The NHL Instigator Rule, And What The League Needs To Do With It

First, a confession, I hate the instigator rule.

I don't hate it because it discourages retaliation, or late game fights.  I don't hate it because in some cases it allows the league’s pest to hide behind the rule while running amok on the ice.

No, there is a completely different reason I hate the NHL’s instigator rule.  

With all due respect to the league’s officials, they simply have no idea how to use it properly, which seriously puts a dent into its credibility and raises questions to its mere existence.

All of this would be a moot point if it weren’t for a recent trend that has developed this season: players who throw clean hits, and then have to answer the bell in terms of a fight.

While this trend is not the biggest issue in hockey right now, it is becoming an annoyance.

Furthermore, I think if you look back to all those instances in which a player had to defend himself in a fight following a clean hit, you will find one similarity. There likely was not an instigator rule handed out in any of the cases.

By definition, and I will be paraphrasing here, a player instigates a fight when he drops the gloves first, or grabs another player, and begins throwing punches without the other player having a say in the matter.

Saturday night’s game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Pittsburgh Penguins is another example in the latest saga of instigator misuse. 

After Leafs' defenseman Luke Schenn delivered a solid, yet perfectly legal, hit on Evgeni Malkin, Tyler Kennedy, who had come off the bench in the midst of a post-whistle line change, grabbed Schenn and began a shoving match, which escalated into a fight.

Coming off the bench, grabbing a player, and getting into a fight breaks a few rules, but apparently the instigator rule is not one of them.

For the record, Kennedy has been suspended for one game by the NHL for coming off the bench and engaging in a fight.  

And while I hope people don’t look at this as pro-Leafs banter, the time is now for the NHL to decide where to go with the instigator rule.

Do they keep it? And if they do, will they finally begin to enforce it properly?

While it seems to be on the agenda at every general managers meeting, the time may finally come for the league to take a serious look at the rule, and whether it serves a purpose in today’s NHL.

All of this will surely be a double-edged sword considering the talk of banning fighting all together.