It's simple, if you're some sunbelt moron who's never been on the ice and didn't start watching the NHL until the neutered '90s you'll have no problem with Ott and Avery's play and whine about Hnidy pounding Niskanen when Niskanen was trying to pile on Savy.

If you've ever played the game, at even the lowest squirt levels, you'd know that hockey is a brotherhood. No matter how much you want to beat your opponent you NEVER go after a man's knees or throw him headfirst into the boards. And if you do, even inadvertently, you answer the damn bell. The instigator rule, instituted by suits who never played a shift, never woke up at 4am for practice and never threw down for a teammate has ruined the NHL with cowardly Euro stickwork and cheapshots. Say what you want about whether or not Bob Probert, Stu Grimson or Dave Brown would make a modern NHL roster, but at least they had honor for the code of the game. Steve Ott's a marginal NHLer who wouldn't last a season in an instigator-rule free NHL, same for Avery and all the pests of their ilk.