Ranking the NHL's fighters

by James Mirtle on Nov 5, 2009 1:55 PM CST Comment 12 comments

If you haven't been stopping by stats man Gabe Desjardins's pad lately, you'd be well-served to do so. He's banging out some good stuff over there.

The latest is a system of ranking fighters, one that comes up with Georges Laraque as the NHL's top heavyweight. Here's the list based on the past three seasons:

Player	Ft	In	Wt	Fights	W	L	T	GP	Fts/82
Georges Laraque	6	3	253	30	24	3	3	177	13.9
D.J. King	6	3	229	22	16	2	4	89	20.3
Derek Boogaard	6	8	257	29	21	6	2	133	17.9
Donald Brashear	6	3	234	37	23	9	5	220	13.8
Wade Belak	6	5	225	28	17	7	4	165	13.9
Milan Lucic	6	3	228	24	18	4	2	149	13.2
Aaron Downey	6	1	215	15	9	1	5	81	15.2
Raitis Ivanans	6	4	256	39	21	11	7	215	14.9
Colton Orr	6	3	222	52	31	16	5	209	20.4
Eric Godard	6	4	214	44	20	15	9	164	22.0

I'm afraid I don't quite get how the ELO rating system is coming into play here, but anything that uses chess to rank hockey fighters is all right by me.

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As a Leafs fan, i’m contractually obligated to pull for Orr…

but Boogaard scares the absolute sh1t out of me.

by birky on Nov 5, 2009 3:24 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

No love for Brad Staubitz or Jody Shelley?

"It ain't over till it's over." - Yogi Berra

by 49er16 on Nov 5, 2009 4:04 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Shark fan bias!

Jody Shelley doesn’t exactly have the best W/L record and Brad Staubitz is only known based on one fight (the really, really awesome time when he beat up Jordin Tootoo non-sharks fans).

-The dude responsible for this mess

by idunno723 on Nov 5, 2009 5:43 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

The real best fighter

Is someone Gabe mentions as one of his infrequent fights with a solid record…..it’s Zdeno Chara, and it’s not even close.

I think the only person in the NHL who would stand a chance against Chara on a regular basis is Boogaard, given that he’s the only person Chara wouldn’t have a 4+" reach advantage over.

Julien never lets Chara fight though, so it’s kind of a moot point I guess.

by HarryNeale'sGarden on Nov 5, 2009 5:54 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Julien never lets Chara fight though, so it’s kind of a moot point I guess.

Really? I thought it was Dave Lewis who wouldn’t let Chara fight, but when Julien came in he let him?

by Bosc Ulrich on Nov 6, 2009 3:31 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Interesting

I agree with Harry Neale’s Garden. Chara just demolished Ivantanis in his only game as a Hab and broke the kid’s orbital bone.

by Exit716 on Nov 5, 2009 10:00 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Why not break them down into weight classes?

Rick Ryppen (or however he spells it) is a good fighter…. but may not stand a chance against Boogard or Orr….. simply because he is a smaller guy…. he is more in the Scott Walker weight class…..

by Mateos_Canes_Lamp on Nov 5, 2009 10:17 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Yeah

That was what I was thinking. Chara’s a good fighter, no doubt about it but I’d say he has a tiny slight height advantage. Just a little…

-The dude responsible for this mess

by idunno723 on Nov 5, 2009 10:40 PM CST up reply actions 0 recs

Wow…however much time he spent on that, it was wasted.

Glen Sather is a Hockey Genius.

http://glensathersucks.com/
http://twitter.com/ThGeneralissimo

by poploser on Nov 6, 2009 12:05 PM CST reply actions 0 recs

Beyond the issue of whether in the larger and longer view we are all wasting our time looking at this kind of thing, how was it wasted? IT is a contribution and a different, empirical perspective.

by Gerald on Nov 10, 2009 6:57 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs