COLUMBUS, Ohio — Kevin Stevens was chuckling at the memories of ferocious battles from his playing days in the 1990s when part of the Penguins’ fitness regimen required them to over-head press a 34.5-pound Stanley Cup at various celebratory functions.
He recalled nasty exchanges with Devils’ defenseman Scott Stevens and Capitals’ wild man Al Iafrate. Some of his most spirited encounters, however, came in front of the opposition’s net with a teammate who was wired much like ole No. 25.
“I loved playing with Rick Tocchet,” Stevens said Thursday in a phone interview. “But we used to fight like hell for the same rebounds in front of the goalie. We were both going after that puck because it was our job.”
Stevens, a two-time Cup winner in Pittsburgh, was a strapping Bostonian and a witches’ brew of strength, speed, snarl and scoring touch. He played during a golden age of NHL power forwards that included Tocchet, John LeClair, Eric Lindros, Keith Tkachuk, Brendan Shanahan, Cam Neely and Mark Messier. Thick-necked goal scorers who drove to the net fearlessly and absorbed as much punishment as they administered.
Three decades later, the game is faster than ever. The skillsets of players such as Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid leave fan bases grasping for superlatives to describe their wizardry. But as hockey evolves, one of its most dominant type of players is vanishing.
Where have you gone Kevin Stevens? And, where are all the prototypical power forwards?
“The game has changed,” said Stevens, a special assignment scout for the Penguins. “I mean, what is a power forward right now? That’s the question.”
They aren’t extinct. Not as long as Alex Ovechkin, Tom Wilson, Anders Lee and Jamie Benn are buzzing around rinks. Not as long as the Tkachuks keep siring spitfires such as Matthew and Brady.
But if you assembled a list of the current top-15 power forwards, the majority of them are probably either approaching 30-years-old or beyond it. They came of age when the NHL had not yet fully transitioned to a league built on speed and skill. The very description of power forward is as endangered as "stay-at-home" defenseman.
“It’s almost a lost position, or it’s becoming one,” said Rick Nash, a former power forward and six-time All-Star. “There are still big forwards, but the emphasis is on skating and having great hands.”
Neither Stevens nor Nash intend their remarks to be an indictment on today’s game, but a commentary on its progression. Both work for NHL clubs — Nash holds a similar role to Stevens with the Blue Jackets — and they are trying to locate future talent for their organizations.
Rule changes, some spurred by concussion lawsuits, have opened up the league to smaller players and different styles of play.
The average weight of NHL players on opening-night rosters this season was 198.9 pounds, down from 206.3 pounds in the 2005-06 season. While the average height has hovered around 6-foot-1 for many years, 25 of the 29 skaters standing 5-foot-9-and-under were forwards, according to The Athletic.
How have times changed in Pittsburgh?
When the Penguins raised their first Cup in 1991, the top-line left winger was a 6-foot-3, 230-pound Stevens. When the Penguins won their most recent Cup in 2017, the top-line left winger was a 5-foot-11, 180-pound Jake Guentzel. Both led the playoffs in goal scoring during those respective years.
“It comes down to the philosophy of the team,” said former forward Joe Nieuwendyk, a three-time Stanley Cup winner. “It’s a funny time with the Penguins. Sid and (Evgeni) Malkin are getting older, but as long as those guys are there, they’re in 'win-now' mode. I could see them starting to draft bigger players with the new management team in place, but maybe the argument against that is a guy like Jake Guentzel. He’s not big and he’s not a power forward, but he’s a hell of a player. There’s a lot of guys like him in the league now.”
In recent weeks, Penguins’ general manager Ron Hextall and president of hockey operations Brian Burke have expressed a desire to add toughness and size to the lineup. Whether they will achieve it prior to the April 12 trade deadline is unclear. How that plays with coach Mike Sullivan is also unknown.
Sullivan appreciates toughness like any coach, but it comes in many forms and isn’t always best measured on a scale. The Penguins opened the campaign as the league’s second-lightest team (191.2 pounds) behind only the Blackhawks (190.7) and, despite a spate of injuries, are vying for the East Division title, riding a five-game win streak.
However, the club also has failed to advance beyond the postseason’s second round since capturing the 2017 title.
“If you look at the last three Cup winners, the teams all share common characteristics,” Burke said of the Capitals, Blues and Lightning. “They are bigger teams, they have depth, they have size and they’ve got some star power to get the job done on a big stage.”
Think Burke would like to add the next Kevin Stevens? First, he’s got to find him.
DIFFERENT BREED
Craig Button loves many sports and, as TSN’s director of scouting, he borrows a trend from basketball to help explain the dearth of young power forwards in the NHL.
