How Hockey ChangedThe Vanishing Game
NHL Fights Fell to 0.18 a Game in 2018-19, Then Climbed Past the 0.20 of Gordie Howe’s Era
In 2019 the men who used to fight for a living said NHL fighting was finished. It came back by about a third. The big brawls and the full-time fighters are gone, and today’s fights come early, between players who also take a regular shift.
By Edgehalla ResearchPublished 9 min read
In 1995-96, Matthew Barnaby drew 28 fighting majors for the Buffalo Sabres, more than anyone in the league but Ottawa’s Dennis Vial. In July 2019, with NHL fights at their lowest rate in at least 50 years, ESPN reported that many in the game saw no way back. Barnaby was one of them.
“No, I don’t ever see it reversing,” he said.
It reversed. On March 19, 2026, at the opening faceoff in Ottawa, the two captains, Brady Tkachuk of the Senators and Anders Lee of the Islanders, dropped their gloves. On April 11, in Elmont, N.Y., they did it again.
On this page
The obituary was written in 2019
The numbers were on Barnaby’s side. In 2018-19 there were 226 fights in 1,271 games, 0.18 a game. That was the fewest of any season back to at least 1968-69. We can’t say “ever.” The six-team league of the 1950s and early 1960s sometimes had fewer, and some seasons in between were never counted (more on both below). Daniel Carcillo called it “the new normal.” Stu Grimson, who fought through the 1990s, said why: “Roster space is precious today.”
Then fights came back. By 2022-23 they were up 43%, to 0.25 a game. Over the last five seasons they have averaged 0.24, about one every four games.
Fights fell to 0.18 a game in 2018-19, then climbed back by about a third
Full regular season; the band shows how far each season could swing by luck alone. Dashed: the first 184 games of each season
fights a game
Show data
| Season | Full season | Full season (range) | First 184 games |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-18 | 0.22 fights a game | 0.19 fights a game to 0.25 fights a game | 0.23 fights a game |
| 2018-19 | 0.18 fights a game | 0.15 fights a game to 0.20 fights a game | 0.20 fights a game |
| 2019-20 | 0.18 fights a game | 0.15 fights a game to 0.20 fights a game | 0.15 fights a game |
| 2020-21 | 0.23 fights a game | 0.20 fights a game to 0.26 fights a game | 0.16 fights a game |
| 2021-22 | 0.25 fights a game | 0.22 fights a game to 0.28 fights a game | 0.25 fights a game |
| 2022-23 | 0.26 fights a game | 0.23 fights a game to 0.28 fights a game | 0.23 fights a game |
| 2023-24 | 0.24 fights a game | 0.21 fights a game to 0.26 fights a game | 0.28 fights a game |
| 2024-25 | 0.23 fights a game | 0.20 fights a game to 0.25 fights a game | 0.27 fights a game |
| 2025-26 | 0.23 fights a game | 0.21 fights a game to 0.26 fights a game | 0.22 fights a game |
| 2026-27 | – | – | 0.29 fights a game |
Watch the shaded band. Luck alone could have put 2018-19 anywhere up to 0.20 a game, and 2022-23 no lower than 0.23. The two never touch, so the comeback is too big to be luck.
This season has started faster still. Through the first 184 games of 2026-27 there were 54 fights, 0.29 a game, the quickest start in our log (the dashed line). Read that as an early hint at most. Over the same stretch, past seasons have run anywhere from 0.15 to 0.28 a game, and 54 fights is a small count, so it could be luck.
Gordie Howe’s league fought a little less often than this one
On Feb. 1, 1959, at Madison Square Garden, Gordie Howe was caught up in a tangle between Detroit’s Red Kelly and the Rangers’ Eddie Shack. Lou Fontinato, the Rangers defenceman who had been mocking him, rushed in. Howe ducked the punch and threw his own. “That honker of his was right there, and I drilled it,” he told the writer Richard Bak in 2014.
The game sheet shows two fighting majors at 17:13 of the first period, in a 5-4 Rangers win. Yet Howe drew only 16 fighting majors in the 18 seasons from 1947-48 to 1964-65 that we counted from the game records, and the era’s busiest fighter, Fern Flaman, had 50. That league averaged 0.20 fights a game. Today’s averages 0.24.
