Worst enforcer of all time

[Buffaloed]

My vote goes to Keith Magnusson. At the beginning of every season Blackhawks announcers would talk about how he spent his offseason learning how to box, learning karate, jujitsu, krav magna. They'd talk about the pros he trained with and how this was the season he'd rain down the pain. Then he'd proceed to go out on the ice and get his ass kicked by some kid called up from the AHL.

He wasn't a bad fighter, but all that training and preparation went out the window as soon as the gloves came off. He certainly wasn't an enforcer, but this is a guy that loved to fight and stood up for his teammates.

He died young and it had nothing to do with CTA. RIP Keith.

On December 15, 2003, Rob Ramage was driving Magnuson to an NHLPA players' alumni meeting when his rented Chrysler Intrepid swerved into the oncoming lane and collided with another vehicle, killing Magnuson and injuring the driver of the other vehicle. Ramage was charged with impaired driving causing death and dangerous driving causing death. Defence lawyer Brian Greenspan claimed the blood and urine tests were flawed, and the smell of alcohol came from beer cans that exploded after the crash.[2]
On October 10, 2007, Ramage was found guilty on all counts. The Magnuson family had forgiven Ramage and urged the judge not to send him to prison, instead suggesting that Ramage speak to teens about the dangers of drinking and driving.[2] On December 3, 2007, in a Missouri civil suit, Ramage and National Car Rental of Canada were found liable for the death of Magnuson. The family of Magnuson was awarded $9.5 million.[2] On January 17, 2008, Ramage was sentenced to four years in prison. Legal experts described the sentence as the harshest ever handed out in Ontario to a motorist with no previous record for drinking and driving. Ramage remained free on bail until his appeal of the sentence was denied on July 12, 2010.[3]
On November 12, 2008, the Chicago Blackhawks retired Magnuson's number 3, along with that of Hall of Fame defenceman Pierre Pilote, before a game against the Boston Bruins.

 

[Boreal01]

Warren Rychel led the league in fighting majors in 92-93 and finished 3rd in 93-94 but found himself on the receiving end of numerous beatdowns

 

[Sheppy]

Andrei Nazarov for me.

 

[Boreal01]

Tom Kostopoulos was always more than willing to drop the gloves but he got manhandled several times throughout his career

 

[ShelbyZ]

I feel like this needs more context.

Are we talking about enforcers in the official sense as a guy whose role was to play that policeman for the team? Or just any player who regularly fought?

And are we talking about the worst enforcer in terms of being bad at "enforcing" (Georges Laraque with the Canadiens comes to mind....), or an official enforcer or simply someone who fought a lot but was bad at fighting?

But I guess to cover all of them:

Actual "enforcer" bad at "enforcing" - Canadiens Georges Laraque, or maybe someone like a Brent Severyn - who would be in a decent list of big guys who reluctantly took on the role of "enforcer" to stick in the NHL

Actual "enforcer" bad at fighting - Jay Caufield?

Guys who weren't actually "enforcers" but fought quite a bit despite being bad at it - That's a long list... Kelly Buchberger, the aforementioned Kostopoulos, a couple of Wings examples in Jamie Pushor and Justin Abdelkader.

 

[MS]

Jim Cummins was a guy who lasted 500 games in the NHL as both a bad player who was a liability on the ice and as an 'enforcer' who seemed to lose every fight and had no reputation or street cred whatsoever. Basically just a guy you dressed to say you were dressing someone who would fight. Not dissimilar to Brent Severyn who was mentioned above.

In the 80s/90s there were fighters who could play, fighters who could fight, and .... fighters who were just there to lose to the other team's goon if it was required.

 

[PavelBure10]

Tough call because you have players who drop their gloves but shouldn't (Odgers, Buchberger, and Kostopoulus), but are well respected amongst their teammates simply because they're soldiers and willing to sacrifice their body in order to win.
I always admired Buchberger because he was willing to take on Vancouver's tough guys, he'd usually always end up on the losing end of things, but he'd atleast have the stones to do it.

The worst enforcer would have to be a player who most likely costs you the game by a incredibly stupid play on or off the ice. Billy Tibbetts would be a player who I would find it incredibly hard to back as a teammate. While Trevor Gillies was tough, but he was crazy and incredibly stupid on the ice. Probably costed his team, a game or two, or 10.

 

[The Winter Soldier]

Good question and thread. A good enforcer should be a deterrent to players taking liberties on your players. You have to be an intimidating fighter, or have the presence to intimidate.

Guys that were not particularly good enforcers that I recall were.

