A Study On Igor Shesterkin and Jonathan Quick

It's Friday. It's "Ask The Maven " Day. Today's question arrives via Jim Tuchman of Long Island City. Take It Away, Jim.

WATCHING GOALIES SUCH AS IGOR SHESTERKIN AND JONATHAN QUICK, I WONDER WHETHER THEY GET BEATEN TOO OFTEN ON HIGH SHOTS. IS THAT THE CASE?

The Maven Answers: Puck-stopping styles have changed dramatically over the decades. In the earliest years of the NHL goalkeepers were not permitted to fall to the ice to make a save.

Eventually the rule was changed and goalies were allowed to sprawl to stop a puck. Right up through the 1940's virtually every netminder played a "Stand Up" style but also doing the splits and stacking the pads, among other popular techniques. Nothing at all like today's styles.

Goalie Jacques Plante's introduction of the goalie mask in November 1959 at The Garden drastically changed puck-stopping especially since mask designs became stronger and more practical.

Another major turning point took place when Black Hawks goalie Glenn Hall introduced the "Inverted V" style. In this technique, Hall dropped to his knees and spreading his legs in a "V" formation.

It proved successful for Hall who helped Chicago win a Stanley Cup in 1961. Soon other goalies copied what became known as the "Butterfly" and hockey schools turned it into a standard technique.

The problem with the "Butterfly" is that it leaves the upper parts of the net vulnerable to high shots. Watching playoff games you'll see goalies beaten time and again with high shots while goalies are doing the "Butterfly" for no reason at all.

The answer to the question is YES, Shesterkin, Quick and most other NHL goalies are guilty of overdoing the "Butterfly." More shots than ever fly over the unnecessarily downed netminders. 

It's time they wised up and tried the traditional stand-up form!