The \u2018enforcer\u2019 role had looked like it was slowly being eliminated from professional hockey. Then a hulking New York Rangers rookie emerged<\/p>\n
Near the start of the third period on Saturday night in Toronto, it finally \u2013 and inevitably \u2013 happened. Leafs\u2019 tough guy Ryan Reaves squared-off at centre ice with Matt Rempe<\/a>, the hulking New York Rangers rookie. Rempe, a 6ft 7in, 240lbs centre, has one goal and one assist in his first seven games in the NHL. He also has 37 penalty minutes, five more than he\u2019s spent actually playing on the ice. He\u2019s what most people would call an \u201cenforcer\u201d \u2013 a role that in recent years has been more or less phased-out of the NHL. That\u2019s not to say there aren\u2019t guys around still who are willing to drop the gloves or play a more physical than finesse game \u2013 every team has at least one. But what Rempe is doing is different.<\/p>\n Rempe has, so far, spent most of his time fighting. This kind of thing hasn\u2019t been seen in the NHL for years for a few reasons. For one, guys were dying. The off-ice deaths of enforcers Derek Boogaard<\/a>, Wade Belak<\/a>, and Rick Rypien<\/a> within just months of each other in 2011 were a catalyst for change. In the years since, the case against the so-called \u201cgoon\u201d has strengthened. Multiple studies have, for instance, linked fighting to CTE \u2013 even though the NHL commissioner, Gary Bettman, still disputes<\/a> the link. But there was another change in hockey around the same time: analytics. In recent years, every player and prospect has become subject to intense data-based analysis, and teams search endlessly for quantifiable metrics \u2013 alongside human scouting reports \u2013 to chart a path to victory. An enforcer doesn\u2019t easily fit within this new matrix. They rarely generate points and they typically don\u2019t skate well or quickly enough, let alone create things like consistent successful zone entries.<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The \u2018enforcer\u2019 role had looked like it was slowly being eliminated from professional hockey. Then a hulking New York Rangers rookie emerged Near the start of the third period on Saturday night in Toronto, it finally \u2013 and inevitably \u2013 happened. Leafs\u2019 tough guy Ryan Reaves squared-off at centre ice with Matt Rempe, the hulking … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6636\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}