[Mooner]

As for what to do at the NHL level today? I'm from the Don Cherry school on this one...eliminate the instigator penalty and force all those players like the ones you describe to drop the gloves if their carelessness causes an injury. The impact would be two-fold: 1) players would be more careful with their sticks knowing a "meeting" with Tie Domi could be the price they have to pay if they clip a player (and the ref misses it); and 2) the refs would be forced to call more stick infractions to prevent matters from spiralling out of control through vigilante justice.

Exactly...

Right now any little punk in the leage has carte blanche to whatever they want and only sit in the box for a few minutes. Just this weekend Russian dipsy-doodler Pavol Datsuk of my beloved Redwings ran a Bruin face-first into the boards from behind unprevoked (replace this incedent with any cowardly highstick/crosscheck/spear etc). Not too long ago he would have got his face caved in by Hal Gill or Sean O'Donnell instantly for a cheapshot like that. I'd bet he'd think the next time he thought about going after somebody's head if something like that happened.

Even with the instigator as it is now, who wants to see Domi and Brashear square off and punch eachother in the facemask anyways?