Enforcers Still Playing a Major Role in NHL

No one will mistake players like Chris Nilan and Jay Miller for Wayne Gretzkty and Mario Lemieux.

But to their coaches, Miller and Nilan are every bit as important as high-scoring forwards, swift-skating defensemen and top-flight goaltenders.

“Without Chris, we don’t have much toughness,” New York Rangers coach Michel Bergeron said of Nilan, a mid-season acquisition from Montreal. “With Chris in the lineup, we are a little tougher, and everyone in the league knows him, so they are a little careful.”

“His hockey skills have improved,” Boston coach Terry O’Reilly said of Miller, the NHL leader with 34 major penalties, all for fighting. “But Jay’s most important role still is keeping a lot of players honest.”

Miller, Nilan and players like them don’t get NHL-sized paychecks for their puck-handling skills or scoring talents. They’re earning a living because they are willing to stand up for their teammates--with their fists if necessary.

For many, the name of the game is intimidating players on the other team while providing protection for their own players.

“Intimidation works,” said Miller. “Some guys aren’t sure if you’re going to lose a screw. A lot of guys don’t back away, but some of the guys won’t go near the net when an intimidator is around.”

“I like to play hard-nosed and aggressively. If something happens, fine.”

For most enforcers, any scoring is a bonus.

“My job is to be an aggressive forechecker who tries to get the other team’s so-called ‘consistent players’ off their game,” said Miller, who is far down the Bruins’ scoring list with seven goals but No. 1 in penalty minutes with 306. “I’m satisfied with my role as long as I can be consistent. If I can’t come off the bench and do my job, I’m in a slump, same as a goal-scorer.”

“I told him he didn’t have to fight every game,” Bergeron said of Nilan. “He has to pick the right spot, and he’s intelligent enough to know when to go and when to stay back.”

Though his scoring output with the Rangers is negligible, Nilan’s impact on the team has been keenly felt. In 22 games in which he has suited up for New York, the Rangers were 13-5-4.

How valuable are players like Nilan and Miller?

“He doesn’t look like Bobby Orr, but he certainly turned their team around,” Edmonton coach Glen Sather said of Nilan after a recent 6-1 loss to the Rangers. “They had no backbone until they got him.”

Sather has a pair of players who serve the same function for his club in Kevin McClelland and Marty McSorley. Both are among the NHL’s most penalized players and both are valued members of the defending Stanley Cup champions.

“They do the same thing for us as Nilan does for them,” Sather said. “They are a big part of our hockey club. They’ve always been winners.”

Ironically, the NHL’s most heavily penalized player, Detroit’s Bob Probert, has become an effective offensive player this season.

Probert, never a big scorer until this season, has played on Detroit’s top offensive line for most of the year and had 29 goals and 32 assists for 61 points in 74 games--while compiling 398 penalty minutes.

Detroit’s second-leading scorer, Gerard Gallant, also knows his way to the penalty box. Gallant finished the season with 34 goals--and 242 penalty minutes.

Red Wings coach Jacques Demers said players like Probert and Gallant are especially valuable because they serve two functions, much as players like Clark Gillies and Bob Nystrom did for the New York Islanders in their Stanley Cup years in the early 1980s.

“I look at us as a team like the Islanders when they had Gillies and Nystrom. Our guys can play the way their guys could play,” Demers said.

“I still think intimidation is part of this game, but it’s nice to have a guy who can also play.”