolutely nothing well aside from punching faces, and by the end he didn't even do much of that as there wasn't anyone brave and stupid enough to try and fight him. He was the very definition of a pure enforcer who offered absolutely nothing else, on a team that actually wanted to play hockey and challenge for trophies a guy like that was a liability.

With that said, the guy was the best hockey fighter I ever saw and one of the scariest players I can remember, I had tremendous respect for him even though I didn't want players like him in the game.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

I remember Oliwa being mentioned in a thread about enforcers who weren't completely awful at hockey many years ago, there are many Devils fans on this forum who will know better but from what I remember he was described as a serviceable 4th liner, he wasn't a Brashear or Laraque by any means but he wasn't a wasted roster spot like a Boogaard or John Scott either.

to be fair, oliwa did play every playoff game on the '98 devils, which was a contender, finishing as the one seed in the east and two points out of the presidents trophy. they got upset in the first round, but still. the highlight of his series was probably inciting this melee after going out of his way to finish a check on denny lambert at the end of game 2.



(look at damien rhodes messing with odelein as he's pummelling jason york)

after falling out of nj's playoff lineups in '99 and '00, he did play a few cage rattling minutes a game in the flames' run to the finals in '04. he's playing between two and five minutes a game, so he's not really playing a regular fourth line shift, but he also got into zero fights and averaged almost a shot a game. icetime was roughly about where he was in the regular season and he got shots at a significantly higher clip. he's also not carrying many minuses (-1 in two games, +1 in one game, net -1) so he's probably also not auto-getting scored on if you're careful about when you put him out there.

i think it shows that there was a place for a guy like that on competitive playoff rosters at that time. maybe not on a larry robinson team,* but jacques lemaire and darryl sutter are pretty legit coaches too.


* although oliwa might have not played in the cup run because he was hurt. as per the new york post:

Oliwa said that being traded smacks of vindictiveness, although Lamoriello said he feared Oliwa would be grabbed in expansion. The league’s most feared fighter is barely walking, still rehabilitating from major left-knee surgery he underwent in April, contrary to the Devils’ wishes.

In order to join his teammates in celebrating their Stanley Cup Saturday on the Dallas ice, Oliwa said he had to purchase his own plane ticket, stay in a separate hotel and borrow a No. 29 jersey from a fan, since the Devils had not included him in their travels. His picture had long since been removed from the Meadowlands dressing room, and his name had been deleted from rosters and injury reports.

“This is not business. This is vindictive,” Oliwa told The Post.

Oliwa believes his trade yesterday was the fallout of his decision to seek a second opinion on his knee injury, which showed a full torn ACL and partially torn MCL, in addition to cartilage damage.

“I definitely think it’s the whole thing. He’s showing other people on the team, ‘I’m a very powerful man,'” Oliwa said. “How can an organization treat you like that when all you wanted to do was play hockey and get healthy?

“This is sad. I’m not hurt, because I expected to be traded. What bothers me is that I wasn’t included in the team, and I believe I deserved to be.”

Oliwa, 27, beat Lamoriello in salary arbitration last summer and was awarded a $700,000 contract. That seemed to be the beginning of his Devil end.

“How can you treat people that way?” Oliwa asked. “I could not have played without surgery. I tried to rehabilitate it and it didn’t respond. If I had known the fiasco it would cause, I would have let [New Jersey’s doctors] do the surgery.

“How this whole thing developed was a tragedy, the lowest thing I’ve ever experienced. I left the arena today in tears, telling the guys I’ve done nothing wrong.”

edit: yup confirmed

Knee surgery ends Oliwa's playoff run
Associated Press

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- New Jersey Devils enforcer Krzysztof Oliwa underwent surgery Tuesday on his left knee and will miss the remainder of the Stanley Cup playoffs.The right wing, who was hurt in November, missed the final three games of the regular season and New Jersey's opening round playoff sweep of the Florida Panthers.Oliwa had six goals, 10 assists and a team-high 184 penalty minutes in 69 games. In the past three years, he has accumulated 719 penalty minutes.

not to say he would definitely have played a regular shift but we also don't know that he wouldn't have played. if nothing else, lamoriello seems disappointed that he wasn't available to play.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

Derek Boogaard did absolutely nothing well aside from punching faces, and by the end he didn't even do much of that as there wasn't anyone brave and stupid enough to try and fight him. He was the very definition of a pure enforcer who offered absolutely nothing else, on a team that actually wanted to play hockey and challenge for trophies a guy like that was a liability.

