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Grittiest Leafs player all-time

saltming

saltming

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Oct 6, 2015
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I didn't want to hijack the other gritty player thread but I'm curious to here who everybody thinks of when they think all-time Leads grit grinder is.
For me names like Bower Salming Yushkevich come to mind right away.

Who do you have?
 
there's different kinds of gritty. A small-ish rat-like player (Darcy Tucker)
or
a pure enforcer/tough-guy/fighter (Tie Domi)
or
a usually-underskilled but pure battler (Yushkevich is a great one)

Players that come to mind (say, post 1977ish for me, memory, that I saw play) - my top 5:

1) Wendel Clark/Doug Gilmour - probably the best at representing your question.

2) Tiger Williams - he'd be an internet sensation if he played today. So much personality and intense on the ice, imagine Wendel Clark (not as skilled) but with a personality like Brett Hull (no-filter). I'd worry about him with Twitter and Instagram!

3) Bob McGill - unspectacular on the ice but very tough - pure grinder

4) Todd Gill - Underrated fighter and grinder

5) Gary Roberts - though he didn't play that long for the Leafs
 
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IBeL34f said:
I'm showing my age, but the grittiest guys in my lifetime have been Clark, Gilmour, Yushkevich, Tucker, Domi, Roberts, Corson and Stumpy Thomas.

Tucker was the first name that came to my mind when I saw the thread title, though.
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How could I forget Tucker? A perfect storm of grit and psychopathic tendencies hahaha
When we acquired Corson Tucker went to another level!
Love the Gilmour and stumpy adds too.
 
redbull said:
there's different kinds of gritty. A small-ish rat-like player (Darcy Tucker)
or
a pure enforcer/tough-guy/fighter (Tie Domi)
or
a usually-underskilled but pure battler (Yushkevich is a great one)

Players that come to mind (say, post 1977ish for me, memory, that I saw play) - my top 5:

1) Wendel Clark/Doug Gilmour - probably the best at representing your question.

2) Tiger Williams - he'd be an internet sensation if he played today. So much personality and intense on the ice, imagine Wendel Clark (not as skilled) but with a personality like Brett Hull (no-filter). I'd worry about him with Twitter and Instagram!

3) Bob McGill - unspectacular on the ice but very tough - pure grinder

4) Todd Gill - Underrated fighter and grinder

5) Gary Roberts - though he didn't play that long for the Leafs
Click to expand...
Wendel is also a good one. And good distinction. I thought of Clark as a skilled fighter. He was the toughest guy on the team for a while.
 
saltming said:
Wendel is also a good one. And good distinction. I thought of Clark as a skilled fighter. He was the toughest guy on the team for a while.
Click to expand...

Sometimes I wish I could go back and watch those older games of the mid-late 70s. I remember how good Salming was but purely skill, passing, generating offense. I never thought of him as "tough" but he really took a lot of abuse and still performed. Gilmour was the ultimate competitor but really tiny and Clark was a 6'5" bruiser in a 5'10" frame. (I walked by him once downtown, he was maybe in his early 30s, you'd never guess this guy demolished people in hockey)
 
dave-williams-1977-38.jpg
 
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“All time” does not mean “since I became a fan” or”since I personally can remember,” or the equivalent. It would be more accurate to put something like the last two qualifiers in the original post, rather than “all time.” Some posters are recognizing that in their responses. Thank you.

But here are a couple of candidates: “Since I personally can remember” it would probably be Bob Baun. I can’t think of a grittier performance than playing an overtime period in 1964 when the Leafs were down 3-2 in games in the Stanley Cup finals.... on a broken leg. Baun had his ankle frozen, laced his skates extra tight and scored the series saving game winner.

“All time,” might be Hall of Famer Red Horner, who led the league in penalty minutes seven times during the thirties and held the record for most penalty minutes in a career until the late fifties. My late father was coached by Red Horner. He said Horner used to joke about having to finish the fights that King Clancy started with his mouth. That alone kept him busy!
 
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I was a bit too young to remember Gilmour vividly, but out of the guys I can remember well it would be Roberts and Tucker.

Roberts was always giving 110% in the playoffs pre-lockout and Tucker was Tucker.

I know the Leafs were beginning to swoon, but I'll always remember Tucker being injured in a suit and coming down to ice level after (I think it was) Kaberle took that dirty hit. The team on the ice barely raised an eyebrow, and there's Tucker nearly coming onto the ice in a suit.
 
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Another possibility would be Syl Apps, a leading candidate for greatest as well as grittiest Leaf of all time. Conn Smythe memorably stated “You can’t beat them on the ice if you can’t beat them in the alley.” Smythe claimed that he was talking about toughness, not just fighting and stated that he was thinking about Apps when he said that. Apps was a Lady Byng trophy winner and had only three fights in his career. In one of them, Boston tough guy Flash Hollet high sticked Apps, knocking out two teeth. Apps dropped him to the ice unconscious with one punch.
 
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67Cup said:
“All time” does not mean “since I became a fan” or”since I personally can remember,” or the equivalent. It would be more accurate to put something like the last two qualifiers in the original post, rather than “all time.” Some posters are recognizing that in their responses. Thank you.

But here are a couple of candidates: “Since I personally can remember” it would probably be Bob Baun. I can’t think of a grittier performance than playing an overtime period in 1964 when the Leafs were down 3-2 in games in the Stanley Cup finals.... on a broken leg. Baun had his ankle frozen, laced his skates extra tight and scored the series saving game winner.

“All time,” might be Hall of Famer Red Horner, who led the league in penalty minutes seven times during the thirties and held the record for most penalty minutes in a career until the late fifties. My late father was coached by Red Horner. He said Horner used to joke about having to finish the fights that King Clancy started with his mouth. That alone kept him busy!
Click to expand...
I have to agree with the Baun nomination. Horner is up there too but I've seen way more of Baun. I wonder if YouTube would have anything on Horner?
 
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67Cup said:
Another possibility would be Syl Apps, a leading candidate for greatest as well as grittiest Leaf of all time. Conn Smythe memorably stated “You can’t beat them on the ice if you can’t beat them in the alley.” Smythe claimed that he was talking about toughness, not just fighting and stated that he was thinking about Apps when he said that. Apps was a Lady Byng trophy winner and had only three fights in his career. In one of them, Boston tough guy Flash Hollet high sticked Apps, knocking out two teeth. Apps dropped him to the ice unconscious with one punch.
Click to expand...

You sure Hollett was considered a tough guy? Not arguing just inquiring as nothing I recall reading indicated that. He was a fast player who was the first dman to score 20 goals in a season [in 50 games] and he didn't get a lot of PIMs.
 
There’s gritty players who could play, like Clark, Tucker, Yuskevich and Roberts.

Then, there’s a whole other category of just plain old goons, which my profile name is a tribute towards.

Off the top of my head, here’s the more pure goons I can remember:

Tie Domi (although he could play a bit)
John Kordic
Brian Curran
Bob Halkidis
Warren Rychel
Ken Baumgartner
Colton Orr
Kyle McLaren
 
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