Enforcement is overrated. There is no such thing as a deterrent.
Look at the Toilet Seat boys. Jackeye is a true heavyweight, and their last 2 opponents behaved like he doesn't exist. Pare ran at Laine, injuring him. Another guy hurt Rickenbacher. Greig went after Dach late. Nobody acts like they're scared of Jackeye at all.
Watch the Leafs. Teams take runs at them as much as any other team, nobody is scared of Reaves.
Yeah, we don't want Tkachuk fighting. Guys like Ostapchuk, MacEwan, Hamonic and Kleven can handle the fights when they are needed, which isn't very often.
I agree with you deterence isn't really a thing.
But what is a real thing, is intimidation and setting the physical pace, and dominating physically.
You want a team that is capable of throwing it's weight around, and making the opponents second guess themselves.
You see it after a player gets hit too often, they start to give the puck up right away. They start just rimming it instead of making a play. They start trying to actually be second on the puck to avoid a hit.
We need to have total team toughness where if some guy takes a run at our players, our team doesn't all of a sudden play scared. We return the favour and show we won't back down.
To do that usually though, you need a couple of big dudes leading the way.
It's a simplistic view, but go watch the movie goon where the French dude is playing scared...then when someone kicks ass for him, it gives him confidence that his team has his back, so he doesn't play scared. Laugh all you want about it being a movie, but listen to any podcast with ex NHLers and they'll tell you intimidation is real, and team toughness to get through that is a huge advantage.
People don't want some mcgrattan in the lineup. They just want more hard nosed hockey players that can play a regular shift (don't need to be a 20 goal scorer) but know their role is to hit hit hit and wear down the opponent on the forecheck...and if the other team is fed up? Duck it, let's go. Drop the gloves.
No one is asking for staged fights. They're asking for tough hockey players that don't Give a second thought about engaging physically or fighting.
