NHL: The lost art of the goon

With the growth and the rise of young stars in the NHL, we keep seeing less and less goons in the NHL.

The talent that has been entering the league year in and year out is unmatched with stars like Connor McDavid, Jack Hughes, and Connor Bedard has been unmatched by any year in the NHL.

Those guys came into the league and started making a difference for their team at the age of 18, in a league of grown men.

With all this talent though, we are seeing less and less space for what used to be a staple on every team with the goon. The guy whose sole job was to muck it up in the corners, throw his body around and score no more than 25 points in a season.

These are the people who would always be the ones fighting, throwing the biggest hits (some probably not being legal) and more than likely spending the most time in the penalty box, but always held a special place in a fan’s heart.

If you look back before the 2000’s, every team had at least one of these teammates. The 70’s Flyers were called the “Broad Street Bullies,” because every single player was like this, but they had some players who could score like Bobby Clarke.

The organization built the team like that because they wanted every other team to not only know they played the Flyers, but felt that they played them. It worked as it led to back-to-back Stanley Cups in 1974 and 1975.

In today’s current game, the goon has become a lost art, with some teams not having any let alone one. You see them dissipate as the game evolves.

In 2020-2021 the league tried to crack down on fighting to help limit the spread of Covid-19, but also injuries and since then, you haven’t seen as much fighting, and big hits lead to a fight, even if it was clean.

The closest thing we have seen to a new career of a goon is Matt Rempe, who hasn’t been playing to be a goon, but yet brought in as a goon because of his stature. Rempe aims to be a scorer but only gets brought to the NHL when the Rangers play a team with a big fighter on their team.

Rempe came into the league at 6-foot-7 and everyone wanted to take down the big man with notable fighters like Ryan Reaves, Nick Deslauriers, and Tom Wilson all trying to fight him in his first couple games in the league.

Deslauriers, one of the last true goons along with Reaves, was signed in 2022 to a four-year contract worth $7 million strictly to be a gritty fourth liner. He has never amounted over 15 points in a single season and his high being 12 with the Flyers.

With the youth movement, he started getting scratched last season and has already been scratched 12 games this season to make room for the young guys to play.

Reaves is another whose career high in points was 20, and with both of them in their 30’s, the last leg of the goons are on their way out.

We have seen a little rise of the hybrid goons like Tom Wilson, and Matthew Tkachuk who are not afraid to get their hands dirty but are still going to produce offense for you.

Tkachuk even is a stretch trying to call him a hybrid goon though as he will fight and throw his body, but he has still scored over 100 points in a season twice and will usually get around a point per game every season.

Unfortunately, with the appealing rise of all the talent and the fancy goals like michigans are starting to phase out the goons. Everyone wants to be the Connor Bedards of the world and that leaves us with the loss of the goon on a hockey team.

Tristan Kunec is a fourth-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, please email tqk5432@psu.edu.