Today’s NHL fights a little more often than Howe’s did, and a quarter as often as the late 1980s
Regular season. Solid: every fight counted from the game records. Dashed: half of all major penalties, about the most fights a season could have had
fights a game
Show data
| Season | Fights (counted) | Half of all majors |
|---|---|---|
| 1947-48 | 0.19 fights a game | 0.21 fights a game |
| 1948-49 | 0.26 fights a game | 0.22 fights a game |
| 1949-50 | 0.19 fights a game | 0.21 fights a game |
| 1950-51 | 0.25 fights a game | 0.26 fights a game |
| 1951-52 | 0.21 fights a game | 0.22 fights a game |
| 1952-53 | 0.21 fights a game | 0.22 fights a game |
| 1953-54 | 0.26 fights a game | 0.26 fights a game |
| 1954-55 | 0.21 fights a game | 0.23 fights a game |
| 1955-56 | 0.16 fights a game | 0.18 fights a game |
| 1956-57 | 0.24 fights a game | 0.26 fights a game |
| 1957-58 | 0.21 fights a game | 0.24 fights a game |
| 1958-59 | 0.19 fights a game | 0.24 fights a game |
| 1959-60 | 0.16 fights a game | 0.22 fights a game |
| 1960-61 | 0.20 fights a game | 0.24 fights a game |
| 1961-62 | 0.12 fights a game | 0.15 fights a game |
| 1962-63 | 0.17 fights a game | 0.20 fights a game |
| 1963-64 | 0.31 fights a game | 0.36 fights a game |
| 1964-65 | 0.16 fights a game | 0.19 fights a game |
| 1965-66 | – | 0.22 fights a game |
| 1966-67 | – | 0.25 fights a game |
| 1967-68 | – | 0.21 fights a game |
| 1968-69 | – | 0.32 fights a game |
| 1969-70 | – | 0.36 fights a game |
| 1970-71 | – | 0.54 fights a game |
| 1971-72 | – | 0.40 fights a game |
| 1972-73 | – | 0.45 fights a game |
| 1973-74 | – | 0.45 fights a game |
| 1974-75 | – | 0.49 fights a game |
| 1975-76 | – | 0.52 fights a game |
| 1976-77 | – | 0.52 fights a game |
| 1977-78 | 0.71 fights a game | 0.70 fights a game |
| 1978-79 | 0.73 fights a game | 0.72 fights a game |
| 1979-80 | 0.74 fights a game | 0.74 fights a game |
| 1980-81 | 0.80 fights a game | 0.83 fights a game |
| 1981-82 | 0.77 fights a game | 0.79 fights a game |
| 1982-83 | 0.72 fights a game | 0.75 fights a game |
| 1983-84 | 0.86 fights a game | 0.89 fights a game |
| 1984-85 | 0.98 fights a game | 0.98 fights a game |
| 1985-86 | 1.09 fights a game | 1.11 fights a game |
| 1986-87 | 1.03 fights a game | 1.07 fights a game |
| 1987-88 | 1.09 fights a game | 1.17 fights a game |
| 1988-89 | 0.96 fights a game | 1.04 fights a game |
| 1989-90 | 0.93 fights a game | 1.02 fights a game |
| 1990-91 | 0.92 fights a game | 0.99 fights a game |
| 1991-92 | 0.91 fights a game | 1.01 fights a game |
| 1992-93 | 0.64 fights a game | 0.71 fights a game |
| 1993-94 | 0.77 fights a game | 0.83 fights a game |
| 1994-95 | 0.82 fights a game | 0.89 fights a game |
| 1995-96 | 0.74 fights a game | 0.79 fights a game |
| 1996-97 | 0.85 fights a game | 0.88 fights a game |
| 1997-98 | – | 0.80 fights a game |
| 1998-99 | – | 0.61 fights a game |
| 1999-00 | – | 0.52 fights a game |
| 2000-01 | – | 0.57 fights a game |
| 2001-02 | – | 0.67 fights a game |
| 2002-03 | – | 0.56 fights a game |
| 2003-04 | – | 0.66 fights a game |
| 2004-05 | – | – |
| 2005-06 | – | 0.39 fights a game |
| 2006-07 | – | 0.41 fights a game |
| 2007-08 | – | 0.55 fights a game |
| 2008-09 | – | 0.61 fights a game |
| 2009-10 | – | 0.60 fights a game |
| 2010-11 | – | 0.55 fights a game |
| 2011-12 | – | 0.46 fights a game |
| 2012-13 | – | 0.50 fights a game |
| 2013-14 | – | 0.40 fights a game |
| 2014-15 | – | 0.33 fights a game |
| 2015-16 | – | 0.30 fights a game |
| 2016-17 | – | 0.32 fights a game |
| 2017-18 | 0.22 fights a game | 0.23 fights a game |
| 2018-19 | 0.18 fights a game | 0.19 fights a game |
| 2019-20 | 0.18 fights a game | 0.19 fights a game |
| 2020-21 | 0.23 fights a game | 0.23 fights a game |
| 2021-22 | 0.25 fights a game | 0.26 fights a game |
| 2022-23 | 0.26 fights a game | 0.26 fights a game |
| 2023-24 | 0.24 fights a game | 0.25 fights a game |
| 2024-25 | 0.23 fights a game | 0.23 fights a game |
| 2025-26 | 0.23 fights a game | 0.24 fights a game |
- 1958-59: Howe v Fontinato
- 1992-93: Instigator rule
- 2018-19: 2018-19 low
The solid line starts low with Howe, ends low now, and towers in between. That middle stretch was the fighting league of the late 1980s: about one fight a game from 1985-86 to 1991-92, four times today’s rate. In 1985-86 Detroit’s Joey Kocur drew 36 fighting majors on his own.
