Max Pacioretty and P.K. Subban were sitting on the bench during the 2016 NHL Winter Classic, sizing up the toughness of then Boston Bruins winger Matt Beleskey.
“He’s tough,” said Subban. “He’s not, like, Wayne Simmonds tough, but he’s tough.”
“Oh, so I can get him on my (fight) card,” responded Pacioretty.
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“No,” said Subban. “You cannot fight Wayne Simmonds.”
The exchange brought a new phrase to the hockey lexicon: “Wayne Simmonds Tough.”
“A guy that would do anything for the team to help us win, whether it’s fight, hit, get in on the forecheck,” Subban said of Simmonds in February of 2020 after Simmonds was traded from the New Jersey Devils to the Buffalo Sabres.
Since entering the league in 2008, the 32-year-old Simmonds has played 909 NHL games, scored 251 goals and racked up 1,123 penalty minutes, making him one of the most consistently difficult players to play against.
That’s a big reason why the Maple Leafs signed him to a one-year, $1.5-million contract when free agency opened on Oct. 9. The Leafs have wilted in the face of tougher competition at times over the past three seasons.
“Yes, we would like to become a harder team to play against,” said Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas on Oct. 9. “And more than that, I think it’s the toughness in character with which (guys like Simmonds) operate every day.”
But what exactly is “Wayne Simmonds Tough?” To better understand, The Athletic spoke to Simmonds’ former teammates and adversaries about what makes the new Leafs forward such a tough customer.
Farmer strong
Michal Handzus remembers asking himself a question the first time he saw Simmonds: “How is he going to survive in the NHL?”
“That was the biggest surprise,” said Handzus, who played alongside Simmonds when he entered the league as a rookie with the Los Angeles Kings. “The first time I saw him, he was so skinny.”
When Simmonds was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers in 2011, at just 185 pounds, he hadn’t exactly bulked up.
“You look at him off the ice and there’s not much to him,” said Matt Carle, then a teammate of Simmonds’. “He’s not a physical force like Milan Lucic back in his prime.”
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But almost immediately, Simmonds surprised his Flyers teammates by playing with a presence that outweighed his lanky frame. Being tough is not necessarily about size and weight, but as former Flyer Scott Hartnell described Simmonds’, it’s about being “farmer strong.”
“We’ve done hockey camps together where you’re doing plyometric circuits. He’s just bounding over these things like a gazelle. And I’m barely getting over, I’m hitting the top and falling down, and it’s effortless for him. A lot of guys look big and strong with their shirt off. He might not look like that, but he’s definitely as strong as each and every one of those guys,” said Hartnell.
Simmonds has been able to make up for his lack of muscle with what Hartnell calls “incredible” balance and strength on his skates. Simmonds’ isn’t an easy player to push over. And that sneaky strength has allowed him to punch above his weight class.
“You see him workout at the gym, he’s basically all bones, right?” said Hartnell. “He’s not a physical specimen but he packs a mean punch.”
“Pound for pound, he’s the toughest guy in the NHL,” said Ryan White, who played with Simmonds on the Flyers from 2014 to 2016.
“He stood up for his teammates”
Handzus quickly realized how Simmonds would make a name for himself in the NHL: by sacrificing his body, all 185 pounds of it.
“He went everywhere,” he said. “He didn’t care if it hurt: in front of the net, in the corner. He went to those tough areas.”
There was just one condition. Simmonds would only sacrifice his body if it benefitted his team.
“He’s a guy that would do anything for you, on and off the ice. He’s just a really sweet person and on the ice, he obviously plays the exact opposite of that,” said Hartnell. “He takes no prisoners out there. He’s not afraid of anyone, which is exactly what you want in a teammate who can hold his own and stick up for teammates.”
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“He was a very honest player from the beginning,” said Handzus. “I always admired that. He stood up for his teammates. He wanted to help. And he was tough, but he was smart. That’s a great combination. And that’s why he grew up to be such a great player.”
Though some of Simmonds’ hits walked the line throughout his’ career, he has largely earned respect for being the honest player Handzus described.
Matt Irwin was a teammate of Simmonds’ during his brief stint in Nashville, but it was an incident during a game between the Flyers and Irwin’s former team, the San Jose Sharks, that sticks out to him.
“I received a pass and I had my head so far up, you know what, that he could have killed me,” said Irwin. “And he didn’t. He just kind of stopped in his tracks. I didn’t know him previously, I’d never crossed paths with him. I recognized that. So the next shift I just went up to him and said, ‘Thank you. You could have killed me.’ He gave me a tap. I gained a lot of respect for him as a player.”