“Every kid is now shooting 3-pointers,” Button said. “It started out as a speciality. Now, if you can’t shoot a 3, some think it must mean you’re not very good. You look around the NBA and there aren’t many post-up centers left. If you are big kid and you show promise, do you think they are going to develop you to be a post-up center? No way.”
The need for speed and the focus on player safety drastically reduced the number of NHL enforcers. There’s still fighting in the league, but it’s done mostly by players who aren’t in the lineup for that sole purpose.
Lumbering power forwards also have been casualties of a sport that demands participants be able to keep up with the play. Over time, a new breed of big forwards emerged, dating to the 1990s with Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr and Mats Sundin.
Lanky kids blessed with high-end skill suddenly had a different set of role models. They could snipe and dangle their way to big paydays without having to run themselves through the end boards on every shift.
“When we played the Bruins with (Ray) Bourque or the Rangers with Brian Leetch, you wanted to get in there and bang around a little bit and cause some commotion,” said Stevens, a two-time 50-goal scorer. “You wanted to get those guys looking over their shoulders and moving the puck when they didn’t want to move it. Make that defense do something they didn’t want to do.
“It’s different now with some of these big guys. The mentality is different.”
Take, for instance, Patrik Laine, the gifted 6-foot-5, 210-pound winger recently traded from the Jets to the Blue Jackets. Coaches used to take one look at players that size and point them to the corners and the top of the crease. That’s not always the case anymore.
“The physical imposition of today is very different from the physical imposition of yesteryear,” Button said. “Guys like Josh (Anderson) and Tommy (Wilson) impose themselves because of their speed and their size and their willingness. Do you think that’s getting emphasized at the developmental levels now? It isn’t. It’s like anything. If you wake up today and wonder, ‘Where did it go?’ Well, we stopped developing it. It’s not a focus.”
Laine, 22, averaged 34.5 goals in his first four NHL seasons. Meanwhile, hits per game declined in four of five seasons from 2015-2020, according to a Hockey News study.
The Finnish winger has made a living with his Ovechkin-like blasts from the left circle, while playing a very un-Ovechkin-like game.
Laine doesn’t dabble in cliches or team-speak. So when asked if John Tortorella’s desire to tweak his game has contributed to a recent scoring slump, Laine gave an honest assessment.
“I don’t know, it’s hard to say,” Laine told Columbus reporters. “I’ve never really been a guy who’s playing in the corners or behind the net too much. I’m usually the high guy looking for openings where I can maybe receive the puck and try to shoot it. That’s what I’m good at. But you still have to do other things. So I don’t know. That’s a tough one.”
GETTY
The Blue Jackets’ Rick Nash in 2012.
If you designed an evolutionary chart from Stevens to Laine, Nash would fall somewhere in the middle. The No. 1 overall pick in the 2002 draft was a power-forward hybrid.
The 6-foot-4, 211-pound Nash was a willing forechecker and back-checker, particularly in his later years. He also produced some of the most outrageous highlight-reel plays of his generation before retiring with 437 goals and 805 points in 2018.
Nash points to players such as Crosby as being game changers.
“It used to be more north-south and you went as fast as you could in straight lines,” Nash said. “Big guys could finish their checks because people were more easy to hit. Now, everyone has such good edge work and they are so strong on their skates.
“Crosby was one of the first guys who came in and kind of changed that. He has great edge work, great balance, a low center of gravity, where you can’t get him off the puck. You don’t see a lot of big guys hitting him because he is so elusive and quick.”
GETTY
John LeClair with the Flyers in 2004.
YOUTH IS SERVED
Speaking of Nova Scotia natives finding a home in Pittsburgh, Danny MacKinnon is tasked with developing the next generation of stars.
MacKinnon is one of the directors for the Pittsburgh Penguins Elite, a youth hockey program that works with about 350 boys and girls on teams ranging from 10-and-under up to 18-and-under.
“The focus is on skills,” MacKinnon said. “Every aspect of game is getting polished: Skating, stick handling, hockey sense. You have to able to think the game and compete at a high level.”
MacKinnon said he hasn’t witnessed a drop-off in the number of bigger players participating in the sport. While it’s true larger youngsters sometimes take time to blossom into good skaters, everyone develops at their own pace. MacKinnon’s job is to help them through the maturation process.
It’s not as though the city hasn’t produced some slick-skating forwards. Brandon Saad, an alum of the old Pittsburgh Hornets’ program, has scored 20-plus goals five times in a career that’s featured two Stanley Cup with the Blackhawks.
