Playing Career
Byers spent a year with the Notre Dame Hounds before beginning his major junior career in 1981 with the Regina Pats of the Western Hockey League (WHL). The following year, the Boston Bruins selected him with a second-round pick (39th overall) at the 1982 NHL Entry Draft. His gritty style earned him a coveted spot with Team Canada at the 1984 World Junior Championships in Nyköping, Sweden. Byers showed promise by scoring 32 goals in each of the next two seasons with Regina, but it was his 153 and 154 penalty minutes in each of those seasons that would be a better measure of his future professional career.
Joining the Bruins at the end of the 1983–84 season, he scored two goals and four assists for six points while amassing 32 PIMs. Bouncing back and forth between the parent club and the minors, his best statistical season came in 1987–88, when he registered 10 goals and 14 assists for 24 points while amassing 249 penalty minutes in 53 games, helping Boston reach the Stanley Cup finals. As an enforcer, Byers' primary responsibility lied with protecting Boston's star players such as Ray Bourque.
Byers signed as a free-agent with the San Jose Sharks on November 7, 1992, where he finished his NHL career in 1992–93, before ending his professional playing career with the International Hockey League (IHL)'s Minnesota Moose in 1994–1995. He scored 28 goals and 43 assists for 71 points and amassed 1,081 PIMs in 279 NHL games over ten seasons.
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