The dashed line is there because a fight puts two fighting majors on the sheet, one for each player. When Howe hit Fontinato, both went to the box for five minutes. So if every major penalty in a season had been for fighting, that season would have had exactly half as many fights as majors. Some majors are for other fouls, and each of those pushes the true count below the dashed line. In every season we counted, 74% to 98% of majors were fighting majors, so the solid line hugs the dashed one.
About 19 majors in 20 were for fighting, so the dashed line sits close to the truth
For 31 seasons, 1965-66 to 1976-77 and 1997-98 to 2016-17, the dashed line is all we have. The NHL publishes each season’s major penalties, but we have no fight-by-fight count for those years. So we checked how close the ceiling sits. We took 30 games spread across the schedule in each of 16 seasons and read every major penalty. In the 11 of those seasons that are still uncounted, 95.3% of the majors were fighting majors.
Outside 1967-68, at least 87% of sampled majors in every season were for fighting
30 regular-season games per season, spread across the schedule. Grey: seasons we also counted in full
In the 11 sampled seasons still uncounted, 95.3% of major penalties were fighting majors; the lowest was 75.0% in 1967-68.
Every bar but 1967-68 sits near the top. The grey bars are the test. We sampled four seasons before we counted them in full, and the sample’s estimate missed the real count by at most 0.04 fights a game. In 1987-88 the sample said 89.1% and the full season said 91.3%.
Two outside counts agree. ESPN, using tallies from hockeyfights.com, reported fight totals for two seasons we never counted. Both land just under our ceiling.
| Season | Fights reported | Fights a game | Our ceiling (half of majors) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001-02 | 803 | 0.65 | 0.67 |
| 2008-09 | 734 | 0.60 | 0.61 |
No season since 1968-69 had fewer fights than 2018-19
That is where “at least 1968-69” comes from. An uncounted season from 1968-69 to 2016-17 could only have had fewer fights than 2018-19 if under 60% of its majors were for fighting. In every season we counted, at least 74% were.
Before 1968-69 we can’t rule it out. 1967-68, the first year of the 12-team league, had few majors. Its sample (16 majors) puts it at about 0.16 fights a game, below 2018-19, but 16 majors are too few to settle it. The six-team league sometimes ran lower too: 0.16 a game in 1955-56 and 0.12 in 1961-62. ESPN, working from hockeyfights.com, called 2018-19 the first season under 0.20 fights a game. That holds from 1968-69 on. It doesn’t hold for Howe’s league.
The rules didn’t stop the fighting
If fighting fell and came back, the rulebook is the first suspect. The league spent decades trying to write fighting out of the game, and in 1981 it had plenty to write against. In warmups at Boston Garden on Feb. 26, 1981, Minnesota’s Tom Younghans skated past the linesman Gord Broseker. “I hope you and Kevin went to the gym today,” he said. Kevin Collins was the other linesman. The first fight came 7 seconds in. There were 67 penalties by the first intermission and 84 by the end, 26 of them fighting majors, the most in any game we counted from 1977-78 to 1996-97. “Back then,” Broseker told The Hockey News, “those kinds of brawls were just part of the sport.”
