Physicality and overall grit is low because even on the cleanest hits, someone jumps on a player thinking they are doing right. The instigator rule let’s pests and cheap shot artist run rapid without any fear of the opposing team seeking their own brand of vengeance, resulting usually in “staged fighting” which is shameful, Or other dirty hits.
We are in a “No Hit League” era. I feel most players don’t want to finish their checks, or play that extra type of intensity, simply because everyone is so sensitive to ANY kind of hit the results in a player getting rocked. And they are usually clean as they come, but with the speed of the game and just how bad the hits appear to be, the players themselves can barely handle being hit without whining about it. A lot of the hitting is over analyzed and dramatized.