“It’s gonna be a war”
Simmonds likely won many Leafs fans over when he described himself as someone who can still play the game but, if need be, can “punch your head off.”
“Whenever somebody has the guts to drop the gloves with him, you kind of held your breath for that guy,” said Carle.
Fighting is on the decline in the NHL, yes. But the Leafs now employ one of the league’s most devastating fighters on their roster after finishing in the bottom third of NHL teams in fighting majors for the past three seasons.
So what makes Simmonds such a difficult opponent once the gloves are dropped?
“For me, I use my reach to my advantage,” said Dylan McIlrath, who has fought Simmonds twice in his NHL career. “I have, I don’t even know how many pounds on him, probably close to 40 pounds? But he owns the same reach as me. And he has punching power.”
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Those who know Simmonds weren’t surprised by his braggadocious debut Leafs media availability. With his ability to throw down comes an equally dangerous tool: his ability to intimidate.
“I remember the night he jumped me in Montreal, and I remember the look he gave me before when he was coming at me,” said White, who played for the Canadiens from 2009 to 2014. “I’m thinking to myself, ‘Oh, shit, I better get ready,’ I think that dog has been backed into a corner. That’s the kind of attitude he brings.”
White had a front row seat at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 14, 2016, for one of Simmonds’ most notorious fights. During the previous meeting between the Rangers and Simmonds’ Flyers, Simmonds had punched then Rangers captain Ryan McDonagh, leaving him with a concussion.
“’It’s gonna be a war,’” White remembers thinking. “(Then Flyers head coach Dave Hakstol) came in and said, ‘Simmie, you’re starting, they’re starting McIlrath.’ And I’m thinking, ‘Oh God, here we go.’ I said to Simmie, ‘You know, you don’t have to fight him. Let’s go win this game and we’ll be fine. Let’s get out of here.’ His response was, ‘I can’t play my game with this guy chasing me around all night. I did something, I gotta man up here.’
“That just set the tone for the game right away,” said White. “That was us showing them, ‘OK, we took out your captain, but we’re not backing down, we don’t give a shit, we’re gonna come in and win another game.’ That was his attitude, and his fierce competitiveness.’”
It wouldn’t be a normal tilt for McIlrath.
“It was built up by the media, that we needed revenge,” said McIlrath. “So I was anxious for that.”
Just 39 seconds after the opening face-off, Simmonds and McIlrath dropped the gloves for a 63-second fight.
“I definitely felt the first shot, right on the chin,” said McIlrath. “I wore it.”
McIlrath skated to the penalty box with a torn sweater, while Simmonds screamed at the Madison Square Garden crowd.
“He is always in your ear, and he’s just a presence on the ice,” said White. “And when you’re fighting him, he’s not gonna give up. He’s not a guy to just wait until the linesmen come in.”
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“You be you”
Simmonds and Zac Rinaldo began playing together with the Flyers in 2011. In 2011-12, they brought back memories of the Broad Street Bullies as the Flyers were runaway leaders in penalty minutes (1,318) that year.
Rinaldo recalled how he dressed differently than the majority of his teammates during his rookie season.
“And some guys didn’t like it,” said Rinaldo. “So they would bust my balls about it. And I went to Wayne and asked, ‘Why? Why do guys bust my balls because of the way I dress?’ I’m not doing anything crazy.’ And excuse my language, but Wayne was like, ‘Who gives a fuck what they’re saying? As long as you show up to the rink and you’re putting in the work and whatever you’re doing is making you happy, who gives a fuck what they say? You be you.’”
The conversation helped Rinaldo rid himself of any insecurity.
“Seeing Wayne be true to himself, and how he trusted his gut, that made me more confident to just stay true to myself in any situation,” said Rinaldo. “If I didn’t go to Wayne, I might have done things differently. And that would have changed certain ways how I see things or how I do things.”
Rinaldo was asked how he thinks Simmonds developed his confidence.
“His upbringing,” answered Rinaldo. “The way he navigated through life and through hockey, let alone being a young black man in a white man’s sport. And realizing that one percent of the population makes it to the NHL, let alone being a black man. He’s always had that mindset: hard work over everything.”
Rinaldo believes that attitude outweighs any strength Simmonds brings on the ice.
“I think that’s what makes someone tough,” said Rinaldo.
(Top photo: Kevin Sousa / Getty Images)
