The “rock’em, sock’em” era of aggressive NHL teams is long gone. A concerted effort to improve player safety and scale back the role of fighting within the league has led to a precipitous drop in the total number of fights annually, from 734 tilts in 2008-09 to 224 a decade later in 2018-19. But aggressiveness might be rising again; the past three seasons have seen more than 300 fights per year.
So BetCanada.com, as part of our Canada sports betting coverage, wanted to know what the most aggressive NHL teams have been so far during the 2024-25 season. To find out, we looked at where each team ranked in both hits (according to moneypuck.com) and fights (with data from hockeyfights.com) for games through March 14 of the current campaign. Using those stats, we created the following rankings of the 10 most aggressive NHL teams.
Rank | Team | Average Ranking |
1 | Boston Bruins | 2.5 |
2 | Florida Panthers | 4.5 |
3 | Nashville Predators | 6 |
4 | Vancouver Canucks | 6.5 |
5 | San Jose Sharks | 7 |
6 | New York Rangers | 7.5 |
T7 | Calgary Flames | 9.5 |
T7 | St. Louis Blues | 9.5 |
9 | Ottawa Senators | 10 |
10 | New Jersey Devils | 11 |
This analysis is exclusive to BetCanada.com, where the best Canada sports betting promo codes reside.
The top spot in our rankings belongs to the Boston Bruins. The high grade owes heavily to two new offseason additions. First, centre Mark Kastelic, who has racked up 219 hits since arriving in Boston from the Ottawa Senators, while also partaking in 10 fights — both figures lead the team. Then there is new defencemen Nikita Zadorov, who came to Boston following a one-year stint in Vancouver. During his time in Beantown, the domineering Russian has recorded 176 hits, and dropped the gloves on six separate occasions.
But aggressive play has not led to NHL success for the Bruins or their NHL betting backers this season. They’re 12th in the Eastern Conference going into game on March 18 and are poised to miss the postseason.
On the other hand, the Florida Panthers rank second in our list of 10 most aggressive NHL teams, and they’re the defending Stanley Cup champs who atop the Atlantic Division. This hard-nosed squad leads the league in hits, with nine different players recording more than 100 body checks. For comparison, Boston has just five players that have eclipsed the century mark in hits so far in 2024-25.
To continue the theme of aggressiveness being an unreliable indicator of success, the Nashville Predators rank third on our list. Preds players have been involved in a league leading 31 on-ice skirmishes in a season where they’re perhaps the biggest disappointment in the league.
The fourth team calls western Canada home; see Vancouver Canucks betting odds as the team fights for a playoff spot. The Canucks owe their spot on our list to American winger Kiefer Sherwood, who tops the NHL in hits with 367 — over 100 more than the next highest player.
Next up are the San Jose Sharks whose aggressive play has not helped them in 2024-25. Despite over a month remaining in the regular season, they’re already mathematically eliminated from the playoffs.
The rest of the list, however, is made up of middle-of-the-pack squads competing for the opportunity to make title run and cash Stanley Cup odds wagers this spring. According to FanDuel Sportsbook, the next three teams on our list are all slight underdogs to continue onto the playoffs, with the New York Rangers at +126, the Calgary Flames at +280, and the St. Louis Blues at +235.
Meanwhile, the ninth and 10th most aggressive teams in the NHL, the New Jersey Devils (-5000) and Ottawa Senators (-4500), are both heavy favourites to advance to the postseason.
USA Today photo by Dan Hamilton
Author
Jeff Parker is an entertainment writer for BetCanada.com. A writer for film, television and the internet, Jeff is a lifelong movie buff, with a Masters Degree in Popular Culture, and he also writes about sports. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he works full time as documentary filmmaker and producer.
