Five for fighting

Speaking of the instigator rule. The Hockey News' Ryan Kennedy says enforcers and agitators are alive and well in the NHL - despite the instigator rule, which prohibits enforcers from starting fights with more skilled players to draw a reaction penalty.

Far from retreating from the game, the enforcer – and his little brother, the scrappy agitator – is still a part of hockey and is in no way leaving any time soon.

Kennedy goes on to say the League has no desire to reign in instigators.

Because the NHL endorses fighting.
Yup, you heard me, folks. And I have no problem with that. How does the league endorse fighting? It’s simple: The NHL tacitly approves of fisticuffs because players are not suspended or fined for them. Sure, you can get suspended or fined for fighting in the last five minutes of a game if you’ve been red-flagged as a “goon,” but that’s a pretty simple rule to get around: Send your message at the six-minute mark. It’s not rocket science.
While fans of other sports can only hope something bad happens to hate-him-unless-he-plays-for-you guys like Terrell Owens or Alex Rodriguez, hockey has made it known since its inception that if you’re a jerk, you’re going to get rocked in the mouth sooner or later. Your pretty little teeth are going to bounce off the ice and you’ll think twice about spearing or butt-ending one of our boys again.
Repulsive? Venomous? I don’t know. It’s certainly cathartic every once in a while and there’s a big difference between law and justice.

I agree the NHL condones fighting, yet I see good and bad from it.

On one hand it allows players to police themselves, and Eric McErlain blogged about this in his post more than a year and a half ago, Is It Time To Retire The Instigator Rule?

In particular this from Neil K. Sheehy and his article, The Systematic Erosion and Neutralization of Skill and Play-making in the NHL.

I agree with Brett Hull and Mario Lemieux regarding the necessity of the NHL protecting its most skilled players. I believe the instigator rule should be eliminated. The officials should not be forced to call more penalties with new rules, but rather focus on calling fewer penalties and allow players to police themselves. If this were to happen, the tactics of trying to draw more penalties would be diminished.

The way it's argued there certainly makes sense.
However I believe fighting leads to other violent acts like the Bertuzzi - Moore, McSorley - Brashear, and Simon - Hollweg incidents.
Because the NHL condones fighting, it tacitly condones these acts. One follows the other in my opinion. I argued this point with other LetsGoWings.com posters in the thread titled Bertuzzi disobeyed Crawford.

Maybe the instigator rule should be dropped, and the violent incidents like above would stop.
Or maybe the NHL should ban fighting because it certainly allows it, now.