Take two of the rules that followed. From 1987-88, a player who left the bench to join a fight was suspended, and so was his coach. Fights that season hit 1.09 a game, the most we have counted. In 1992-93 the instigator rule added a game misconduct for the player who starts a fight, which throws him out of the game. Fights fell about 30% in one season, from 0.91 a game to 0.64.
The instigator rule cut fights by 30%, and four seasons later they were nearly back
Regular season, every fight counted from the game records; the band shows how far each season could swing by luck alone
fights a game
Show data
| Season | Fights per game | Fights per game (range) |
|---|---|---|
| 1977-78 | 0.71 fights a game | 0.64 fights a game to 0.77 fights a game |
| 1978-79 | 0.73 fights a game | 0.66 fights a game to 0.79 fights a game |
| 1979-80 | 0.74 fights a game | 0.68 fights a game to 0.80 fights a game |
| 1980-81 | 0.80 fights a game | 0.74 fights a game to 0.86 fights a game |
| 1981-82 | 0.77 fights a game | 0.71 fights a game to 0.83 fights a game |
| 1982-83 | 0.72 fights a game | 0.66 fights a game to 0.78 fights a game |
| 1983-84 | 0.86 fights a game | 0.80 fights a game to 0.93 fights a game |
| 1984-85 | 0.98 fights a game | 0.91 fights a game to 1.05 fights a game |
| 1985-86 | 1.09 fights a game | 1.02 fights a game to 1.16 fights a game |
| 1986-87 | 1.03 fights a game | 0.96 fights a game to 1.10 fights a game |
| 1987-88 | 1.09 fights a game | 1.02 fights a game to 1.16 fights a game |
| 1988-89 | 0.96 fights a game | 0.90 fights a game to 1.03 fights a game |
| 1989-90 | 0.93 fights a game | 0.87 fights a game to 1.00 fights a game |
| 1990-91 | 0.92 fights a game | 0.86 fights a game to 0.99 fights a game |
| 1991-92 | 0.91 fights a game | 0.85 fights a game to 0.98 fights a game |
| 1992-93 | 0.64 fights a game | 0.59 fights a game to 0.69 fights a game |
| 1993-94 | 0.77 fights a game | 0.72 fights a game to 0.82 fights a game |
| 1994-95 | 0.82 fights a game | 0.75 fights a game to 0.89 fights a game |
| 1995-96 | 0.74 fights a game | 0.68 fights a game to 0.79 fights a game |
| 1996-97 | 0.85 fights a game | 0.80 fights a game to 0.91 fights a game |
- 1987-88: Bench-leaving suspensions
- 1992-93: Instigator rule
The line peaks in the very season the bench rule arrived, then drops sharply in 1992-93 and climbs straight back. Within four seasons fights were back to 0.85 a game. Barnaby had his big year in the middle of the rebound, and in 1996-97 Florida’s Paul Laus drew 39 fighting majors, the most in any season we counted. He scored no goals.
The brawl died instead
Fights came back after 1992-93. The mass brawl didn’t. Since one fight puts two fighting majors on the sheet, a game with 10 or more of them had at least five fights. From 1984-85 to 1987-88, about one game in 54 was that kind of game. From 1992-93 to 1996-97 it was one in 290. Since 2017-18 there have been four in 11,052 games, and no game has had more than six fights.
The last famous one came on March 26, 1997, in Detroit, when the Red Wings settled a nearly year-old grudge with Colorado: 18 fighting majors, 148 penalty minutes. Darren McCarty fought Claude Lemieux, then scored in overtime to win it 6-5. “I slayed the dragon,” he told ESPN’s David Fleming. ESPN called the night unlike anything the NHL had seen before or since. By fighting majors, Boston in 1981 was bigger.
The player built for those nights went with them. The chart follows the league’s busiest fighter each season we counted.
