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How Little Can One Man Possibly Play?

Here's a list of the players who've had the least ice time per game of the last 11 seasons, with a minimum of 164 games played:

GP TOI/G PIM/60/82
Andrew Peters 200 3:40 3723
Eric Godard 271 4:07 2874
Darren Langdon 309 4:34 2166
Jesse Boulerice 172 4:46 1998
Derek Boogaard 198 4:51 2248
Aaron Downey 243 4:56 2025
Rob Ray 331 4:56 2826
Stu Grimson 225 5:00 2558
Ken Belanger 183 5:13 2344
Scott Parker 308 5:24 2066

It should be obvious that there's really only one talent that will keep you in the NHL for a lengthy career without you being able to play a regular shift. Amazingly, there really isn't anyone who got fewer shifts per game than Peters but managed to play even 40 games in their career. The last column is how many penalty minutes each player got per 82 games (x60 minutes) of playing time. Peters is head and shoulders above the rest of the league's regular goons in terms of his sheer efficiency in getting penalties. The only real contenders are found among fighters with shorter careers:

GP TOI/G PIM/60/82
Dave Morissette 11 2:21 10786
Rocky Thompson 13 2:46 7653
Doug Doull 37 2:53 6943
Garrett Burnett 39 3:35 6466
Kyle Freadrich 23 3:00 5348
Mike Brown 34 4:22 4293
David Koci 101 5:07 4157
Joel Rechlicz 22 4:52 3884
Kip Brennan 61 4:39 3846

We really only have two contenders: Peters, and David Koci. Koci gets quite a bit more ice time than Peters, but he also gets even more penalties. But clearly it would be difficult to challenge Morissette, who had either a major penalty or a misconduct in 7 of his 11 career NHL games.

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