Photo Credit: Ed Szczepanski/USA TODAY Sports

The Vancouver Canucks have invited a designated fighter to training camp, according to a report from News 1130 Sports.

John Kurtz, 26, has spent his professional career bludgeoning opponents in the minor leagues with the Anaheim Ducks organization. Kurtz has fought 40 times over the past two seasons, according to hockeyfights.com – crooked numbers for sure. He’s also scored 18 goals and 37 total points in 271 AHL games, so there isn’t much to his game beyond the face-punching dimension.

In addition to being a prolific fighter-of-men in the AHL, Kurtz has also fought three times in the past two NHL preseasons – including a bout with 2014-15 NHL fighting majors leader Cody McLeod. Considering Jim Benning’s fondness for Derek Dorsett and Brandon Prust types, and the organizations treatment of Tom Sestito last season, that’ll very likely be the extent of Kurtz’s contributions in Vancouver this season.

It’s presumably conceivable that he could end up earning an AHL deal with the Utica Comets, though.

It should be mentioned here that under Travis Green’s watch the Comets haven’t been a particularly fight-y AHL outfit, finishing in the bottom third of the league in fighting majors in each of their first two seasons. The Comets’ most frequent pugilist from last season, Darren Archibald, wasn’t re-signed this summer. So there would seem to be a vacancy that Kurtz may be a candidate to fill.

Inviting a player like Kurtz to training camp while organizations like the Maple Leafs and the Calgary Flames invite more useful prospective NHLers is perhaps not the most flattering contrast for the Canucks. If the organization would prefer to see a player like Kurtz drop the gloves, rather than watching that burden passed along to a credible NHL prospect like Andrey Pedan (who was second among Comets in bouts last season with eight, and ultimately got injured in a fight), that would be fully reasonable though.