League leaders often drew 30-plus fighting majors; since 2018-19 none has had more than 15
The league leader’s regular-season fighting majors (in the fight log, each fight gives each fighter one)
fighting majors
Show data
| Season | League leader |
|---|---|
| 1947-48 | 8 fighting majors |
| 1948-49 | 5 fighting majors |
| 1949-50 | 8 fighting majors |
| 1950-51 | 7 fighting majors |
| 1951-52 | 4 fighting majors |
| 1952-53 | 5 fighting majors |
| 1953-54 | 5 fighting majors |
| 1954-55 | 7 fighting majors |
| 1955-56 | 4 fighting majors |
| 1956-57 | 6 fighting majors |
| 1957-58 | 4 fighting majors |
| 1958-59 | 4 fighting majors |
| 1959-60 | 5 fighting majors |
| 1960-61 | 5 fighting majors |
| 1961-62 | 6 fighting majors |
| 1962-63 | 4 fighting majors |
| 1963-64 | 8 fighting majors |
| 1964-65 | 4 fighting majors |
| 1965-66 | – |
| 1966-67 | – |
| 1967-68 | – |
| 1968-69 | – |
| 1969-70 | – |
| 1970-71 | – |
| 1971-72 | – |
| 1972-73 | – |
| 1973-74 | – |
| 1974-75 | – |
| 1975-76 | – |
| 1976-77 | – |
| 1977-78 | 34 fighting majors |
| 1978-79 | 22 fighting majors |
| 1979-80 | 23 fighting majors |
| 1980-81 | 26 fighting majors |
| 1981-82 | 25 fighting majors |
| 1982-83 | 20 fighting majors |
| 1983-84 | 29 fighting majors |
| 1984-85 | 28 fighting majors |
| 1985-86 | 36 fighting majors |
| 1986-87 | 29 fighting majors |
| 1987-88 | 34 fighting majors |
| 1988-89 | 28 fighting majors |
| 1989-90 | 31 fighting majors |
| 1990-91 | 26 fighting majors |
| 1991-92 | 34 fighting majors |
| 1992-93 | 29 fighting majors |
| 1993-94 | 34 fighting majors |
| 1994-95 | 19 fighting majors |
| 1995-96 | 30 fighting majors |
| 1996-97 | 39 fighting majors |
| 1997-98 | – |
| 1998-99 | – |
| 1999-00 | – |
| 2000-01 | – |
| 2001-02 | – |
| 2002-03 | – |
| 2003-04 | – |
| 2004-05 | – |
| 2005-06 | – |
| 2006-07 | – |
| 2007-08 | – |
| 2008-09 | – |
| 2009-10 | – |
| 2010-11 | – |
| 2011-12 | – |
| 2012-13 | – |
| 2013-14 | – |
| 2014-15 | – |
| 2015-16 | – |
| 2016-17 | – |
| 2017-18 | 22 fighting majors |
| 2018-19 | 6 fighting majors |
| 2019-20 | 14 fighting majors |
| 2020-21 | 7 fighting majors |
| 2021-22 | 14 fighting majors |
| 2022-23 | 13 fighting majors |
| 2023-24 | 11 fighting majors |
| 2024-25 | 15 fighting majors |
| 2025-26 | 10 fighting majors |
- 1992-93: Instigator rule
In Howe’s day the leader never had more than eight. From the late 1970s to the late 1990s he usually sat in the 20s and 30s. In 2018-19 nobody fought more than six times, and ten players shared the lead.
The fight moved toward the opening faceoff
The fights that came back after 2019 also show up at a different point in the game. On April 3, 2024, five pairs of Devils and Rangers fought 2 seconds into a game at Madison Square Garden, Kurtis MacDermid against Matt Rempe at the centre. “It was a spur-of-the-moment thing,” MacDermid said. His coach, Travis Green, saw it otherwise: “Their players were lining up fights before the game.”
Three years earlier, two days after Tom Wilson injured Artemi Panarin, the Rangers opened against Washington with three fights in the first second. “I thought that it should’ve been handled before this game,” said the Rangers’ Brendan Smith, who fought Wilson moments later.
About one fight in eight now comes in the first five minutes, three times Howe’s era
Share of each era’s fights by five-minute stretch of the game. Regular season, regulation time
Minute of the game
Show data
| Minute of the game | 1947-48 to 1964-65 | 1985-86 to 1991-92 | 2021-22 to 2025-26 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 3.9% | 7.8% | 11.9% |
| 5 | 5.9% | 7.4% | 8.0% |
| 10 | 9.9% | 8.5% | 8.8% |
| 15 | 8.7% | 7.9% | 9.3% |
| 20 | 4.2% | 7.8% | 7.7% |
| 25 | 7.0% | 9.3% | 10.1% |
| 30 | 8.7% | 10.2% | 10.1% |
| 35 | 9.3% | 9.1% | 8.9% |
| 40 | 6.1% | 6.2% | 5.9% |
| 45 | 9.2% | 7.3% | 5.4% |
| 50 | 11.4% | 7.2% | 6.4% |
| 55 | 15.4% | 10.2% | 7.0% |
Look at the left edge. Today’s line starts highest and the 1950s line starts lowest. Now 11.9% of fights come in the first five minutes, against 3.9% in Howe’s day. In the late 1980s about one fight in 650 came in a game’s first five seconds; now about one in 60 does. In 2025-26, nine fights started in a game’s first five seconds, and Tkachuk and Lee had two of them. The game records can’t show which of those fights were arranged in advance. The Devils couldn’t even agree on the one at the Garden: MacDermid called it spur of the moment, and his coach said it was set up before the game.
