The Impact of the Instigator Rule on Fighting in the National Hockey League

Figure 2

The trends in fights per game from 1967–2019. Fights per game averaged for all teams over each season is depicted by the red line. Green bars represent the average fights per game for the Stanley Cup winner that season. The dotted purple line represents the average fights per game averaged between the 2 conference winning teams that season. The black and yellow lines represent the average number of fights per game averaged between teams who did and did not make the playoffs that season, respectively.