McCarty Puts Wings on the Board

The Detroit Red Wings were the last team in the NHL to pick up a fighting major.  Darren McCarty added the Wings to the list last night when he dropped the gloves with Brad May early in the second period of the Ducks OT win over the Wings.

McCarty’s had an up and down season already, being placed on and clearing waivers, getting sent to Grand Rapids of the AHL, and recalled a few days later.

In other action, there were a pair of fights from the Leafs-Devils game.  Jamal Mayers took on David Clarkson, and Michael Rupp had his way with Ryan Hollweg.

The Fistic 15

It’s not the Forbes 500, but it’ll do.  Peter J. Schwartz of Forbes.com compiles the Best Hockey Fighters for the Buck.

To determine the best fighters for the buck, we compared player fighting stats since the start of the 2006-07 season to their pay last year. Since a game’s momentum usually swings to the team whose player prevails in a fight, we awarded a bonus for each win and subtracted points for each loss, as determined by fan voting at hockeyfights.com, an online Mecca for pugilism at the rink.

When comparing salaries, we took experience into account by contrasting a player’s pay with a pool of enforcers that have similar longevity in the league, since younger players have pay-limits set by the NHL. Only the 15 players currently active on NHL rosters who dropped their gloves 20 or more times while playing in at least half their team’s games over the past two seasons were included in our ranking.

Colton Orr took the top value spot.  Georges Laraque, with the heftiest salary, still ranked second thanks to his near-flawless record (which helped him command that salary).  The top 15 can be seen in a photo gallery here.

Forbes also released its list of this year’s NHL team valuations.  As with every season, Forbes reports more profit than teams do (example: the Sharks refute Forbes profit report).

Some reads

Renaming the Gordie Howe Hat Trick
NHL Hits of the Week Oct 27, 2008
Fedoruk moves onto Coyotes’ 1st line
City gives Milan Lucic a welcome homecoming | Lucic returns to roots
Mair incident probed
Same Ol’ Shawn and Dance
Cracks in Dallas Stars’ foundation disturbing to fans
Centre Ice: Boogaard’s back is feeling better
Scrappy ‘Lappy’ an Av to admire
Despite diabetes, Panthers’ Boynton keeps healthy outlook
Okposo’s first goal of season quite a relie
Shanahan Won’t Wait for Rangers