Former NHL enforcer says analytic experts “don’t know anything.”

It sounds like one former player is not at all happy with the current direction of the game.

During a recent interview with Bob Stauffer of Oilers Now, former National Hockey League enforcer Georges Laraque expressed his thoughts about hockey's analytics community, and needless to say his words were not very kind.

"You said some of the people in the media they don’t like tough guys, and they say stuff, ‘They don’t like it, we don’t believe in this and that.’ This is the trend between people that know the game and people that don’t know the game. There’s many people in the media that cover the game that talk about hockey and stuff but they don’t know anything. And you read them and they want to make it look like they do, but they don’t."

“They don’t know anything,” said Laraque as per David Staples of the Edmonton Journal.

Needless to say Laraque's comments are way over the top, and they may speak to the his own frustrations with his own career more than a systemic problem within the NHL's analytics community. However Laraque believes that criticism of players like the Edmonton Oilers' Milan Lucic is completely misplaced, with experts ignoring how his presence impacts his teammates.

“Yeah, they had a young team that played all the game and, yeah, they had enough toughness that prevent guys to take liberties with those guys. Look at before, the Oilers when they had Zack (Stortini) and other guys that were up and down, people were taking liberties with that team and they were always hurt. Now those days are done. People, when they go to Edmonton, with Darnell Nurse, Lucic, Maroon, all those guys there, people don’t want to take liberties with those kids because there’s a lot of guys can answer the bell…"

Do you agree with Laraque's assessment of the NHL analytics community? Or do you feel his comments are over the top?