The Epic Decline of Fighting in the NHL

Fights by Season

If there are no more regular season games played this season, it will be the fewest # of fights in a season that the NHL has seen since the 1969-70 season. Keep in mind the 69-70 season had 12 teams and a total of 456 games compared to the 1082 games that were played this season.

% of games with at least one fight

Of course, this season has been paused and, if and when the season were to restart, it is unlikely that rest of the season is played out in its entirety. To get a more accurate look, we should look at the % of NHL games with at least one recorded fight.

As you can see from the graph above, this season 16% of the games played so far this season had a fight, which is relatively flat compared to last season.

Team and Player Breakdown

Below is an interactive tool to look over different seasons by team and players. Filter by season and select a team on the left to look at team detail on the right.

Bonus content

Down on the Farm – Projecting Ty Nelson to the NHL

Welcome back to "Down on the Farm," your weekly Seattle Kraken prospects update. Today, we'll put the spotlight on recent AHL standout Ty Nelson, the history of similar players in the NHL, and the chances we'll see Nelson in Kraken deep sea blue in the future. After...

Three Takeaways – Another late stumble by Kraken, but Montour is hero against Maple Leafs

Once again, never a doubt for the Seattle Kraken. The Kraken fumbled away a multi-goal lead for the fourth time since Oct. 13, when they took a two-goal lead at the Philadelphia Flyers, lost it, but then recovered to win in a shootout. Since then, they gave up a...

SOH Live Blog: Kraken 5, Maple Leafs 4

The Seattle Kraken are underway against the Toronto Maple Leafs at Climate Pledge Arena, and we're pleased to share we're bringing back the Live Blog! This will serve as a means to keep track of events as the game rolls along. We will update this article with...

It’s Jani Nyman’s time to shine with the Seattle Kraken

The Kraken began life without Jared McCann for the foreseeable future on Saturday, and the results were… not great. McCann, who had been a stalwart on the top line through the beginning stages of the season, is out 10 weeks with a lower-body injury, and the game...

1 Comment

Kevin Hughes on May 8, 2020 at 4:42 pm

Thanks for putting this together … neat to be able to find individual players/teams/seasons/etc