The third period’s share of fights fell from four in ten to one in four
If fights moved to the start of games, they had to leave somewhere. They left the end. In Howe’s era 42.4% of fights came in the third period or overtime, about four in ten. Since 2021-22 it has been 25.2%, one in four, and every era in between sits on the way down.
| Era | Fights | First 5 seconds | First 5 minutes | Third period and OT |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1947-48 to 1964-65 | 760 | 0.1% | 3.9% | 42.4% |
| 1985-86 to 1991-92 | 5,868 | 0.1% | 7.8% | 32.0% |
| 1992-93 to 1996-97 | 3,690 | 0.6% | 8.9% | 29.1% |
| 2017-18 to 2020-21 | 896 | 1.3% | 12.8% | 26.0% |
| 2021-22 to 2025-26 | 1,578 | 1.6% | 11.9% | 25.2% |
The score when fights started barely changed. A fight in a game already decided, three goals or more apart, made up 23.7% of fights in Howe’s era, 27.2% in the late 1980s and 21.0% now. In every era, somewhere between a fifth and a bit over a quarter of fights came in a lopsided game. Fights left the third period. They didn’t leave the blowout. Tied games may now get a few more of them (29.3%, against 26.7% in Howe’s era), a gap small enough to be luck. If it is real, it would fit more fights starting before anyone has scored.
| Era | Fights | Tied | 1 goal | 2 goals | 3+ goals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1947-48 to 1964-65 | 760 | 26.7% | 29.9% | 19.7% | 23.7% |
Continues below
| Era | Fights | Tied | 1 goal | 2 goals | 3+ goals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1985-86 to 1991-92 | 5,868 | 25.1% | 28.4% | 19.3% | 27.2% |
| 1992-93 to 1996-97 | 3,690 | 25.6% | 28.0% | 18.0% | 28.4% |
| 2017-18 to 2020-21 | 896 | 30.9% | 29.4% | 18.1% | 21.7% |
| 2021-22 to 2025-26 | 1,578 | 29.3% | 33.8% | 15.8% | 21.0% |
Today’s fighters play about 14 minutes a night
The last change is who drops the gloves. No one fought more in 2024-25 than Columbus’s Mathieu Olivier, 15 times. He also scored 18 goals and played 14.5 minutes a night, and on March 5, 2025, the Blue Jackets signed him to a six-year, $18 million contract. “Everybody’s looking for these types of players for the most part,” said Don Waddell, their general manager. Tkachuk, with 41 fights since 2017-18, had 59 points in 2025-26.
Fighters play about 14 minutes a night, about two fewer than the typical skater
The middle (median) ice time per game of the players in each season’s fights, against the middle NHL skater: half played more, half less
minutes a game
Show data
| Season | Median fighter | Median skater |
|---|---|---|
| 2017-18 | 14.7 minutes a game | 16.1 minutes a game |
| 2018-19 | 14.9 minutes a game | 15.9 minutes a game |
| 2019-20 | 14.9 minutes a game | 16.2 minutes a game |
| 2020-21 | 14.2 minutes a game | 16.3 minutes a game |
| 2021-22 | 13.9 minutes a game | 16.3 minutes a game |
| 2022-23 | 14.0 minutes a game | 16.3 minutes a game |
| 2023-24 | 13.9 minutes a game | 16.1 minutes a game |
| 2024-25 | 14.2 minutes a game | 16.3 minutes a game |
| 2025-26 | 14.0 minutes a game | 16.2 minutes a game |
Fighters still play less than most skaters, and by a little more than they used to. In 2018-19 the typical fighter played about a minute a night less than the typical skater. Now he plays about two minutes less. So the comeback leaned a little toward players with fewer minutes. Most of them still take a regular shift, though. In 60% of 2025-26 fights, at least one of the two played 15 minutes a night or more. Fights between two players who both averaged under 10 minutes made up only 1.8% to 7.5% of fights each season.
