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Monday, October 03, 2011
When does fighting occur?
Tyler notes the obvious when he says that the number of fights in the playoffs pales in comparison to those in the regular season. However, he extends that idea to close games and blowouts within the regular season. If the reason that you don’t see fights in the playoffs is that the stakes ("leverage") is too high, then maybe in close games in the regular season, we’ll see that too maybe.
I put together some charts that I think are illuminating. Basically, what I’ve done is ask how many minutes have to be played in a given situation (tie, one goal game, two goal game etc.) at a given time (first period, second period or third period) to see a fight in the NHL in 2010-11.
The results are about what you’d expect, if a touch more dramatic. I think we can probably expand the “nobody fights in the playoffs” argument to “nobody fights in the playoffs…or basically at any other point in which the game hangs in the balance.”
I can’t see his images at the office (they are flickr). But based on his description, it seems like fighting takes place much less in high leverage game situations, presumably because the fighters are not on the ice in high leverage situations. And since fighting is mostly limited to guys on the roster because they can fight, both teams have decided that police action is not required.
I’d like to see this expanded to other penalties too, not just fighting. Are stick fouls and other aggressive “hot head” penalties also down? Are players simply aware that taking a penalty in a high-leverage situation simply not something worth risking?
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