Quote:
Originally Posted by Jore
By my calculations using nhl.com stats, since 2016, there have been 25,895 penalties called in 6925 games for 3.73 penalties per game in the regular season, and 1492 penalties called in 342 games for 4.36 penalties per game in the playoffs. It's possible that playoff games involve more after the whistle melee penalties and fewer play-influenced penalties, but it doesn't seem to support what people say about whistles being put away for the playoffs
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But how much more physicality is there in the playoffs? If physical play is up 50%, and penalty minutes are up 17%, does that mean that fewer penalties are being called on a relative basis?
Difficult to tell from the stats.
What I see (in recent years), is a large number of penalties being called early in series (especially round 1), and then fewer and fewer calls as things move on.
Back more years, I don't think there was any question that they put the whistles away. Tackling was legal by the third round.