from Dave Feschuk of the Toronto Star,

Goaltenders, sans their comically sized gear, are arriving in the league taller and taller. Witness June’s NHL draft, wherein 10 of the first 12 goaltenders selected were listed at six-foot-three or more. In the past five NHL drafts there’ve been 108 goaltenders chosen. Precisely five of them have been listed at less than six-feet tall.

Facts like these are well known by Jeff Reese, the former Maple Leafs goaltender who played 176 NHL games in the 1980s and ’90s at an anachronistic five-foot-nine. Reese, now goaltending coach for the Dallas Stars, was mulling the tall-man trend earlier this season after a morning skate at the Air Canada Centre.

“Eventually,” said Reese, “some guy is going to come along that’s seven feet tall and athletic and he can almost play the whole game on his knees. That’s in the future.”

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