Ottawa Senators – Chris Neil
One of the few players on this list that has recently played in the NHL, Chris Neil takes the fighting throne for the Ottawa Senators. You don’t need to look at his penalty minutes or search for YouTube videos, just go look at his mugshot and you will see the nose of a fighter.
This is like the hockey fighter’s badge of honor, and Neil wears it with a grin.
Aside from his nose that has been broken many, many times, his resume speaks for itself. Neil sits atop the all-time list for penalty minutes in a Senators sweater with 2,522 to his name. This is over three times more than the second closest name on the list, Chris Phillips (758).
And while the competition in Senators history is thin, that is more a product of not need another enforcer with how effectively Neil has played the role in his 1,026 games in the Canadian capital. Another thing pointing to the very obvious fact that Neil has spent his long career taking fists to the face rather than scoring is the fact that he has only 112 goals in his career, and only having broken the double digit mark on five occasions.
The thing is, he has never had to do any scoring. Neil has played alongside some massively talented players during his time in Ottawa. He has been the man tasked with keeping them safe from opposing enforcers, and he has done just that happily for over a decade.
Neil is the last of what looks to be a dying breed, but he certainly deserves his fair share of credit for carrying the torch admirably.