Jim Cummings
Torrie Robertson
Paul Baxter
Sean Avery
Krzysztof Oliwa
Randy Holt
Warren Rychel
Alan May
Nick Kypreos
Todd Fedoruk
Mike Brown

 

[ShelbyZ]

Jim Cummins was a guy who lasted 500 games in the NHL as both a bad player who was a liability on the ice and as an 'enforcer' who seemed to lose every fight and had no reputation or street cred whatsoever. Basically just a guy you dressed to say you were dressing someone who would fight. Not dissimilar to Brent Severyn who was mentioned above.

I always find it funny how Cummins is likely a really strange outlier if you made a list of guys that completely retired from pro hockey for at least a full year, then returned straight to the NHL level and stayed there for the rest of their careers.

Man that 03-04 Avs team was so weird.

 

[SML2]

Aaron Voros and Derek Dorsett are two that used to drive me nuts. They were like a couple of Vaccum cleaners that would suck all the momentum in the building up and empty it out at the other teams bench by choosing the key moment to go out there and get absolutely whalloped on by guys who weren't even that tough and the other teams fans would go crazy. It was a phenomenon. Those two may as well have been paid by the other team they were so effective at helping them.

 

[ShelbyZ]

Good question and thread. A good enforcer should be a deterrent to players taking liberties on your players. You have to be an intimidating fighter, or have the presence to intimidate.

Guys that were not particularly good enforcers that I recall were.

Jim Cummings
Torrie Robertson
Paul Baxter
Sean Avery
Krzysztof Oliwa
Randy Holt
Warren Rychel
Alan May
Nick Kypreos
Todd Fedoruk
Mike Brown

While I agree that a team would be in trouble if Avery was the guy they chose to rely on to do what you described above, I don't think enforcer was ever really his "role". Save for his short stint in Detroit (depending on whether someone considers McCarty an enforcer or not - see below), every team Avery played on usually had at least one if not a couple of heavyweight guys that could handle the job of enforcer (off the top of my head... Parros, Ivanans, Orr, Barch, Brashear, Boogaard among others), which allowed him to play that pest/agitator role that he excelled at. I don't really recall Avery ever doing more than trash talking with an actual "enforcer" and most of his fights came against guys closer to his weight class that played a similar role or a good/useful player from the other team that was pissed off enough at Avery to want to take themselves off the ice for at least 5 minutes to feed him a couple of fists.

----------------------------

At the risk of getting absolutely roasted by my favorite team's fanbase, I feel like the aforementioned McCarty is a debatable name for this thread if we're talking about the role of enforcer. While he probably isn't the worst and there's no question the guy could fight and fully deserves the hero status he has in Detroit for settling the score with Lemieux and the Avs, I sometimes question when he often gets retrospectively labeled a "Red Wings Enforcer".

Whether that was ever his intended role or not, he did kind of have to defacto take it on at certain points and I'm not really certain whether he was ever really "effective" in that role. After the Wings waived and lost Grimson, their pugilist duties were handled by a committee mostly consisting of McCarty, Shanahan, Lapointe and a punching bag Jamie Pushor. The Wings took a bunch of heat for liberties being taken against them, especially against tougher teams like Chicago at the time, until they finally brought back Joe Kocur. From then until the groin injury that ultimately ended his career, Kocur assumed the enforcer duties. The Wings even kept the spot open for Kocur (who was still under contract) to hopefully return in 99-00 before shutting him down right before the playoffs. He was even around for camp in 00-01 before he decided to officially retire and join the coaching staff right before the season started. At this point, McCarty had to take on the "enforcer" role until the Wings gave it to their powerplay for the first couple years after the lockout (their words, not mine).

Between Kocur leaving and the Wings loading up with more future HOFer's in the 01 offseason, they had some struggles at times against the grinding Stars in the regular season, and got eliminated twice by an Avalanche team that made toughness a huge priority after they got bested in that department by the Wings in '97. After the Wings won the Cup in 2002, it wasn't exactly a secret that the only thing intimidating about them was the amount of skill they had up and down the line-up, despite still having McCarty on the roster as their "enforcer". Something that Joe Kocur was quick to point out in a recent podcast interview when asked about his Bobby Knight impression performed while an assistant coach with the Wings during a 2003 game against the Blues, where St. Louis decided to send a message late in a lopsided game and guys like Kris Draper and Luc Robitaille had to answer the bell.

IIRC, McCarty took on an enforcer role in Calgary and wasn't great at it there.

And again, I'm not talking about his fighting ability, but his effectiveness in the role of enforcer.

