Neely on importance of team toughness

Boston Bruins exec Cam Neely was on TSN 1050 Friday afternoon.

Toughness in the NHL has been discussed a lot over the past year or two. When you look at analytics, you look at the speed of the game, you look at some of the rules that have been implemented. Some people in the hockey world think that toughness is slowly starting to fade in terms of its value. Where do you stand on that – the value of toughness, when it comes to individual players and team toughness as a whole?

“Well, I think it’s very important still with team toughness. It’s a contact sport. There’s no out-of-bounds. So it’s always going to be a contact sport. I think when the body’s there, you should take the body. I’m not necessarily saying everybody is going to put someone in the fifth row, but you’ve got to eliminate the man from the puck when you have the opportunity. You’ve got to compete still. So I’m a big believer in team toughness. You have individual toughness, but you could also have team toughness with regards to how your compete level is and are you taking a hit to make a play or are you making a hit to eliminate a guy. So all those things to me equal team toughness.”

Source: TSN 1050/ Transcript: Nichols on Hockey