Golden Knights’ Reaves voted NHL’s toughest player

By Jesse Granger

Thursday, March 8, 2018 | 2 a.m.

The Golden Knights’ newly acquired winger Ryan Reaves is the toughest player in the NHL, according to his peers.

Every year the National Hockey League Players Association polls players on a multitude of topics including the best players, coaches, officials, arenas, teams and other on-ice matters.

In this year’s poll, which was conducted between the preseason and January, the players overwhelmingly voted Reaves as the league’s toughest player. The nine-year veteran received 44.7 percent of the 405 votes, while the next highest voted player (Milan Lucic of the Edmonton Oilers) received 14.8 percent.

Reaves has earned the reputation, with 695 penalty minutes in 419 career games. He spent the first seven years of his career with the St. Louis Blues before being traded to Pittsburgh prior to this season, then was traded to Vegas just prior to the trade deadline this February.

Reaves has racked up 1,324 hits in his career, including 174 this season and 13 in his five games with the Golden Knights.

No other Golden Knights players made appearances in the polls, but coach Gerard Gallant received the third-most votes for the coach players would most like to play for.

Gallant received 11.6 percent of the votes, trailing only Joel Quenneville of the Chicago Blackhawks (16.5 percent) and Jon Cooper of the Tampa Bay Lightning (14.2 percent).

The rest of the poll's results can be found here.