Wendel Clark and Bob Probert were on the same sheet of ice 60 times, 46 times in the regular season and 14 in the playoffs, from Clark’s rookie year in November 1985 to a Thursday night in Chicago in March 2000. It is one of the longest head-to-head records of its kind in the era, and it ends in a way almost nobody remembers.
They fought four times in three of those 60 games, all within a six-year window. After 9 December 1992, they met another 24 times and never fought again. Wendel Clark outscored Bob Probert 50 points to 27 across the 60 games. Probert took 311 penalty minutes in them, 5.18 a game, against a career average of 3.53 — he was 47% more penalized against Clark’s teams than against the rest of the league.
Wendel Clark vs Bob Probert: the head-to-head record
Every game in which both men appeared, matched by their game-by-game logs using the league’s game identifier.
| Clark | Probert | |
|---|---|---|
| Shared games | 60 | 60 |
| Regular season | 46 | 46 |
| Playoffs | 14 | 14 |
| Goals | 24 | 15 |
| Assists | 26 | 12 |
| Points | 50 | 27 |
| Points per game | 0.833 | 0.450 |
| Penalty minutes | 137 | 311 |
| PIM per game | 2.28 | 5.18 |
Both men played above their own career level in these games. Clark scored 0.833 points a game against Probert’s teams, up from a career rate of 0.711. Probert scored 0.450 against a career 0.411, and his penalty minutes went from 3.53 a game to 5.18.
First meeting: 8 November 1985, in Detroit, Clark’s rookie season. Last meeting: 30 March 2000, in Chicago, where Probert scored, and Clark did not register a point.
READ MORE: Bob Probert’s penalty minutes against every NHL team
How many times did Clark and Probert fight?
Four bouts, in three games. The dates are 27 December 1986, 17 October 1987, and 9 December 1992, which produced two separate fights in one game.
| Date | Teams | Clark PIM | Probert PIM |
|---|---|---|---|
| 27 December 1986 | Toronto vs Detroit | 15 | 15 |
| 17 October 1987 | Toronto vs Detroit | 7 | 7 |
| 9 December 1992 (two bouts) | Toronto vs Detroit | 12 | 14 |
All three games are in the shared-game record above, and in each one both men took at least five penalty minutes, which is consistent with a major apiece.
But the penalty column cannot identify a fight, and this pairing proves it. Two other games in the 60 have five or more penalty minutes for both men, and in neither of them did they fight each other. On 13 January 1986 Clark fought a different Detroit player, and on 15 January 1987 another. Read on the penalty minutes alone, two of five candidate games would be wrong.
So the fight dates here come from a fight record compiled by the hockey community rather than from the league, which has never tracked fights, cross-checked against the penalty minutes in the official game logs. The two agree on all three games.
READ MORE: Bob Probert had a wholesome reason to fight Wendel Clark
How many times did they play against each other?
Sixty, spread unevenly across fifteen seasons.
| Season | Clark’s club | Probert’s club | Meetings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1985-86 | Toronto | Detroit | 5 |
| 1986-87 | Toronto | Detroit | 7 + 7 playoff |
| 1987-88 | Toronto | Detroit | 5 |
| 1988-89 | Toronto | Detroit | 0 |
| 1989-90 | Toronto | Detroit | 0 |
| 1990-91 | Toronto | Detroit | 3 |
| 1991-92 | Toronto | Detroit | 3 |
| 1992-93 | Toronto | Detroit | 5 + 7 playoff |
| 1993-94 | Toronto | Detroit | 4 |
| 1995-96 | NY Islanders, Toronto | Chicago | 3 |
| 1996-97 | Toronto | Chicago | 4 |
| 1997-98 | Toronto | Chicago | 2 |
| 1998-99 | Tampa Bay, Detroit | Chicago | 4 |
| 1999-2000 | Toronto | Chicago | 1 |
Were Clark and Probert ever teammates?