The repeat fighter came back, though nobody now fights 30 times a season. In 2018-19, 14 players fought five times or more, and 31% of fights involved one of them. In 2025-26 it was 36 players and 55% of fights. Part of that is arithmetic, because more fights means more players reach five. But each fighter also fought more often: 1.8 fights apiece in 2018-19, up to 2.5 in 2021-22 and 2.1 in 2025-26.
The link to hits hasn’t moved. Each season since 2017-18, between 51% and 69% of fights came within 30 seconds of a recorded hit in the same period, with no trend up or down. Hit counts depend on who keeps score in each arena (arena scorer bias), so treat this as rough.
Fighting found its floor, and the captains still drop the gloves
So fighting didn’t die. Players today fight about a quarter as often as in the late 1980s and a little more often than in Howe’s day. Start the count in the 1980s, and 2018-19 looks like the end. Start it in the 1950s, and it looks like a season Howe would have known. The line brawl is close to gone. So is the man who fought 30 times a season. And two players squaring off at the opening faceoff is more common than in any era we counted.
In the season before Barnaby spoke, 246 different players fought. In 2025-26, 287 did. Back in 2019, Barnaby said what he missed. “I loved the era that I played in and miss the rivalries that were formed,” Barnaby told ESPN.
The rivalry fight he missed is still here. On April 11 the puck dropped in Elmont, and Tkachuk and Lee went at each other again. Our log puts it at one second.
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- Not in advance (exploratory)
- Results computed
Fights counted game by game for 47 of the 78 regular seasons since 1947-48: 1947-48 to 1964-65 (NHL play-by-play feed) and 1977-78 to 1996-97 (gamecenter landing feed), and 2017-18 to 2025-26 from our play-by-play fight log. A fight is the fighting majors at one moment of a game, counted in pairs (a line brawl counts each pair; a lone fighting major counts as one). The old feeds sometimes name only one fighter, so their player counts are floors. The gaps (1965-66 to 1976-77 and 1997-98 to 2016-17) use half of all major penalties as a ceiling. That ceiling is checked three ways: the share of majors that were fights in every counted season (73.6% to 97.7%), a 30-game sample in each of 16 seasons (95.3% in the 11 still in the gaps), and two outside counts. We drew the sample before we counted 4 of its seasons, so those seasons test it as a holdout. Player tallies are fighting majors per player; REST season lines (goals, points, ice time) are matched by player id, or by unique name in the 1977-97 feed. Opening-second fights start in the first five seconds of the first period. 95% ranges are Poisson on each season’s count: how far that count could move by chance alone.
| Test | Result | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Fighting kept falling after 2018-19 | 0.18 in 2018-19 (95% range 0.15-0.20), 0.25 in 2022-23 (0.23-0.28), 0.23 in 2025-26 | Fails |
More tests below
| Test | Result | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 was the lowest fighting season on record | Lowest since at least 1968-69: any uncounted season from 1968-69 on would need under 60% of its majors to be fights (lowest counted share 73.6%); 1961-62 was 0.12 | Fails |
| The gap sample predicts seasons counted later (holdout) | 1979-80: sample 0.69, counted 0.74; 1982-83: sample 0.73, counted 0.72; 1993-94: sample 0.78, counted 0.77; 1996-97: sample 0.85, counted 0.85; largest miss 0.04 a game. Method test 1987-88: 1.04 vs 1.09 | Holds |
| Half of all majors is a fair ceiling for fights (outside check) | 2001-02: ESPN/hockeyfights.com 803 fights (0.65 a game), ceiling 0.67; 2008-09: ESPN/hockeyfights.com 734 fights (0.60 a game), ceiling 0.61 | Holds |
Continues below
| Test | Result | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| The instigator rule cut fighting for good | 0.91 in 1991-92 (0.85-0.98), 0.64 in 1992-93 (0.59-0.69), 0.85 in 1996-97 (0.80-0.91) | Fails: a one-season drop, mostly undone in four |
| Mass brawls became rare | Games with 10+ fighting majors: 62 in 3,360 (1984-88), 17 in 4,856 (1992-97), 4 in 11,052 (2017-26) | Holds |
| Fights moved earlier in games | First five minutes: 3.9% (1947-65), 7.8% (1985-92), 8.9% (1992-97), 12.8% (2017-21), 11.9% (2021-26). First five seconds: 9 of 5,868 (1985-92), 26 of 1,578 (2021-26) | Holds; the opening-second counts are small |
| Fights follow hits | 51% to 69% of fights each season came within 30 seconds of a recorded hit in the same period, with no trend (hit counts depend on each arena’s scorer) | Flat |
Continues below
| Test | Result | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-27’s fast start means fighting is rising again | 0.29 a game over 184 games; past openings ranged 0.15 to 0.28 | Noise so far |
Frequently asked questions
How many fights per game are there in the NHL?
