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It's less about your abilities and more about someone else taking you out, whether intentional or not. A padded shirt isn't going to offer much protection from anything other than the smallest impacts. It's better than nothing, but you're not really mitigating your risk of injury very much by wearing one. It's ultimately up to you to decide how much protection you need.

This. I can count on one hand the number of pucks I've taken above my chest, but there is no way of counting how many times I've hit the boards, a goalpost, a person or the ice. Most people here will probably agree that most of the damage done these days is self-inflicted lol

I play with a lot of ex-pro players (NHL, AHL, D1, etc) and a large majority of them wear shoulder pads. I assume because their entire career they always wore protection and to them, it is just normal to wear shoulder pads. I don't think wearing protection is always about a persons ability. I can skate just fine, better than a large majority of people I play with, but there are still times when you are in a foot race to the corner for a puck, shoving one another, and sh!t happens. Sticks get crossed, skates get tangled, whatever, and someone goes into the boards. I'm actually more worried about the lower level players than the high-level skaters. High-level players will know when to back off and to let the other person have the puck in a foot race while a lower-level player will go 110% and many times cause the catastrophe. Destroyed my collarbone on a breakaway a few years ago. Picked up the puck, wide open just past center ice, and the other player was 5+ lengths behind me. As I closed in on the goalie I stopped striding and the other player kept chasing me down furiously. He then swung his stick from behind into my skates and took out my feet. I fell awkwardly, unable to recover or protect myself, sliding into the goal post and then hit the boards at full speed. I knew immediately that something was wrong when I couldn't pick up my stick. The pain and shock then set in a few moments later.

Guys in the NHL lose an edge and go into the boards hard on their own, or get tripped and land on their shoulder, or someone else loses and edge and slides into someone else. It’s not so much skating skill as shit happens.

Bake them and use a ratchet clamp just above the heel to lock in your foot. Like this:

I play with guys with a strict no bullshit policy but stuff happens. I wear these Warrior Bentley pads i got at Dunhams for like $25. Light but enough protection. Got a deflected shot in the chest that left a yellow bruise, would have been much worse without them.

The best of both worlds. I've been wearing the Verbero Shield for a couple of years now (my first pair was the ones made by Dan Farrell before he and Verbero started working with each other).

I’d worry more about the ice or the boards, especially if the skill is low enough guys have trouble controlling themselves on skates. but Verbero still does the Ferrell style shirts and pads

Padded shirt will help some. There are pads like the Sherwood 5030s or Eagle Aeros that are pretty low profile. I personally use the Eagles. If I played more competitive level these days I might consider beefing up the protection, but for light rec play they're good.

Yea, in comparison to the P92, the P88 is more similar to the P28. Never understood people calling the P92 a "toe" curve. Doesn't play like it at all.

Yeah that does. Lot more size 8 about here

Stable 26 socks

I skip the second from the top and do the top. Always skipped top eyelet in previous skates. Its not tightness so much as finding the ideal combo to let you get flexion while leveraging the stiffness of the boot. Also messed with pushing the tounge all the way in the toe box. I like the edge of the tounge to land right before the toe knuckle. Pushing it all the way to the front felt more snug for sure but it inhibited an agressive toe snap, for me at least. I like snug but I dont need the skates super tight, better for me to splay my foot to evenly distribute weight over the entire blade but snug enough to avoid slippage.

Guess someone will have to tell O'Rielly that roller guards are for benders. /s

Definitely not. But it didn't matter, since you took a blowtorch to your stick the minute you got it home anyway (or at least I did). Stock curves were for benders!