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The Dominating Goalie
by Paul on 11/03/09 at 06:37 AM ET
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from Roy MacGregor of the Globe and Mail,
From 1998 to 2004, (Dave) Dryden served as the NHL’s goaltending “watchdog,” checking to ensure equipment was kept to size limitations and advising the league on what might be done to improve safety as well as increase goal scoring.
He may himself be a former goaltender, but he is also one who has come to believe the position has reached a point where it is overly dominant for the good of a team sport.
“It’s spun out of control,” he says....
The NHL’s solution to dominant goaltending has been to allow, for the most part, the oversized padding in order to offer the greatest protection but then to adjust the rules in a manner in which the padding is somewhat cancelled out.
This has created a game in which, as Dryden puts it, “We’ve got to have ways to get to the goalie.” It has created the era of the ugly goal. It has made “crashing the goaltender” a legitimate tactic when, at one time, it was forbidden.
Filed in: NHL Talk | KK Hockey | Permalink
Tags: Dave+Dryden,
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It seems like every old goaltender believes that younger players aren’t riding the knife edge between being adequately protected and suffering catastrophic injuries on a regular basis, and that’s quite frustrating to those of us who feel that the bigger, stronger, better-conditioned skaters shooting pucks from composite sticks have made commensurate advances that essentially offset the advances in equipment technology.
That being said...I agree that over-coaching has slowed the art of goaltending into a read-by-rote experience, and I would fully support the concept that teams whose goalies freeze the puck would be prohibited from changing lines.
Posted by George James Malik from South Lyon, MI on 11/03/09 at 08:34 AM ET