Hasek sucks

[danielb 0]

Goalies should be fair game out of their crease. At least the general area of the net anyhow. They have twice the padding, and there would be no need for those ridiculous trapezoids behind the net.

It was a spectacular check by Hasek and it reminds me of some of the tackles I used to see field hockey goalies make when I used to play that postion. However I do think as someone pointed out earlier that it was more force than was nessessary, a poke check would have worked just as well and wouldn't have risked injury to the player, that flip could have had a really really nasty ending especially as the player was totaly unprepared for it.

As to making goalies 'fair game', there are potential issues:

• While goalies have lots of padding it is soft to prevent rebounds, it is designed to stop small ballistic projectiles and minimise rebounds not protect from checks from 220+ lb skaters.
  
• Goalie padding is mostly only frontal armour, to minimise overheating so usually most of their backs, arms etc except the spine & kidneys is completly unprotected by their chest protectors. So getting checked onto your back into the boards as a goalie would hurt allot I'd imagine.
  
• Players already like to hack away at goalies (especially the catcher) for rebounds and already seem to show quite a disregard for the goalies safety. Some players already use the size of the goalies armour as an excuse to hack away at goalies, which is a dangerous trend to encourage as goalie gear is not really made for melee protection but for puck stopping, especially as goalies are the players which spend the most time writhing about on the ice after pucks.
  

My 2c.