I'm certain they fought more than 5 times, but this is a good example of what Nilan was capable of. I always thought Nilan was great at containing some of the big guns in the NHL. Guys like Playfair and Brown were big, physical fighters who liked to get off quick and get a fast start. Nilan was great at shutting down that fast start and turning it into a longer fight. I was always impressed at how well Nilan could take away your strength. Big lefty - no problem. Big righty - no problem. Nilan was a smaller HW and relied on being much more technically sound to survive. He could throw with both hands, had good stamina, a good chin (although his style meant few big shots to the face), a definite mean streak, and he could be cheap when he wanted to be.
I grew up a
Boston Bruins fan and absolutely despised Nilan. I don't care if he was from West Roxbury - I felt no kinship at all with him. I thought he was a punk who played the part of a cheap prick and he was a wise a$$ in the press and always fanned the flames of the Boston-Montreal rivalry. I thought he was public enemy #1 after he butt-ended Middleton in the face for no reason. I thought he was a punk for suckering a non fighter like
Paul Boutilierre(sp) and starting a bench clearing brawl. I hated it when
Shayne Corson reopened
Cam Neely's stitches in a fight and Nilan gushed over it like it was Corson who actually did the damage. Fukking punk. When he spoke on newscasts he sounded like your typical Boston wannabe tough guy.
A lot of this was just my teenage angst pouring through during those heated games against the Habs. I felt the rivalry and hated guys like Lemeiux, Charbonneau(sp), Chelios, Nilan, Svoboda - all because they wore the bleu, blanc, et rouge. I've grown out of that since then. Although I still carry a healthy dislike of Nilan, I can see that he really was a great fighter. As far as his fight card goes, he has one of the best. He takes hits for his style which wasn't the most exciting at times and I'm sure we'll hear about how he had little power as well. He had this way of containing a fighter then finding openings to exploit. He was great against Brown. I'll never forget that two fight game against Brown. In the first fight, Brown, typically, got the jump on Nilan and won in a quick fight. Nilan came back later and did a great job of tying up Brown's left and then landing lefts of his own. Most straight up southpaws stood no chance against Brown, but here was Nilan, an undersized HW and a right hander to boot, and he decisions Brown using lefts!
Nilan was only beaten clearly a few times from the footage I've seen. Wilson tapped a drum beat on Nilan's face, Playfair beat him clearly - I also believe battleship25 mentioned another clear cut Playfair win over Nilan, Brown, McKenzie, the Adams TKO, O'Reilly early in his career - not many clear losses for a guy who fought over 300 times. His technical style allowed him to hang with the big boys. It's funny but Nilan was part of a new wave of tough guys in the NHL. With Nilan, Hunter, McSorley - you had smaller, more adaptable fighters who didn't rely so much on size or pure strength and power. They also began to stretch fights out and force some of these 70's greats to go for the long haul. I used to really like the matchups between the bigger physical fighters and the smaller, technically savvy guys. Hunter-Semenko, Nilan-Playfair, Nilan-Brown, McSorley-Gillies, etc. Great brains vs. brawn matchups.
I perused DYG and saw a few fights with Wilson that I would love to find out about. Wilson's uppercut attack would be particularly tough to deal with for Nilan who loved to put his head down and bury it into your chest. In the one fight of theirs that I do have, it seemed like every time Nilan put his head down, Wilson popped it back up again. You didn't see Nilan handled like that too often in his career.
Great thread. Thanks.