“If you can plant a seed of doubt in the goaltenders that you can get beat there and you’re vulnerable in that spot, the head worms start going. And once they start going in a goaltender’s game, he’s in big trouble."”

So it’s confirmed, what Glen Healy is really looking for here is to bring down the goaltenders in the league to his level, not to give more scoring opportunities to players.

He openly and unprofessionally mocks goaltenders on TSN - for instance, calling Kari Lehtonen “Kari Let-it-in” - and yet still gets a job in the NHLPA. I don’t get it.

Posted by Shane from Saskatoon on 08/03/08 at 08:36 AM ET

Should never have taken this long to make this decision.

Posted by ce on 08/03/08 at 10:04 AM ET

Does this mean 80 goals for Ov?

Posted by Steve R on 08/03/08 at 12:07 PM ET

I must be in an odd mood today, but the first thing I thought seeing the headline was to wonder if someone dropped all the goalies in cold water. 

Even with the extended battery life on the new Thermablade skates, what is going to happen to the ice conditions and the skates themselves in a multiple-overtime playoff game in early June?  Maybe skaters will have to finish the game without the “enhancement” of the powered skates.

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 08/03/08 at 03:29 PM ET

Healy’s an idiot.  I have no clue why the NHLPA hired him--he’s like a bulldog who you bring in to guard the house, but when he sees the mailman, he gets agitated and bites you instead.  He’s an unbelievably negative human being.

The Thermablades have both a charger and, theoretically, anyway, turn off when you get off the ice because they don’t detect a vast difference in temperature.  You can also turn them off manually.  I’d gather that some guys might have their skates “charged up” during intermissions.

As far as these “knee pads” are concerned, Shinzawa needs to be more thorough.  Are we talking about the “knee stacks"/"landing gear” attached to goalie pads that your knee ends up “landing” upon, or are we talking about the knee pads themselves?

There are different types of knee pads.  Some goaltenders wear a hard knee pad that have a hard cap, as this picture from Inlinewarehouse.com illustrates:

Some goaltenders wear a semi-hard knee pad that conforms to the contours of the knee itself, and, again, this picture is from Inlinewarehouse.com:

The “knee pads” that are probably being cracked down upon are the types that Roberto Luongo and Vesa Toskala wear.  They’re attached to players’ goalie pants, and are constituted big flap of hard plastic that’s as wide as the pant leg opening (4” or 5") and is about 3” “high” that you tie to the leg channel of your goalie pad, and it slides out when you drop to your knees. 

The Hockey Shop sells Luongo-spec goalie pants, and this picture of Toskala shows that he’s basically taken a chunk of hard plastic off the thigh of some Easton player pants and has sewn them into his pants and leg pads. 

Since Paul’s rules insist that pictures remain under 500 px. wide, here’s a picture of Toskala from his Sharks days with these big blocks of padding.  You can click on the image to see the full-size version, and you’ll see that these things are just fricking huge--I think Toskala’s “in-pant knee pads” are about 5” wide.

I have no problem with these being regulated, and I have no problem with the “clavicle protectors” on goalie chest pants being restricted, because they’re quite literally called “shoulder wings.” This entry-level Reebok chest protector illustrates what I’m talking about:

When you butterfly and squeeze your elbows in, the “wings” cover up any holes, and they puff up your shoulders so that you’ve got more blocking space.  You might be familiar with a guy who looks like he’s 6’3” and 270 lbs. instead of 6’1” and 200 lbs because he’s got big “wings” on his shoulders:

The Brendan Shanahan BS about goalies wearing bulletproof vests is hogwash--the physics of pucks and bullets are completely different, and a bulletproof vest would leave goalies with broken bones (even Kevlar vests leave people who are shot with internal injuries and broken bones at times), so you need something with a layer of hard plastic, a layer of high-density foam, and a little bit of air in between to help disperse the blunt force of being repeatedly hit with 6-ounce pucks and big players skating into you and hacking and whacking at you…

But you don’t need to look like He-Man to be adequately protected, either.  There’s a happy medium between goalies that look like slightly puffed-up human beings and monsters.

Neither of the guys who played in the Stanley Cup Finals are overly big, but they seemed to do a pretty decent job for themselves.

Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 08/03/08 at 09:54 PM ET

Great stuff, George!!!  Thanks for putting in the time to explain the details.

Posted by BobTheZee on 08/03/08 at 11:06 PM ET

Cheers George. I agree 100%, well done.

Posted by underthechestnuttree from LaSalle, Ontario, Canada on 08/03/08 at 11:15 PM ET

I read somewhere that Martin Brodeur has never gone in for the enormous pads - when asked why, he mentioned that pads that were really huge restricted his mobility, and his ability to react quickly is a very important part of his game.  Same as when you hear about a guy who lost a few pounds of muscle, but picked up a little bit of quickness because it was easier to move.

Posted by Baroque from Michigan on 08/04/08 at 05:57 AM ET

I’m a little like Brodeur--I’m a bigger guy (maybe a little too big at 6’ and 240), so I don’t need any extra bulk--and I don’t find that extra bulk comfortable in any way, either.  You end up feeling like you’ve got two chest protectors on, one to protect you, and another to block pucks, and all that stuff really does limit your movement. 

It’s great if you butterfly all the time, just like 38” leg pads are fine if you’re a shot-blocker who drops to your knees on every shot, but Brodeur’s more of a hybrid stand-up/butterfly goalie, so he’s shuffling around more, and all that stuff up top gets in the way.

Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 08/04/08 at 06:41 AM ET

I thought the extra inches he was talking about was the thighrise.  Was I incorrect?

Posted by Mike at MHH on 08/04/08 at 08:29 AM ET

He’s talked about chest protector size, the length of pads’ thigh rises, and pad width...He doesn’t like the “extra bulk” in his chest protector, his thigh rise, or the width of his pads.

Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 08/04/08 at 08:36 AM ET

Hasek didn’t really have bulky or oversized equipment neither and he is probably the skinniest goalie ever.

Posted by SYF from Las Vegas, NV on 08/04/08 at 09:23 AM ET

But Hasek has never played a butterfly/blocking style.  He’s always been more reactionary and athletic and less positional/down-position.  Asking all goalies to wear the same kind of equipment as Brodeur or Hasek (when their playing styles are in the minority) seems kinda dumb.

Posted by Mike at MHH on 08/04/08 at 09:35 AM ET

There’s nothing wrong with allowing goalies a little leeway to block the puck--the endless grumble that “equipment is only necessary for protecting goalies, not stopping the puck” is bunk--but the knee “boards” we’re talking about are basically a sneaky way to bring back those thigh boards that were deemed illegal a few years ago, and making sure that chest protectors don’t automatically equal looking like you’ve gained 70 pounds isn’t an awful idea, even from a goalie’s perspective.

Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 08/04/08 at 09:49 AM ET

Hi, I´m a goaltender from sweden and I play in the Junior elite league in swden. I wonder wich goalies in the NHL who uses those grey kneepads and if the are good, cause i just bought those kneepads. Really want an answear ! Thanks !

Posted by Marcus Hiller from Sweden on 10/21/08 at 02:59 PM ET