NHL Fights--Enforcing The Instigator Penalty

NHL GMs have come up with the idea of enforcing the existing instigator rule to cut down on the increasing numbers of fights in NHL games. The two minute minor instigator penalty is seldom called. In fact it has been called in only about 5 percent of fights this season to date. This number should have been much higher because there has been a considerable increase in fights where a player instigated the fight to avenge a clean hit on a teammate.

Enforcing the instigator penalty more often would cut down the number of fights significantly. Enforcement of this penalty would cause players to think again before instigating a fight in support of a teammate who was legally checked. The fact that the team may be penalised and not just the player wiil undoubtedly cut down on fighting.

Statistics show that 20 percent of all fights start because a players was legally checked. Such a fight is the reason for the rule in the first place. Yet referees rarely invoke the instigator penalty.

GMs also recommended punishing staged fights and fights right after the puck is dropped with a 10 minute misconduct penalty. This would further reduce the incidence of fighting. Over 20 percent of all fights in the NHL this season were "staged" fights off a faceoff.

It would be the referee's responsibility to decide on what is a staged fight. The 10 minute misconduct however may be too little to put a serious dent in staged fights. A game misconduct on the other hand would put teeth in the enforcement. For enforcers, who do little except to fight, a 10 minute misconduct doesn't really mean very much but a game misconduct could change that. These recommendations will go now to the Competition Committee and finally to the NHL board of governors for approval and will therefore not come into force till next season.

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