 

[The Winter Soldier]

While I agree that a team would be in trouble if Avery was the guy they chose to rely on to do what you described above, I don't think enforcer was ever really his "role". Save for his short stint in Detroit (depending on whether someone considers McCarty an enforcer or not - see below), every team Avery played on usually had at least one if not a couple of heavyweight guys that could handle the job of enforcer (off the top of my head... Parros, Ivanans, Orr, Barch, Brashear, Boogaard among others), which allowed him to play that pest/agitator role that he excelled at. I don't really recall Avery ever doing more than trash talking with an actual "enforcer" and most of his fights came against guys closer to his weight class that played a similar role or a good/useful player from the other team that was pissed off enough at Avery to want to take themselves off the ice for at least 5 minutes to feed him a couple of fists.

----------------------------

At the risk of getting absolutely roasted by my favorite team's fanbase, I feel like the aforementioned McCarty is a debatable name for this thread if we're talking about the role of enforcer. While he probably isn't the worst and there's no question the guy could fight and fully deserves the hero status he has in Detroit for settling the score with Lemieux and the Avs, I sometimes question when he often gets retrospectively labeled a "Red Wings Enforcer".

Whether that was ever his intended role or not, he did kind of have to defacto take it on at certain points and I'm not really certain whether he was ever really "effective" in that role. After the Wings waived and lost Grimson, their pugilist duties were handled by a committee mostly consisting of McCarty, Shanahan, Lapointe and a punching bag Jamie Pushor. The Wings took a bunch of heat for liberties being taken against them, especially against tougher teams like Chicago at the time, until they finally brought back Joe Kocur. From then until the groin injury that ultimately ended his career, Kocur assumed the enforcer duties. The Wings even kept the spot open for Kocur (who was still under contract) to hopefully return in 99-00 before shutting him down right before the playoffs. He was even around for camp in 00-01 before he decided to officially retire and join the coaching staff right before the season started. At this point, McCarty had to take on the "enforcer" role until the Wings gave it to their powerplay for the first couple years after the lockout (their words, not mine).

Between Kocur leaving and the Wings loading up with more future HOFer's in the 01 offseason, they had some struggles at times against the grinding Stars in the regular season, and got eliminated twice by an Avalanche team that made toughness a huge priority after they got bested in that department by the Wings in '97. After the Wings won the Cup in 2002, it wasn't exactly a secret that the only thing intimidating about them was the amount of skill they had up and down the line-up, despite still having McCarty on the roster as their "enforcer". Something that Joe Kocur was quick to point out in a recent podcast interview when asked about his Bobby Knight impression performed while an assistant coach with the Wings during a 2003 game against the Blues, where St. Louis decided to send a message late in a lopsided game and guys like Kris Draper and Luc Robitaille had to answer the bell.

IIRC, McCarty took on an enforcer role in Calgary and wasn't great at it there.

And again, I'm not talking about his fighting ability, but his effectiveness in the role of enforcer.

Yeah, I can see why some would not consider Avery as an Enforcer. He's a tweener, that perhaps fits closer to an agitator who will drop the gloves.

I can say McCarty as an opposing fan I was aware of, but, he did not strike the fear in opposing teams as Kocur or Probert did. Speaking of those 2, I don't think that tandem can be matched in terms of enforcing. Have to give Mcguire a lot of credit for fighting Yzerman, and knowing the consequences of that decision.

To me the best enforcers are players that don't have to drop the gloves. I have read and heard stories of how Semenko could just go to an opposing bench and say 'do you guys really want me to take a suspension'? Domi was another guy who was super effective. He had a reputation of going off the rails, and players were weary of this. Also I heard if a team was taking liberties with star players, he would let the opposing team know, if you touch player A again, your star player A is going to get it.

As for my list, as a fan the guys I mentioned were not much of a deterrent. They neither struck fear or were erratic enough to be effective enforcers.

 

[Puck Dogg]

Sami Helenius. He wasn't very good fighter and his defeat to Laraque shows that.

 

[vandymeer13]

Sami Helenius. He wasn't very good fighter and his defeat to Laraque shows that.

Sami was a pretty tough fighter. Getting tuned up by a prime mad Laraque isn't nothing to be shamed about, and he ate that punch like a champ.
Worst enforcer to me is a guy who forgets his job, and doesn't fight when he should. John Scott when he was a hawk was one of those guys who should of forced the issue more. He did get better when he went to Buffalo but that brawl he sparked didn't really do much. He should of piss pounded Kessel instead he never landed anything and then was tied up meanwhile his teammate Brian Flynn got tuned up. It did start a good rivalry the rest of the year though. But like others said Big George would ask you to fight and if you said no he wouldn't run other guys or force the issue so that would make him less effective. Then you had guys who sometimes would score a goal and forget they were enforcers . But being a bad fighter doesn't make you a bad enforcer. Jim Cummins always answered the bell and knew when to mix it up.

 

[The Head Crusher]

My first thought was Raitis Ivanans.

