“I’d love to be able to beat your team and beat your team up, but it’s impossible to do,” says Ken Holland, general manager of the defending Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings:
For a decade now, the Red Wings have had the fewest fights in the league. This season, their 11 fights would hardly constitute a single boxing match.
[...]
Borrowing from the Russian hockey model, the Red Wings went completely against the grain and assembled a Russian line whose members could pass, skate and evade defenders with equal skill, making it more difficult for opponents to slash, check or punch their way to victory. “They didn’t put themselves in a position to be hit,” says Mr. Holland.The philosophy led to a Stanley Cup win in 1997 and the team has continued the philosophy ever since, winning three more Cups. For years, the Red Wings kept one or two players on their roster who could skate well and fight if necessary, but in the salary cap era, the premiums on those players forced Detroit to make a choice between skills and toughness.