Could a stand-up goalie compete in today's game?

[shooter27 116]

I was reading the famous TIME magazine article about the Flyers from the 70's and they were talking about Bernie Parent and him playing a stand-up style of goaltending.

http://prohockeyfights.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1537

So that got me to thinking - could a stand up goaltender compete in today's game, especially given the increase in equipment size? The article talks about Parent taking up about 8 square feet of net (or approx 1/3 of the net) in his gear and I'd have to believe that with today's gear goalies take up close to double that amount of area (certainly in the 12-16 square foot range). So what do you all, particularly you goalies out there, think? Could it be done?

[Blueandgold26 1]

Isn't Brodeur stand up?

[shooter27 116]

Isn't Brodeur stand up?

Not in the way guys like Parent and Plante were standup, although he does use some elements of standup in his style

[goaliemanshark 6]

No

[Hallsy86 0]

I highly doubt it. Goaltending has evolved for a reason.

[Law Goalie 147]

I don't think any 'pure' style of goaltending can work at that level. The last time a 100% drop-and-block butterfly goalie had major success was Giguere's Conn Smythe in 2003, and the absurd equipment that made that success possible was quickly outlawed. On top of that, shooters have figured out the angles on butterfly goalies; even in 2003 there was still some novelty there.

The basic problem with stand-up is that the geometry is wrong. The net is wider than it is tall, and a human, even dressed as a goalie, is taller than they are wide. As the puck gets closer to the goal, height becomes even less relevant; when the puck is at the hash-marks, the average NHL goalie's shoulders are, from the perspective of the puck, covering the glass behind the net. Dropping into the butterfly means that the goalie is filling the available shooting angle more effectively.

I'd say that Brodeur, Thomas, and Vokoun use stand-up as a technique more than anyone else in the game today, but they use it as a situational tool rather than a 'style' as such. It's especially noticeable on shots form distance, and shots from very wide angles, which are the two places where an upright stance makes a lot of sense.

What is perhaps more interesting is that Thomas will often use stand-up save-movements and strategies simply to confuse shooters. You can usually see good examples of this even at the beer-league level. A goalie playing stand-up consistently will generally do very well for about half an hour based on sheer surprise, until the shooters get a read and adjust, and then they'll tear him apart.

[shooter27 116]

I don't think any 'pure' style of goaltending can work at that level. The last time a 100% drop-and-block butterfly goalie had major success was Giguere's Conn Smythe in 2003, and the absurd equipment that made that success possible was quickly outlawed. On top of that, shooters have figured out the angles on butterfly goalies; even in 2003 there was still some novelty there.

The basic problem with stand-up is that the geometry is wrong. The net is wider than it is tall, and a human, even dressed as a goalie, is taller than they are wide. As the puck gets closer to the goal, height becomes even less relevant; when the puck is at the hash-marks, the average NHL goalie's shoulders are, from the perspective of the puck, covering the glass behind the net. Dropping into the butterfly means that the goalie is filling the available shooting angle more effectively.

I'd say that Brodeur, Thomas, and Vokoun use stand-up as a technique more than anyone else in the game today, but they use it as a situational tool rather than a 'style' as such. It's especially noticeable on shots form distance, and shots from very wide angles, which are the two places where an upright stance makes a lot of sense.

What is perhaps more interesting is that Thomas will often use stand-up save-movements and strategies simply to confuse shooters. You can usually see good examples of this even at the beer-league level. A goalie playing stand-up consistently will generally do very well for about half an hour based on sheer surprise, until the shooters get a read and adjust, and then they'll tear him apart.

Your comment about the geometry makes a lot of sense to me. In that regard, would you consider the way Parent, etc. played to be a "pure" standup style, or something else?

[Law Goalie 147]

Well, pure standup would mean absolutely never going down; that went out of the game when the repealed they rule against goalies leaving their feet, thanks to Clint Benedict.

I'd have pegged Parent at the end of the stand-up era. The butterfly had been gaining in use since Hall in the NHL and Nikolai Puchkov in Russia; Esposito was bringing it into its own in the late 60s and 70s; once the North Americans got a look at Tretiak's evolution, they never went back.

What stand-up play really accomplished was the removal of the goalie's head from the line of fire. It was chiefly a protective measure: stay on your feet until the last possible second, and you won't risk your brain; if you do get hit in the head, it's the shooter's fault, and everyone knows it. If you start flopping, you're taking your life in your hands. In a strange, perverse way, goalies who stayed on their feet were regarded (even in my earliest days on the ice) as somehow nobler; they didn't risk themselves by flopping, they trusted their instincts and reflexes to make the save, and stayed safe.

The modern mask changed that. With those Harrison nose-hugging beauties, you wouldn't get cut or crushed, but you'd still get concussed. When goalies moved to the cage and helmet, impacts anywhere below the forehead ceased to be a major issue; you could take five or six good ones on the chin and shrug it off. With a modern composite mask, set off the face with a cage in the middle, the only way you can really get your bell rung is an absolutely square hit on the tiny range of angles on the forehead where there's a flat spot, or getting hit on the side of the head. Look back at the last few concussions off direct shots, and they're all a result of goalies flinching and taking it off the side of the mask, on a wide, flat area.

There is an absolutely chilling passage in Dryden's book where he talks about seeing "old goalies" everywhere he goes, drifting through bars and soup-lines like ghosts, aware of about a tenth of what was going on around them. It was a bit of a joke in the league back then - the origin of the nudge that goalies are 'a little odd' - but to Dryden, with a future in the law and politics already visible to him, a little too close to home.

Just for fun, here's a Life magazine shot of what Terry Sawchuk would have looked like if all his scars were fresh -- though the makeup artist couldn't get them all in:

Behind every one of those facial scars, a piece of his brain was dead.

[AIREAYE 248]

And we all know what happened to Sawchuk...

Good post Duncan, I learned a lot lol. Goaltending is a lot more complex than playing out front.

[technophile 0]

Behind every one of those facial scars, a piece of his brain was dead.

It amazes me that, with that much damage, a human brain can still process fast and accurately enough to stop a shot. What a piece of work man is -- not just in what he can absorb, but in what he can make himself absorb. :(

[BarDownGinos 3]

I wish there was still goalie's in the NHL doing Kelly Hrudey ninja kick saves.

[ArrogantOwl 7]

If you guys live in the area, the Alumni game will get televised and Parent may be playing a period or so, might be a good exhibition against some guys, albeit not like NHLers today.