Blood on the Ice: An Overview of the Most Aggressive Players in SMJHL

Now that every team has crossed 20 games, I thought it’d be a good time to look at some of the more aggressive players at this point in the SMJHL:

Juni Panda, RW, Colorado Raptors:
Panda’s all-action, aggressive fore-checking style has made the Swede the current run-away leader in Hits, at this point of the season. The only player with more than 100 hits as of writing, with nobody else even close, his enthusiasm for eviscerating other players has stepped over the line from ‘aggressive’ to illegal quite a few times. With a whopping 64 PIM (that’s more than a full game!), Panda presents both a physical advantage on the ice, and a psychological one in the build up, as blueliners watch supercuts of the Swede kickin’ ass and takin’ names.
 
Boris Petrov, RD, Quebec City Cittadelles:
The big, but deceptively quick, Russian, Boris Petrov, is the current league leader in Fights Won, currently winning 5 of 6. He is, what could be described as, a Big Old Unit, but skates with the speed of a Winger 6 inches shorter and 80lbs lighter. He is no slouch when it comes to hits either, having served up 37 in 22 games. He is also tied for 3rd in PIM, at 34, which helps to illustrate the gap to Juni Panda from the rest of the pack!
 
Daedalus James and Kermit Murphy, Cs, Detroit Falcons:
This pair of Canadian Centres for Detroit are interestingly 3rd and 4th in the league, in terms of Hits. James leads his rookie teammate Murphy by 65 to 60. Murphy, however, has less than half the PIM of his more experienced colleague, 12 to 28. You have to go another 17 places down the list to find another Detroit player, so it does not appear to be a by-product of an over-arching aggressive strategy by Detroit. Interestingly, the next Falcon on the list is also a Centre, suggesting that they rely on their centres to take the physical brunt of their gameplan. Considering the pairs propensity for smashing into other players, surprisingly neither have been involved in a fight, as of yet. Indeed, no Detroit players appear to have been involved in a fight through their first 20 games?
 
Team Mention: Quebec City Cittadelles:
In terms of team discipline, Les Cittadelles sit head and shoulders above the rest. They currently ‘boast’ 6 players with more than 20 PIM, the most of any team, and have a combined team PIM of 298! When you consider Colorado have a player, mentioned above, who leads the way with almost twice as many PIM as the next player on the list, they come in at 156 team PIM, not far from half of QCC’s total. Indeed, only 2 other teams have a total PIM north of 200, Kelowna at 211 and Nevada at 203. This does not seem to have affected them too badly, however, as they sit pretty atop the SMJHL East with a record of 18-2-2 after 22 games.

Approved, +5 TPE @Urq660