The NHL announced yesterday that Philadelphia Flyers’ winger Scott Hartnell has been suspended for two games for his Monday night hit on Boston Bruins’ defenseman Andrew Alberts. But this is the fourth time a member of the Flyers has been suspended this still-young season, and in light of that, it’s inexcusable that Hartnell didn’t receive a more punitive sentence.

Less than one month ago, Flyers defenseman Randy Jones delivered a questionable hit from behind to Bruins forward Patrice Bergeron, perhaps the team’s most important player. Bergeron suffered a severe concussion and a broken nose on that play, and after it was announced that Jones would receive a two-game suspension, the Bruins cried foul, claiming that Jones’s sentence was far too lenient.

The rationale behind the league’s ruling was that Jones’s hit on Bergeron wasn’t premeditated, and therefore did not warrant a stiff penalty like the ones doled out to the Flyers’ Steve Downie (20-game suspension) and Jesse Boulerice (25 games) earlier this season for their egregiously vicious hits. But as it turns out, the Bruins were right to complain, for as evidenced by the Hartnell hit, the light suspension did absolutely nothing to alter the Flyers’ on-ice behavior.

To their credit, the Bruins took the high road in Monday’s rematch, focusing on securing a victory over the Flyers rather than attempting to exact revenge on Jones. They jumped to a 4–0 lead, and came away with an impressive 6–3 victory. Meanwhile, the Flyers reverted to their back-alley tactics, with Hartnell delivering a violent cheap shot to Alberts that left the defenseman lying face-first on the ice for 2-3 minutes before he was helped to the locker room. Like Jones, Hartnell was assessed a five-minute major penalty and a game misconduct. But unlike Jones, Hartnell’s vicious hit looked to be at least somewhat premeditated. While Alberts was defenseless on his knees, attempting to play a puck near the left sideboards, Hartnell skated over and blindsided him, cracking Alberts’s head into the boards with authority.

“I did not try to hurt him,” Hartnell protested afterward. “There was no intent at all. I am not that type of player. If you look at all the games this year and past years, I finish my checks every time I have an opportunity.”

Indeed, Hartnell finished his check on Alberts, ignoring the Bruins’ rearguard’s obvious vulnerability and taking what amounted to a free shot at a defenseless opponent. Whether evaluated from the standpoint of good sportsmanship (what message does this send to youth hockey players?) or simple respect (of which Hartnell showed Alberts none), it’s clear that the NHL has a huge problem to deal with, and that the Flyers are again at the epicenter of the maelstrom.

This makes four violent incidents — to be fair, of varying degrees — by one team in a matter of a little over two months. And clearly, even after the Jones hit that left Bergeron’s career in serious danger, nothing has changed in Philadelphia. When given the opportunity, Flyers players will continue to deliver vicious hits to unsuspecting opponents.

During the early-to-mid-1970s, when the “Broad Street Bullies” and the “Big Bad Bruins” ruled the roost in the NHL, fighting was a regular part of conflict resolution. If a player delivered a cheap shot to an opposing player, he could expect immediate and violent retribution, with the likes of Dave Schultz and Terry O’Reilly meting out frontier-style justice. Bench-clearing brawls were par for the course, and the iconic film “Slap Shot” resonated as much as it did largely because of its proximity to reality.

In 1977 (not coincidentally, the same year that “Slap Shot” was released in theaters), the league instituted the “Third Man In” rule that provides for the ejection of the first player who joins a fight already in progress. Another subsequent rule provided for the suspension of the first player from each team who left the bench to join a fight when it was not their shift. And the much-maligned “Instigator” rule, implemented for the 1992–93 season, adds an additional two-minute minor penalty to the player who starts a fight.

The combination of these measures has severely reduced incidents of fighting in hockey, but there is good reason to question whether the results are desirable. Short of a critical home-team goal, nothing rouses fans out of their seats with as much fervor as a fight. Moreover, without the deterring threat of a retaliatory beating, players have become ever more willing to take cheap shots at unsuspecting opponents. And it’s clear that the player populace is losing patience with the status quo.

Hartnell’s suspension should have been far longer (perhaps 10 games), and Flyers’ coach John Stevens should have been suspended as well, making it clear that NHL bench bosses are to be held responsible for the actions of their players. In addition, the Flyers should have been forced to surrender a first-round draft pick to the Bruins after this second injurious act, forcing the organization to pay a stiff price for the continued inappropriate actions of its players. Instead, the light sentence sends no such message.

The new head of the NHLPA, Paul Kelly, has been meeting with the union membership, team by team, and the instigator rule is apparently a very important order of business. Reports indicate that a large percentage of the players want the rule abolished. Should that happen, it can be expected that frontier justice will again become the norm — and perhaps that’s exactly what the NHL wants.

By failing to act more decisively in the wake of this incident, the league has made a clear statement that the players have no choice but to exact justice on their own, regardless of the consequences. And it appears that the next obvious step would be to soften those consequences, starting with the abolishment of the instigator rule. Put simply, the NHL is being forced to a critical crossroads. Down one path is a safer hockey league that might be too tame to resonate with its fan base; down the other is a league policed by “the code,” hockey’s unwritten rules of sportsmanship that have fallen by the wayside in recent years. And judging from recent events, it appears as though the latter is the path that will be chosen.

The Bruins and Flyers hit the ice again on January 12, and you can now bet that the Bruins won’t again be turning the other cheek. Indeed, it appears that mayhem is going to be an available menu item. Whether it remains there permanently depends not upon player safety, but upon attendance and television ratings. So, in the words of boxing announcer Michael Buffer: “Let’s get ready to rumble.”

Mr. Greenstein is the editor in chief of InsideHockey.com.