The Era of the Tough Guy.

As we all now know, one of the most feared tough guys in the NHL, Bob Probert, passed away recently. In his memory i have decided to write an article on the era, or evolution if you will, of the tough guy.

In the beginning of the tough guy era it was all about size, and not so much in regards to actual skill, don't get me wrong, you have to have great skill to make the NHL no matter what your role is. In the beginning and for quite some time though, if you were a tough guy, all you had to do was pick a fight and use your size in order to create big glass shattering hits. Teams would fill up holes in their rosters with big tough goons in order to protect their star players, an example being all the guys that were plugged in beside Gretzky in order to keep him safe from the opposing teams goons.




Unfortunately, due to the salary cap, this era of big goons that are out there only for protection and fighting, is over. Now, the tough guy is not only someone who mixes it up, but if he wants to play in the NHL, he better damn well know how to score some goals. This is because in today's salary cap era, teams can't afford to just stick in tough guys who just skate around fighting and smashing guys into the boards. If a team wants a tough guy, they have to make sure its money well spent, and that he can also plot a dozen or so goals a season. The best example i can think of, being a Canucks fan, is Dustin Byfuglien. Byfuglien was used as a big body in front of the net in order to screen goaltenders and gobble up rebounds. It seems that because of the salary cap, tough guys are now the one who sit in front of nets and shoot in rebounds, hate it or love it, its just the way the tough guy has evolved.