However, the 6-foot-1, 206-pound Saad is in line with today’s typical wingers. He relies more on speed than hitting and grit.
“You need the ability to make plays and you have to be able to make them under duress,” MacKinnon said. “It’s a faster game. You have to be able to skate and make plays in tight spaces.”
Like any sport, the program director understands some hockey players simply are more competitive and combative than others. It’s a sentiment echoed by Button when discussing the talented, but oft-suspended Wilson from the Capitals.
The 6-foot-4, 220-pound forward is despised in Pittsburgh and many other rinks for his legion of injurious hits and his seemingly unrepentant approach. He’s also a player who’s deployed in every situation and has become an invaluable member of a Cup-winning team. He’s a big man not shy about using his greatest physical assets at time when many others are content to bump rather than bruise opponents.
In that sense, he’s a throwback to power forwards of the 1980s and 1990s.
“The Capitals didn’t draft Tommy Wilson and tell him to play that way,” Button said. “He played that way when he was 14. He’s developed his style over years of playing.”
GETTY
Rick Tocchet with the Coyotes in 2000.
'NO COOKIE-CUTTER WAY'
Burke did his own heavy lifting of the NHL’s most prized hardware in 2007 as general manager of the Cup-winning Ducks. He received great goaltending from J.S. Giguere, tremendous contributions from blueliners Chris Pronger and Scott Niedermayer and star power from Teemu Selanne.
But the major storyline emerging from that season was a potential return to heavy hockey. After all the talk of how the game was changing following the 2005 lockout, the Ducks won a championship with a big lineup and a pair of power forwards in Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry.
“When Burkie won the Cup, some thought there would be a shift back to a bigger, aggressive player,” Button recalled. “Kenny Holland, the GM in Detroit at the time, said ‘Nah, I like my team. We’ve got a nice mix of players.’ They won the Cup in 2008 and lost it in 2009 to Sid and the Penguins.”
Button also likes to remind fans the Ducks’ top-line center in 2006-07 was 5-foot-10, 175-pound Andy McDonald.
“There is no cookie-cutter way to win in this league,” he said. “Otherwise, everyone would be doing the same thing.”
The Penguins won back-to-back Cups in 2016-17 without a prototype power forward even with Malkin being built like one. It's the same with brilliant young forwards such as Mikko Rantanen (6-4, 215) and Leon Draisaitl (6-2, 208), who look the part but don't need to play that way to excel.
Meanwhile, Ovechkin, continues to show the value of intimidating offensive threats even at age 35. And, there is evidence of a few younger full-bodied forwards making an impact on the game that aren't named Tkachuk.
Anderson (6-3, 222 pounds) terrorized the Lightning defense in the Blue Jackets’ shocking first-round sweep of the Presidents’ Trophy winners two years ago. His former teammate, Pierre-Luc Dubois (6-3, 218), did the same to the Maple Leafs last summer in the preliminary round of the playoffs.
Both Anderson and Dubois, who forced their way out of Columbus in separate trades, have recorded 27-goal seasons in recent years.
“Josh Anderson might be the perfect example of what we’re talking about,” said Stevens of the winger who was traded to the Canadiens in the offseason. “That’s how a power forward can affect a game and a playoff series. They can set the tone and show (the opponent) they’re in for a long series.”
Anderson’s demolition of the Lightning in a small way contributed to Tampa Bay’s title the following year. A club brimming with offensive talent added size to its lineup, allowing it to rely on more than just finesse.
“This topic we are touching on will never go away,” said Nieuwendyk, who’s served in the front office of three NHL teams. “I think there is a desire to add players who are big and that can play.”
Nieuwendyk said he wouldn’t be surprised to see Hextall and Burke acquire or develop such forwards in the coming years. Stevens, who loves Penguins diminutive winger Brandon Tanev, believes it’s important to strike a balance.
The days of flooding a lineup with big bodies is gone. The game is too fast and the skilled players are too good. But to Stevens’ way of thinking, it’s never a bad thing to have a hard-charging winger who can “cause some commotion” and get to the hard areas of the ice that defenders try to seal off in front of their net.
Look at the YouTube video above and watch where Stevens was scoring his goals. It's not about fighting, it's about creating space for teammates and making life miserable for the opposition.
“A lot of guys now don’t look to hit first,” Stevens said. “If the (opponent) is there, they’ll do it, but they won’t take the extra step to go hit him. A lot of times, I was looking to hit someone just to set the tone a little bit. I wasn’t trying to kill anybody, but at least they knew I was there.
“You don’t need 10 guys that size to do it. Just one or two.”