About 0.23 to 0.25 in recent seasons: 306 fights in 1,312 regular-season games in 2025-26 (0.23 a game).
Is fighting coming back in the NHL?
Partly. Fights fell to 0.18 a game in 2018-19, rose to 0.25 in 2022-23 and have averaged 0.24 since 2021-22. That is a bounce of about a third, far below the roughly one fight a game of the late 1980s.
When did the NHL have the most fights?
In the seasons we count fight by fight, the late 1980s: 1.09 fights a game in 1987-88. Half of all major penalties caps how many fights a season could have had, and that cap suggests no other season was clearly higher.
Was 2018-19 the lowest fighting season ever?
No. It was the lowest since at least 1968-69, but the six-team NHL of the 1950s and early 1960s often had fewer, for example 0.12 a game in 1961-62.
What is the NHL instigator rule, and did it reduce fighting?
A penalty for the player who starts a fight. In 1992-93 the league added a game misconduct to it, which throws him out of the game. Fights fell from 0.91 a game in 1991-92 to 0.64 in 1992-93, then climbed back to 0.85 by 1996-97.
What was the biggest brawl in the NHL?
Of the games we hold from 1977-78 to 1996-97, the North Stars at Bruins on Feb. 26, 1981, with 26 fighting majors and 84 penalties. Fight Night at the Joe, Colorado at Detroit on March 26, 1997, had 18 fighting majors. Since 2017-18 no game has had more than six fights.
Who has the most NHL fights since 2017-18?
Nicolas Deslauriers, with 72 regular-season fights from 2017-18 to 2025-26. Mathieu Olivier led the league with 15 in 2024-25.
More in The Vanishing Game
- Verdict: Data story
Is the Rush Dying in the NHL?
- Verdict: Data story
The Last Goalie Who Played Every Night
- Verdict: Data story
Did Garbage Goals Take Over the NHL?
- Verdict: Data story
For 19 Seasons, an NHL Hit Depended on the Rink
- Verdict: Data story
Hainsworth’s 22 Was Mostly Arithmetic
- Verdict: Data story
The Slapshot Went From One NHL Goal in Four to One in Twelve
Sources and method
- NHL stats (NHL.com), every season since 1917-18
- NHL stats API: team penalties (major penalties per season), skater totals and time on ice, game lists
- NHL game feed (api-web play-by-play and gamecenter landing): penalty records by game
- NHL API reference (community documentation of the stats endpoints)
- ESPN, Greg Wyshynski (July 30, 2019): “The new normal”: why fighting in the NHL has dropped to historic lows
- NHL.com, Dave Stubbs (July 5, 2016): Lou Fontinato known for soft heart, cement fists
- The Hockey News, Ryan Kennedy (2013): The Biggest: Bench Brawl
- Scouting the Refs: NHL historical rule changes
- The Hockey News / The Canadian Press (2013): A look at the history of fighting in hockey
- ESPN, David Fleming (June 24, 2022): Fight Night at the Joe
- theScore (May 5, 2021): Rangers sought retribution in fight-filled affair with Capitals
- TSN / The Canadian Press (April 3, 2024): Eight players ejected after line brawl opens Devils-Rangers game
- TSN (April 4, 2024): MacDermid says brawl with Rangers was spur of the moment
- NHL.com (March 5, 2025): Olivier signs 6-year, $18 million contract with Blue Jackets
- CBS Sports / AP recap: Islanders at Senators, March 19, 2026
- TSN (April 11, 2026): Senators’ Tkachuk exits vs. Islanders
Research and analysis, not betting advice. Past results do not guarantee future returns; bet only what you can afford to lose.