from Ken Dryden at The Atlantic,

The problem was right there on the screen: Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy, 6 foot 3, 210 pounds, athletic, fit, one of the very best goalies in the NHL, in the handshake line after the Lightning had won an early-round series in last season’s Stanley Cup playoffs. From the side, his belly seeming to hang low in front of him, he looked like Humpty Dumpty.

This story is not about any particular goalie, but about the position itself and how it increasingly dominates the way hockey is played, and not for the right reasons. This story is about goalies and their equipment, and about how they’ve learned to use it. It is a story that has evolved very slowly, almost without change or notice for hockey’s first 100 years, then, since the 1980s, in actions initiated by goalies mostly, and counteractions by NHL regulators, players, and coaches, until today’s state of near-acceptance and resignation. It is not about fewer goals being scored: The total number per game doesn’t change much from year to year. And this season, in these early weeks, scoring is up slightly and save percentages are down, just as they were after other shortened NHL seasons. The less urgent tone of practice offers goalies little preparation for the jamming, bumping scrum of goalmouth action. The real and ongoing story is about how goals are scored in today’s NHL, and how teams have to play to score them.

Never in hockey’s history has a tail so wagged the dog.

A goalie’s equipment is big because a puck is hard, can be shot with great velocity, and can injure, sometimes seriously, an inadequately protected goalie.

continued

thanks to a tweet from Spector's Hockey for the pointer