Re: Can there be an instigator penalty for fighting after a legal hit?

I'm assuming you're playing offline Live the Life? If so, and you don't want to fight, go into edit player and set your fighting to 'never'. Then when you do something to initiate a fight (a big hit, a facewash, etc.), one of your teammates will usually jump in and fight in your place (depending on your linemates to some extent). You can also play around with the 'rarely' setting if you don't want to never fight.

This won't work as well in EASHL/OTP, but it will still make a difference. The thing is, if you're spending half of each game in the box, you're not just making nice checks, you're flattening people with high frequency—make sure your aggression isn't too high and that you're not taking runs at players all the time. You don't need more than 75 aggression/checking to hit well unless you want to "play on the edge."

The other thing you can do is press L1/LB + R1/RB when a fight is about to start, but before your skater drops the gloves. This will result in you pushing the other player away, and you'll both get offsetting minor penalties for roughing rather than major penalties for fighting. This seems to work better when your fighting is set to 'never', but the timing can be difficult.