Read on Twitter
The Dryden article in The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2021/02/hockey-goalies-are-too-big-now/618021/ is as interesting to read (Ken knows how to lay out a poetic case) as it is confused in its observations. I invite you to consider these passages:
The first echoes a passage earlier in the essay (evidence that he’s not being tongue-in-cheek), where he describes Vasilevskiy in RVH, and states that he’s covering so much net, he should just stay like that, since standing only opens holes. This is complete nonsense, full stop.
First, as many opponents of RVH rightly suggest, a goalie down and locked into a pose leaves stable holes open that a good shooter can consistently hit. A goalie in RVH (bfly, or any down position) would get torched if they used it vs a player in the slot. There’s too much net.
Second, if an inspired goaltender discovered that they could just remain down, and thereby stop 98% of shots, who believes they’d refuse to implement their revolutionary new strategy, merely for the sake of appearances? “We could win almost every game, but the optics!” Please.
The second passage shows that Dryden is a few years behind the NHL. Goalie pad length is in fact already custom measured for each goalie. The seemingly insoluble problem of sizing chest protectors is another one the NHL has already solved. Dryden has not been keeping up.
As for Dryden’s overall thesis, that huge goalies lead to difficulty scoring, which leads to players clustering the netfront to screen and tip - this accurately describes the NHL 5-10 years ago. Since then, teams have discovered speed and lateral pre-shot movement unlock space -
and the league has moved away from the kind of north-south one he describes (Pucks on net! Always forward!) to a more east-west one, where you preferentially maintain possession and stretch defenders out to open long lateral passing lanes, creating shots goalies can’t stop.
And for those that didn’t read the article, Dryden isn’t arguing their aren’t enough goals - his intro states that scoring is up, while save percentage is down - rather, he’s making a more aesthetic claim about the game: the way players have to score now is ugly, and uninspiring.
He wants more opportunity to let the skill of skaters shine through, and believes increasing net size will accomplish this, like people were arguing in 2015. Unfortunately for Dryden, the NHL figured out the problem, and the game has already made the shift he’s arguing it needs.