Yes, and it is the part of this story that gets lost. In the autumn of 1999, both men were with the Chicago Blackhawks, and they played six games together, from 4 October to 10 November 1999.
Clark had signed in Chicago for what turned out to be 13 games. He was back in Toronto by mid-January for the third spell of his career there, and on 30 March 2000 he played against Probert one final time.
They were never Detroit teammates: Probert’s last Detroit season was 1993-94, and Clark’s twelve Detroit games came in April 1999.
READ MORE: How to watch the Detroit Red Wings
What happened when they met in the playoffs?
Twice, and both times it went seven games, and both times it was Toronto against Detroit.
| 1987 first round | 1993 first round | |
|---|---|---|
| Games | 7 | 7 |
| Clark | 4 goals, 2 assists, 6 points | 2 goals, 5 assists, 7 points |
| Probert | 1 goal, 3 assists, 4 points | 0 goals, 3 assists, 3 points |
| Clark PIM | 21 | 12 |
| Probert PIM | 32 | 10 |
Clark was the more productive player in both series, and in the 14 playoff meetings overall he scored 13 points to Probert’s 7 while taking 33 penalty minutes to Probert’s 42. Neither of their four fights came in a playoff game.
READ MORE: How to watch the Toronto Maple Leafs
How many fights did Wendel Clark have?
The community-compiled fight archive credits him with 126 across his career, against 1,690 penalty minutes in 793 regular-season games, a rate of 2.13 a game. No official count exists, because the NHL has never recorded fights as a statistic, so every figure of this kind is somebody’s tally rather than a league record.
His most penalized season was his rookie year: 227 minutes in 66 games at 19. The only opponents who appear more than once in the suggestions people search for alongside his name are Probert and Marty McSorley.
One absence is worth recording, because it is the kind of thing a reputation invents. Clark and Tony Twist shared the ice 22 times, and no documented fight occurred between them. Clark never took more than a minor penalty in any of those 22 games. Twist fought four different Toronto players across those same seasons; Clark was not one of them.
READ MORE: Wendel Clark says a Leaf who never won anything is top five all-time
What were Wendel Clark’s career stats?
| Regular season | Playoffs | |
|---|---|---|
| Games | 793 | 95 |
| Goals | 330 | 37 |
| Assists | 234 | 32 |
| Points | 564 | 69 |
| Penalty minutes | 1,690 | 199 |
| Points per game | 0.711 | 0.726 |
He played for six clubs and had three separate spells in Toronto, which together account for 608 of his 793 games.
| # | Club | Seasons | Games |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Toronto Maple Leafs | 1985-86 to 1993-94 | 463 |
| 2 | Quebec Nordiques | 1994-95 | 37 |
| 3 | New York Islanders | 1995-96 | 58 |
| 4 | Toronto Maple Leafs | 1995-96 to 1997-98 | 125 |
| 5 | Tampa Bay Lightning | 1998-99 | 65 |
| 6 | Detroit Red Wings | 1998-99 | 12 |
| 7 | Chicago Blackhawks | 1999-2000 | 13 |
| 8 | Toronto Maple Leafs | 1999-2000 | 20 |
His best season was 1993-94: 46 goals and 76 points in 64 games, more than double the goals of any other year of his career, and the only season in which he scored more than 37.
Who was the better player?
Clark, on the record of the 60 games and on the careers either side of them. He scored 330 goals to Probert’s 163 in 142 fewer games, and he outscored him almost two-to-one when they played each other.
Probert’s case is different, and it is not a scoring case. He played 935 games, 142 more than Clark, and he took 3,300 penalty minutes doing it. His best season, 1987-88, produced 62 points and 398 penalty minutes, and his playoff record that spring was 21 points in 16 games, the single best run either man had. His full career is a subject of its own.
What the head-to-head says is narrower and more interesting than a verdict. Over fifteen years, across two clubs and 60 meetings, Clark scored more, Probert was penalized more, and both did more of each against the other than against anybody else.
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