Tough guys: A small ramble

[Dabnad 214]

Oh my god! It’s time for theme week and it’s time for Shaw to come back to write. The topic this week is tough guys, and you really can’t talk about tough guys without talking about Dabnad Shaw. Shaw was an elite defensive player, known for his outstanding hitting ability, and his even more outstanding shot blocking ability. Despite his often poor offensive ability, Shaw is thought to be an elite tough guy, so let’s talk about it. When people think about a “tough guy”, they often think of this 6’4 200 lb beast on this ice. Unsurprisingly, this was exactly who Shaw was, a 6’4, 198 pound fierce man, and someone who you could rely on to destroy a couple of bones if you needed. With over 1300 PIMs, Shaw spent 21.6 full games in the box over his VHL season, he loved the box and the referees in the box. While you may think that I’m going on a long tangent with no end (which is exactly what I am doing), the point of this is to say that yes, Shaw is a pretty tough and big man. So, what makes someone tough? Is it hits? Or is it shots blocked? Or is it how long you spend in the box? Honestly, there is no answer to this question, a tough guy is the guy you can see on the ice and think “I don’t want to be on the ice with him because I will be frustrated with him.” While everyone thinks a tough guy is this big guy that can murder someone on sight, I like thinking of tough guys as pests, someone who will never give up on the play. You could argue that pests and tough guys are different skills, however, I’d argue that a pest is always a tough guy, and to be a tough guy, it’s incredibly important to be a pest, attacking every player, and being that player that people hate to be on the ice with. Let’s take a look at the classification to what I think makes a tough guy in the VHL.

 

1. Hitting

Hitting, in my opinion, is the most important skill in being a tough guy. Any tough guy is always hitting the people around them, and a tough guy will always look for places they can hit someone. To be a tough guy, you probably need a minimum of 1000-1250 hits over a career, and to be an average tough guy, I would say you have to be closer to 1750. If you can’t hit, you can be a pest, but you can’t be a tough guy, and that, in my option, is the largest difference between a pest and a tough guy. In the VHL, there are 366 players who have over 1000 hits, all who would qualify to being a tough guy. Out of these, 89 have over 1750 hits, I would say that every single of these players are tough guys. 
 

2. Shots Blocked

The next most important stat to seeing if someone is a tough guy is shots blocked. To be tough, you have to be willing to go in front of the net. And stop the puck from going into your net, helping your goalie out. Most players who play like this are often tortured by the puck, but have their goalie buy them dinner a lot, and for most huge tough guys, the bill gets big really quickly. Going back to Dabnad Shaw for a second, he embodies who a tough guy is for this reason alone, Shaw has the most shots blocked by a player (who has played under 600 games), and is tied for 5th for all players (shout-out Shaw). To be a tough guy in this situation, you need at least 900 shots blocked over the course of their career, and a 1100 to be a for sure tough guy. In this case, we see 179 players with over 900 shots blocked, and 80 players with over 1100 shots blocked over their careers. All these players have put their body and life on the line to stop the shot from hitting the net. It’s funny how it works, if a player has around 1000 shots blocked in their career, assuming an average of a 910 save percentage by a goalie, a player stops 90 goals over their career, absolute amazing work for all players who put their body on the line!

 

3. PIMs

Last, and probably least, important to seeing if someone is a tough guy is to see how long a player spends in the box per game. This one’s probably extremely self-explanatory, the more you attack, the more you go in the box, however, the reason this isn’t higher up the list is because of players who tend to be dirty. It’s important to differentiate a tough guy and a dirty guy, and PIMs often are unable to separate the two, however, they definitely assist us in understanding who might be tough if their other stats also suggest that someone was a tough guy. Because of this, I wouldn’t say that there’s really any threshold they need to achieve to be a tough guy, but if someone is over 1000 PIMs, and they do not fulfill the other 2 criteria of being a tough guy, I would rather take a look and might consider them as a tough guy. 
 

 

So, now that we’ve determined what a tough guy is, what was the relevance to everything I wrote near the start of this paragraph? Well, the answer is nothing, but this paragraph can really help us understand, what is a tough guy. A tough guy isn’t someone who just hits a lot of people, but hitting is a damn good indicator for someone being a tough guy. If someone can block shots, they’re a pest, if someone gets a lot of PIMs, they’re dirty, if someone hits a lot, they’re a big guy, if someone does a combination of a 2 of the 3, they’re a strong player, but a tough guy is a combination of the three. 
 

So, I know it’s been a while, and I’m sorry for not writing anything for like a million years. I promise I’ll write things after I finish my mid-terms and AP exams, but until then, this is Narnia Shaw, signing off, until next time.

 

1067 words

04/06/2025-04/13/2025