Athletes or Robots? A Question for the Future of Goaltending
An interesting article from NHL legend, Ken Dryden, has the hockey goalie world buzzing.
His argument? Hockey, a game that allows for such speed and grace, one that has so much open ice, is now utterly congested because goaltenders (and their equipment) have become too big. In his telling, the problem is not the game, but the goalie, who is changing the game. Dryden’s solutions (overly distilled here; read the article) are to either shrink the gear according to the principle that equipment is intended to protect the body, not the net, or to simply make the net bigger.
I’m split on Dryden’s solutions, but agree with his larger point. Goaltending has a size problem on multiple fronts — including how we teach the position.
As a goalie coach, I constantly come across young players who have been taught to play as if they are 6’4” (RVH at the post; live on your knees; focus almost exclusively on butterfly pushes over skating ability, etc.). The trouble is that most kids aren’t gigantic and won’t be, and teaching an overreliance on the highly technical Tuukka and Vasilevsky styles of play is a detriment to smaller goalies and it creates bad habits for athletic goalies who would be more effective playing a more aggressive and creative style.
In other words, I often find myself teaching players who have the *potential* to be elite goaltenders, but who have been taught styles of play that inhibit their natural ability because the athletic style required by their physical makeup is out of fashion.
Goaltending is a position reliant on angles, depth, and athleticism, but in an effort to mitigate the challenges of the first two competencies, the game has prioritized size over the third, resulting in giant, hypertechnical goalies at the highest levels of play — and the equipment that enables them (a much larger issue).
Andy Moog, my favorite childhood tendy was 5'8" and I grew up thinking smaller goalies with quick reflexes who could handle the rigors of a long schedule were the ideal (Fuhr, Richter, Vanbiesbrouck, Vernon, Joseph, Ranford, Belfour — all under 6'). Even the bigger guys like Roy (6'2"), Brodeur (6'2"), and Hasek (6'1") relied on aggression and athleticism over robotic technique. But something changed during the two decades between when I first learned the position to when I was cut and walked away from the game.
As a kid, former NHLer Brian Boucher helped me learn how to play. I recall at one practice making an unorthodox shift while moving from post to post to react to a pass from behind the net. Bouch looked at me funny. “Did you just crossover?” I was nervous and stayed silent. I’ll never forget his response: “I’ve never seen that before,” he laughed. “But it’s not always about how you get there, just that you do. You moved quick and made the save — that’s the job. I’ll show you some good alternatives but continue to be creative and do what works for you.”
Be creative.
Do what works for you.
Over a decade later, at that last training camp, I was 5" shorter than the next smallest goaltender and considered a liability because my style was too loose and my size was considered an issue. Fair enough. The honest answer is that I was good, just not good enough. The goalie who started for that team is still in the NHL — they made the right call. That said, I still stopped the puck often enough to be there, and the reason my style was loose was because I stand at 5'8", not 6'1" like my nearest teammate. To stop the puck I occasionally had to, well, be creative.
20 years ago, the average height of an NHL goalie was barely 5'11". Today, the shortest NHL starter is 6'1" and the average NHL goaltender’s height is 6'3" (51 of the 70 goalies to have played in an NHL game this season are over 6'2").
Now consider the introduction of thigh rises a little over a decade ago (the added inches to the top of a goalie’s leg pad) and broadened boot angles and boot designs that add even more to pad height. These changes have more or less eliminated the 5-hole. What’s more, chest protectors are now designed so the belly area hits against the pants when a goalie goes down to force it forward to absorb rebounds and up above the shoulders to cover the top corners adjacent to a goalie’s helmet (one of the very few open areas left for shooters at the elite levels). In other words, if you’re big, have good lateral movement and rigid technique, modern gear will do a lot of the work for you.
It’s true that forwards and defensemen have also benefitted from lighter gear, better skates, and stick technology that improves accuracy and shot/release speed — but goalie gear has gotten so much lighter and easier to move in even without the size adjustments that cover the net. Between better pad rotation, improved design for sealing along the ice, bungee toe straps, better/lighter material and improved skate blade angles, there’s already a fairly even trade-off.
If we really want to fix the problem Dryden outlines, it’s time to force goalies to wear chest protectors that fit more closely to their actual frame and rein in the thigh rise — your pads shouldn’t touch the top of your hips when you’re standing or have a 2–3" overlap when in a butterfly. These shifts would force goalies to rely more on instinct, intelligence, athleticism, and reflexive play. After all, these 6'4” guys are comparatively thin under all that gear (I may have been 5" shorter, but I weighed 15lbs. more!) — a chest protector that fits right would change the dynamic for many goaltenders. Personally, I’d take these types of adjustments over making the net bigger any day — if anything, added net height/width will further punish the non-giants and force the position into such a niche physical role that great athletes who happen to be under 6'4 will never consider the position.
Most importantly, we need to find better ways to get the most out of young goalies and to nurture their strengths rather than force a technique. This means coaching according to the physical makeup and athletic ability of the player. If you have a larger goaltender who can play on his knees effectively and still manage his angles, then yes, teach larger goaltender techniques focused on butterfly pushes, decreased depth, blocking and, of course, efficient use of the RVH. But if you have a smaller, athletic goaltender, then teach aggressive angles, work on reflex speed and body control for recovery — work on getting off your damn knees to challenge the play. Teach creativity. Goaltending should not be a one-size-fits-all exercise, yet it is too often treated as such. The problem with goaltending is in large part due to the fact that coaches scout for and develop bigger goalies, which incentivizes the wrong thing — a technical system that turns athletes participating in the world’s most dynamic sport into robots.
Dominic Hasek famously practiced his unusual playing style by dropping his stick during drills and rolling on his back to move from one side of the net to the other to improve his mobility in equipment and to train himself for any unexpected game situation — do that in practice today and see how quickly you are reprimanded for goofing off.
All said, with the way the game has trended upwards in skill and talent level, it will be interesting to see where goaltending is 20 years from now. Athletes or robots?
-AN