With that said, the guy was the best hockey fighter I ever saw and one of the scariest players I can remember, I had tremendous respect for him even though I didn't want players like him in the game.

I hear you, and mostly agree, it’s just that the wording you chose had an unfortunate double meaning.

His tragic death, as well as those of Rypien and Belak, and we can continue adding names of players whose lives were severely altered and we’ve lost prematurely due to the horrible effects of CTE.

I don’t pray for the return of enforcers and I’m not a fan of fighting in the game, but I respect the players who made the NHL the way they did and by doing what was asked of them, no matter my feelings on what that entailed.

 

[NyQuil]

There's a player I remember because I needled my brother mercilessly about him when he was drafted and for years afterwards:

Niklas Sundblad who was drafted 19th overall by the Calgary Flames in 1991.

A big Flames fan at the time, he referred to him as a "Swedish enforcer" at which point (in my defence I was a younger lad) I burst out laughing.

For the Saint John Flames in 1991, he put up 151 PIM in 72 GP. I'm not sure how many of them were fights.

He only ended up playing 2 games in the NHL for the Calgary Flames. In his European career, he seemed to put up PIMs wherever he went.

I'm not sure if any of our Swedish-affiliated posters can shed some additional light.

 

[Yozhik v tumane]

There's a player I remember because I needled my brother mercilessly about him when he was drafted and for years afterwards:

Niklas Sundblad who was drafted 19th overall by the Calgary Flames in 1991.

A big Flames fan at the time, he referred to him as a "Swedish enforcer" at which point (in my defence I was a younger lad) I burst out laughing.

For the Saint John Flames in 1991, he put up 151 PIM in 72 GP. I'm not sure how many of them were fights.

He only ended up playing 2 games in the NHL for the Calgary Flames. In his European career, he seemed to put up PIMs wherever he went.

I'm not sure if any of our Swedish-affiliated posters can shed some additional light.

I’m sorry, but I only remember him as Örebro’s coach.

I see that he had quite solid offensive stats in the Swedish league for a couple of years. Few players put up p/g seasons here mind you, but 20+ goals and 30+ points is solid, and was in those 1998-2000 seasons as well. His 104 PIMs were good for 3rd most in the league in 1998-99.

I think that back then still, you were automatically ejected for throwing your gloves to fight. You got 5 for fighting with your gloves on, if I recall correctly, but if he threw his gloves even once, I believe it would have accounted for 20 or 25 of his PIMs those years.

I was about 10-11 and went to a lot of Luleå home games at the turn of the millennium, but rarely did I learn the names of opposing players, besides some of the more notorious ones. We faced Malmö in the 2000 playoffs but my strongest memory from that series was that Jonathan Hedström summarized one of the games with “Vi pissade på dem” / “We pissed on them”.

This gave birth to a chant among our fans to based on the ”Guantanamera” song: ”Pissa på Malmö / Ja vi ska pissa på Malmö / Pissa på Maaalmööö / Ja vi ska pissa på Maaalmööö”.

 

[crobro]

Sasha Lakovic

 

[sr edler]

Sasha Lakovic

He only played European on film, as Boris Mikhailov in the 2004 biopic Miracle.

 

[Plural]

Certainly the best Swedish born fighter. As far as fighters raised in Sweden, there's not much to choose from. At least the Finns had Sami Helenius.

Is Helenius the only pure goon that's from Swe/Fin? I can't think of anyone else.