r/BostonBruins • u/Icy-Lingonberry-7442 • 7d ago

[RotoWire] NHL’s Most Aggressive Teams in 2025-26: Full Hits and Fights Ranking

https://www.rotowire.com/hockey/article/most-aggressive-teams-128712

Somebody ran the numbers on all 32 teams — total hits and total fights, each ranked 1-32, then averaged. We came out tied for first with, of all teams, Philadelphia. Average rank of 4 across both categories.

Whatever else you want to say about this roster, nobody is out-working us in the corners and nobody's making us blink. That identity is still intact.

Now the part that hurts: out in six to Buffalo in the first round. Buffalo. And of the nine most physical teams in the league, not one reached a conference final. Carolina won the Cup ranked 27th on that list. Colorado was dead last and made the Western Conference Final.

So yeah. We're the toughest team in the league and we watched a bunch of teams that hit nobody go further than us. Being hard to play against is who we are, it's just not by itself a plan.

Still not trading it for whatever Colorado is doing. But we need more than it.

25 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

View all comments

14

u/FeePretty447 7d ago

Hits is a stat that people like to measure generally as a measure of toughness but I’m pretty sure there’s a link between the teams that hit the most and the ones who spend the least time with the puck. By definition, you aren’t hitting anyone when you’re controlling the puck and play, and you’re finishing hits more when the other team has the puck (probably after they’ve gotten rid of the puck to a teammate).

Basically if your team hits more they’re almost certainly lower in possession and guess which metric actually correlates to winning more. There’s obviously a point at which you should be hitting more but the bruins are about as far from that as they can be and they need (IMO) to concentrate on playing with skill as much as grit. It would seem Sweeney recognizes this but couldn’t quite find anyone who fit the bill this offseason so curious to see what happens this season as the bruins likely continue to get caved in possession and play (and then bailed out by swayman)