People lately on HF are getting dewy-eyed over 2004 NHL. It's only been 7 years and nostalgia has already kicked in!? So by 2013 will people be longing for 2006 hockey as the "good old days"? NHL of 2004 wasn't much more brawl filled and crazy as it is today. NHL of 1973-93 however was that way. Bettman phased out a lot of the nuttiness but while this has cut down on ugly incidents it's also made the game a bit less passionate and rivalry-based. But the NHL pre-Bettman was full of nasty play and the instigator not being in the game didn't cut back on the viciousness at all.
The only difference today is there's not as much vigilante justice and pests are more hated. But you know, in the non-instigator days, people like Esa Tikkanen, Ken Linseman and Claude Lemieux never "got theirs" nor stopped playing the way they did because of this so-called "Code." Stars weren't targeted more than today necessarily but tough guys played assassin on each other with sucker punches, sticking, cross-checks, elbows and headshots that would make today's players blush. All of a sudden, there's this consensus that hockey today sucks compared to 2004 but back then people were upset about the clutch-and-grab, soccer-on-ice nature of the game and said "1997 was better! Avs-Wings, Mario and Jaromir dominant, blah blah blah. Games today lack that passion!"