how common are hockey brawls?
this turned into fiddling with numbers about about klim kostin but theres a tl;dr at the very end
not actually that common LMAO fights average out to ~ 0.25 per game or so? during the 1983-84 season fights averaged 1.17 per game, for context. teams figured out that having enforcers who can't score or defend on your roster is bad for winning, and so lower-skill, low-utility enforcers were kind of pushed out of the league.
there are still players who fight--on the sharks roster, givani smith and luke kunin stand out as players who are very willing to drop the gloves, and just recently klim kostin got into it with a seattle player. here's what kostin had to say about it after the fact:
I'm not a big fan of fights just for no reason but yeah. That was one of the moments when that guy, like, asking Granny for a fight. The players like Granny, they never fight. They're-- they play hockey. So I just decide to step up, and then the fight comes in.
source
"granny" here refers to mikael granlund, a sharks player who's only ever fought once, in 2021. granlund got stomped. he never even got a punch in
what's interesting to me is the fact that kostin draws a very clear line between what is ok to ask of a player like granlund vs what is ok to ask of a player like him. kostin's only played 15 of the 27 games the sharks have played so far, and not due to injury--he's been a healthy scratch each time he's missed a game. this season, he's averaged 9 minutes and 13 seconds of time on ice in the games he's played. granlund's averaged 20 minutes and 52 seconds of time on ice, and he's only missed 2 games, both with injury. kostin is a fairly talented bottom-six forward who can be very capable when he's engaged, but he's not granlund. more importantly, he's not an enforcer!
(Rezi: i don't know how much you know about hockey, so i'll take the time to note here: penalties in hockey are usually either "minor" penalties or "major" penalties. a minor penalty puts the offender in the penalty box for 2 minutes, during which their team has one less player on the ice. a major penalty does the same but for 5 minutes. fighting is a major penalty, but both participants go to the penalty box. this means nobody's team is outnumbered.)
if all you looked at was kostin's penalties in minutes, you could be fooled into thinking he was an enforcer. 159 PIMs in 170 career games, or 5.6 penalty minutes per 60 minutes of time on ice (PIM/60) isn't enough to get you on any leaderboards but it's pretty substantial. for reference, granlund has 259 PIMs over 844 career games, which is 0.99 PIM/60. the truth is, kostin just takes a lot of minor penalties. he's only ever been in 10 NHL fights, which is more than most players but certainly not enough to call him an enforcer.
let's put kostin into perspective:
mikael granlund has a career average of 0.678 points and 18 ½ minutes of time on ice per game. he has 0.99 PIM/60. <- these are reliable first-line player stats
fabian zetterlund has a career average of 0.495 points and 16 minutes of time on ice. he also has 0.99 PIM/60. <- reliable second-line player stats
luke kunin has a career average of 0.347 points and 15 minutes of time on ice per game. he has 3.7 PIM/60. <- volatile second- or third-line player stats
ty dellandrea has a career average of 0.264 points and 13 ⅓ minutes of time on ice per game. he has 2.74 PIM/60. <- third-line player stats
nico sturm has a career average of 0.296 points and 13 minutes of time on ice per game. he has 1.09 PIM/60. <- reliable third-line player stats
givani smith has a career average of 0.137 points and 8 minutes of time on ice per game. he has 11.7 PIM/60. <- fourth line enforcer stats
kostin has a career average of 0.294 points and 10 minutes of time on ice per game. he has 5.6 PIM/60. <- :?
kostin's scoring potential (and his play style) are more suited to a third-line role than a fourth-line one, but his batshit PIM/60 keeps his ice time low. what's very very important to remember, too, is that around 50% of givani smith's penalties in minutes are from fighting majors--which don't put your team at a disadvantage. only 30% of klim kostin's PIMs are from fighting majors. he neeeeeeds to stop taking dumbass penalties and start playing more consistently--he could be an absolute nightmare to play against if he tightened up his game.
anyway to answer your question: hockey fights are not as common as they used to be, and most teams no longer have guys who are only there to fight. despite this, there is still an understanding among players that some of them have to step up. some of them don't get to just play hockey.
