The Edmonton Oilers claimed Steve MacInytre off waivers Monday. General manager Craig MacTavish said it was a direct result of what happened over the weekend.

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Sam Gagner took a stick in the jaw and Taylor Hall took a shoulder to the head in an exhibition against the Vancouver Canucks. Then enforcer John Scott went after sniper Phil Kessel when the Buffalo Sabres faced the Toronto Maple Leafs, inciting a line brawl.

“You need a deterrent,” MacTavish told reporters, “especially with our team.”

But do you? Or, at least, are you best served by using a roster spot on a guy like MacIntyre, who has 17 fights in 91 NHL games but only four points?

Detroit Red Wings GM Ken Holland will speak only about his own team and own philosophy. But consider this: The Wings have been built on skill, and now they are moving into the new Atlantic Division in the realigned NHL. The Wings are about to face opponents from the old pugilistic Northeast Division, including those Sabres and Leafs. The Wings’ only real fighter, Jordin Tootoo, is out with a shoulder injury – and Holland is not looking to add another one.



[Also: NHL says fighting goalies deserved mask-removal penalties]





“Am I concerned going to the East?” Holland said. “Would I like to have a big, tough guy in the middle of the lineup? Yeah. But I haven’t really bought into having fourth-line guys that don’t have much skill and are one-dimensional players. I guess I put more of a premium on goals.”

There is no debate that many fans like fighting. There is no debate that fighting can intimidate and play a role in team toughness. There is no debate that there are different ways to build a successful organization.

But do you need fighting to sell the game to hardcore hockey people? Do you need it to win? Does it necessarily protect your skilled players? No. It can even be counterproductive.

Detroit loves a good fight. It has a scrappy, underdog image. It has a rich boxing history, once the home of Kronk Gym and Emanuel Steward and Tommy ‘Hitman’ Hearns. The Wings play in an arena named after Joe Louis, and a huge sculpture of his fist hangs in the heart of the city.

The Joe rocks like anyplace else for a fight. Some of the most popular Wings have been guys who could punch – Bob Probert, Darren McCarty, Brendan Shanahan – and a couple of the most memorable moments in Wings history were line brawls against the blood rival Colorado Avalanche.

Yet the Wings have hardly dropped the gloves over the last couple of decades, the Joe has been sold out for virtually all of that time, and the fans have embraced peaceful, graceful players like Nicklas Lidstrom, Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg, too.

Why? The Wings have won.

And why have they won? Their skill has flourished without much fighting – maybe partly because of not much fighting.

The Wings have made the playoffs for 22 consecutive seasons – no one else has a current streak longer than nine – and according to hockeyfights.com, they haven’t ranked in the top 20 in fighting majors since ranking fifth in 1993-94, Probert’s last season in Detroit.

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