No Message Sending?!!

"When the game is out of reach, there is to be no message sending".  This is what the NHL has said about this post season... WHAT... WHY?  Playoff hockey is all about message sending! That is the best thing about the playoffs.  You battle and fight your way through a grueling 7 game playoff series and when you lose, you let the other team know that if you can't beat them on the scoreboard, you're going to beat them physically.  You're going to pound on the other team until the final horn sounds.  You let them know that you're not going anywhere, that the series is long and you're in it to win it.  

To take this element of playoff hockey (which has been around since before I was born) out of the game is not anything that will be appreciated by the fans.  I'm extremely upset about it and I hope the players rebel and ignore what the NHL is saying.  Fighting/message sending, whatever you want to call it is a part of the game, and to take it out is changing the sport.  It would be like removing the three point line in basketball, or taking away field goals in football, it's just absurd!

I understand the league's concern of injury and how allowing players to fight at then end of a game can look barbaric.  I'm completely for making fighting safer and making more stringent rules about it, but to try and eliminate it from the game like they're doing with the no message sending rule is ridiculus.  How about limiting players to one fighting major a game.  If you fight more than once in a game then you are suspended for the next one.  Something like this would still allow the roots of the sport to shine through, while being able to keep playoff games from getting out of hand.  Playoff hockey is about passion.  When you remove fighting to send a message at the end of a game from the sport, you take away from that passion and leave the players and fans wanting more.