Pick Your Vancouver Canucks Enforcer (If Any)

No option for Bolduc? Damn… that would have been my choice. ;-)

…I really, really hope it is Glass.

the popularity vote, but he really shouldnt be the guy. Keep him on for his hands and his sandpaper, but as the caveman he’s not the right choice. I voted glass. Just so chuckles wouldn’t throw a stapler at me.

I picked Rypien. Yeah, his history isn’t great with injuries, but I think he just needs to pick his spots a bit more. I think 16 fights last year was a bit much. Tone down the actual fights and just pick up in the ‘team toughness’ department, which I think we’ve done with some of the new guys on the team. If we’re hitting hard and forechecking, I don’t think we need as much fighting. When we do need someone to fight/stick up for a guy etc, send out Killer.

Rypien is not durable enough to fit the role (not just as an enforcer, but as a person who will constantly hit people, and wear down the opposition)

Glass is huggy bear (a la Mike Brown) and isn’t an enforcer

Hordichuk is not reliable in his own end.

Need a player in the vein of a Probert, Brashear (when his head was screwed on), McSorley who can actually play …. not scrubs and bottom feeders.

I voted for the Pitbull Rick Rypien. I love his energy and his fighting style. Plus I think middleweights are funner to watch . And lets see Hordi or glass do this.

bad knees and all.

Goons are outdated and frankly a detriment to the team. They are perhaps the only aspect of hockey that I strongly dislike. Hockey teams don’t need players whose sole purpose is to go out and fight people. If they’re going to fight, they better fucking be able to play hockey too, and at an acceptable rate. Especially on a team that is trying to contend for the cup. Otherwise they are just a liability, contribute nothing to the team, and waste valuable cap space when most teams trying to make that push for the Cup need that cap space. Why put out a player like Hordi when you can ice a better fighter and better hockey player, at a lower price, such as Glass, Oreskovich, Rypper, or Desbiens. As for who will be the Canucks’ fighter (I hate to have a “goon” on our team because it implies that we have a necessity for such a useless pylon), any of the players I listed are more than capable to do Hordi’s job and do it better. On top of that; Bieksa, Kes and Hansen have been known to fight on occasion. Furthermore, especially now that the NHL has the instigator penalty, its not even an issue of an opposing player taking cheap shots at one of our players and Hordi going out there and trying to beat the shit out of the transgressor. If Hordi starts a fight, he gets an instigator penalty and it adds to his already horrible penalty minute total and puts our team at a disadvantage. In the new NHL, its all about beating them on the scoreboard, not in the boxing ring. Unfortunately AV has an affinity for turds on skates like Hordi, so we’ll probably see him in 70 games again this season (oh god kill me now).

Hordi needs to go. I’ll pay for his exile to North Korea if I have to.

this video. Gotta love The Black Keys.

And I’d pick Rypien. Don’t really think we have a legit enforcer, but he’s the closest and most effective fighter.

I was going to pick glass, but here’s what I think should happen:

Rypper fights all the light and middle weights
OBrien fights the heavyweights (rarely). The dude is 230 and used to drop them all the time.

It might be a bad idea to possibly injure our defense (OBrien), but it’s an answer to only icing hockey players that can play the game.

It doesn’t really matter to me. Winning fights while maybe able to pump the crowd up does little to nothing to affect the outcome of the game. As long as you’re not spending more than .75 mill on the enforcer then I don’t think it really matters.

that Hordi needs to be sent to the Phantom Zone.

It saddens me that the denizens of this blog, for whom I have the utmost respect, would want their beloved Canucks to become softer than soft. Call me a Neanderthal if you will, but a team still needs a player or two who can drop the gloves when the need arises. I’m not sold on Glass and Rypien has already proven to be fragile physically, to go along with whatever personal issues he seems to need to deal with on a constant basis. That leaves us with He Who Shall Not Be Named, for better or for worse.

When Hordichuk fights, he usually either draws an extra 2 + 10, or he’s just fighting the other team’s goon for no reason, and with no positive impact on anything (see Parros fight from the other night). He’s crappy on the PK, and makes $225,000 more than Rypien. Given our cap situation, I can see no argument at all to keep him with the main club. I’ll hear a Glass argument, since it could be said that he’s more serviceable than Rypien in other areas of the game, but I think Ryp can do what we need for 6-8 minutes a game, and I think he’s much more likely to wake his teammates up with a fight. And again, he’s a little cheaper than Glass.

@Yankee- since the reply button isn’t working for me. I’m fine with the Canucks staying away from the extreme end of the spectrum. Unfortunately, other teams won’t be avoiding it.
@Section- fighters are still a part of the NHL, like it or not. Of course, I’d like ours to be able to contribute in other ways.
@CC- you hate Hordichuck, but you want Darcy Tucker? Give your head a shake, mister.

@Section- Agreed, but I would still rather have an enforcer than nothing at all.

@Yankee- Rypien is too fragile, as I suspect Glass would be over an entire season.

@CC- Lol

PS- Anybody have any theories as to why I can’t get the reply button to work?

Hmmm, suddenly I have the urge to take a drive up to FSJ. I’ll old age you, mister. ;)
I guess I want a team that’s combative and can go with the big boys because that’s what was central to the playoff runs of ‘82 and ’94. The ’82 run was like two months of hand to hand combat. Maybe I’m not keeping up with the times, but I’ve seen too many teams in the past get run right off the ice, and it left a bitter taste in my mouth, as did that game this past season when Minny manhandled us. Not pretty.

I have this stuck in my head. Can’t get rid of it. And misery loves company.

http://communities.canada.com/VANCOUVERSUN/blogs/puckworld/archive/2010/09/30/glass-makes-an-impression.aspx

Tanner Glass didn’t play Wednesday night, but you can pencil the rugged winger into the opening-night lineup.

Canuck coach Alain Vigneault, who is frustrated that no one seems to be grabbing the one or two forward spots up for grabs, cited Glass as an example for others to follow.

“For me, I look at a guy like Tanner Glass,” Vigneault said before his team’s 6-2 loss to the Sharks. “Every game he has played he has played his role, up and down, physical, stands up for himself, stands up for his teammates.” . .

not a fan of hip-hop, jimmy fallon or justin timberlake, but this was epic and surprisingly good: http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/blogs/2010/09/jimmy-justin-timberlake-the-roots-a-history-of-rap/