First NHL fight is up against Chara and he loses a tooth and is cut up in the fight.

While according to hockeyfights he scored a near .500 winning percentage, those wins often came against smaller opponents. When it came to the true enforceres of the era he was often schooled.

Also this is mostly based off of how MacIntyre basically ended his NHL career (and his job was to counter MacIntyre).

 

[Your Boy Troy]

For how good of a fighter he was, I always thought that Brashear was pretty lousy at his role at times.

It is not great for the team morale to see him refuse to fight Brian McGrattan then proceeded to drop the mitts with Chris Neil at an even more inopportune time. That, along with bailing out of fights was disgraceful.

Georges Laraque was far too timid and diplomatic as an enforcer. If he had a mean streak in his game, he would have been as intimidating as Tony Twist or Bob Probert.

Paul Mulvey infamously had his career ended for refusing to fight when ordered to do so (which is a shitty thing to do as a coach). After that, he was completely ostracized from the league.

 

[Alexander the Gr8]

A modern take of this is Austin Watson.

He's not a bad player and has been in a lot of fights, but he gets his ass kicked in about 90% of his fights. He has the balls to go up against guys like Lucic, Wilson, Reaves or Thornton but they take him behind the woodshed every time.

The only way Watson can get a draw or a win is if he fights skilled guys like Landeskog.

 

[ManofSteel55]

Sami Helenius. He wasn't very good fighter and his defeat to Laraque shows that.

Oh lord, did he even throw a punch? That's the definition of "hang on for the ride and hope it ends soon".

 

[FMichael]

Cam Russel…I believe he had “Everlast” tattooed on his forehead.

 

[Garl]

Some strange picks here. Ivanans? Oliwa? Helenius? All decent fighters

 

[Negan4Coach]

Tom Kostopoulos was always more than willing to drop the gloves but he got manhandled several times throughout his career

YES.

As a Hurricanes fan, that guy embarrassed the team for the couple years he was with us and got beat like a goddamned gong each and every time. It was shameful.

 

[tarheelhockey]

YES.

As a Hurricanes fan, that guy embarrassed the team for the couple years he was with us and got beat like a goddamned gong each and every time. It was shameful.

See, when I think Hurricanes the first one that comes to mind is Kevin Westgarth. At least Kostopoulos was game. Westgarth (who was a much bigger man than TK) seemed to think he could just stand there and stare at an opponent and that made everything square. He went 11 months without actually fighting anyone before they finally traded him away. For a team that was already way too soft and had brought Westgarth in to get tougher, that was just sad and borderline offensive in a "just here to cash a paycheck" sort of way.

 

[GMR]

See, when I think Hurricanes the first one that comes to mind is Kevin Westgarth. At least Kostopoulos was game. Westgarth (who was a much bigger man than TK) seemed to think he could just stand there and stare at an opponent and that made everything square. He went 11 months without actually fighting anyone before they finally traded him away. For a team that was already way too soft and had brought Westgarth in to get tougher, that was just sad and borderline offensive in a "just here to cash a paycheck" sort of way.

He probably didn't know fighting was allowed while wearing a Hurricanes jersey. Much like Detroit, they went totally soft after the 90's and rarely dressed enforcers. I remember Boulerice and Brookbank, but not much after that. Even those two didn't play much.

 

[tarheelhockey]

He probably didn't know fighting was allowed while wearing a Hurricanes jersey. Much like Detroit, they went totally soft after the 90's and rarely dressed enforcers. I remember Boulerice and Brookbank, but not much after that. Even those two didn't play much.

And Boulerice is only remembered for getting KTFO by Downey.

 

[Negan4Coach]

See, when I think Hurricanes the first one that comes to mind is Kevin Westgarth. At least Kostopoulos was game. Westgarth (who was a much bigger man than TK) seemed to think he could just stand there and stare at an opponent and that made everything square. He went 11 months without actually fighting anyone before they finally traded him away. For a team that was already way too soft and had brought Westgarth in to get tougher, that was just sad and borderline offensive in a "just here to cash a paycheck" sort of way.

So I thought about mentioning him, but I did look him up on Hockey Fights a while back he had a few fights for us early on, and won them all decisively.

But yeah, he was hired specifically to make the Canes tougher and he didn't fight anywhere near as much as he was paid to and then stopped all together. Pathetic. As I like to mention, this is a theme with everybody they bring in for "toughness" and then they don't act as tough once they get to Raleigh. My theory is the culture of hockey toughness is denuded by the tech and collegiate heavy population here, whereas the working class lunchpail fanbase in say, Philly, would never tolerate it.

But watching Kostopolus just get speed-bagged every time drove me nuts.