from Ben Gotz of the Las Vegas Review-Journal,

The NHL passed new rules on goalie pad size this offseason to slim down chest protectors and cut down on unnecessary equipment that takes up a lot of space. The change should continue the league’s upward scoring trend but safety concerns already have been raised.

The new rules give goalies less padding around their shoulders, elbows, biceps and forearms in an attempt to have their pads take a more natural angle around their shoulder. Before some goalies had pads that took a straight line from their neck or even had a slightly upward angle, giving them a few more inches of equipment to block shots with.

The changes are not the only one the NHL has made recently. It restricted the height of goalie leg pads in 2011 and decresed the size of goalie pants in February 2017. In the new goalie pants’ full-season debut last year the NHL saw the most goals per game (2.97) since 2005-06 and the lowest leaguewide save percentage (.912) since 2012-13.

“Entertainment is goals and fans want to see goals and see chances and red lights and comebacks and all those great things that are associated with scoring,” NHL Network analyst Mike Johnson who had a 13-year playing career, said. “If you can move everyone incrementally up in goals against that’s a good thing for the game.”

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