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

Table 4

Fights and penalty data comparing playoff teams and nonplayoff teams.

	Playoff teams		Nonplayoff teams		value
	Mean	SD	Mean	SD
Modern Era (2005−2019)
Fights/gm	0.40	0.20	0.42	0.19	0.46
Total penalty (minutes/gm)	11.18	2.61	12.06	3.06	0.002
Net penalty (mins/gm)	0.02	0.37	-0.04	0.47	0.03
Expansion Era (1967−1980)
Fights/gm	0.51	0.23	0.51	0.24	0.33
Total penalty (minutes/gm)	14.40	4.11	13.74	3.61	0.0007
Net penalty (mins/gm)	−0.03	0.68	0.08	0.62	<0.0001

Gm = game.