Are Short Goalies Underrated?

[Bear of Bad News]

Short Kings rise up

???

 

[Joe Hallenback]

At the NHL Level? No. At lower levels of hockey? Yes. It is starting to change though were you are seeing them look at many factors for goalies in minor hockey other then size. For years so many quality 14/15 year olds were passed over because they were deemed too short. Its why Canada hasn't been developing goalies.

 

[NVious]

At the NHL Level? No. At lower levels of hockey? Yes. It is starting to change though were you are seeing them look at many factors for goalies in minor hockey other then size. For years so many quality 14/15 year olds were passed over because they were deemed too short. Its why Canada hasn't been developing goalies.

Going back to the last 10 drafts, there were 4 goalies under 6' selected and 0 under 5'11, let's say on average there are 20 goalies selected are selected that would mean 2% of goalies selected are under 6'.

One was Dustin Wolf, the other was Alex Nedeljkovic (and Sergei Ivanov, Erik Kallgren who is now 6'3). Of the 4 goalies who were 6'7 selected 1 of them have played in the NHL (Fedotov who is looking awful). Of the 8 6'6 goalies 2 of them have played 1 single game in the NHL.

Then you have guys like Thomas/Quick who were pretty obviously under 6' and have some of the highest peaks of all time, yet nobody is drafting 5'10, 5'11 guys. Maybe height is a much much smaller part of the equation than people think.

 

[JPeeper]

Put it this way.

If Saros or Wolf were 6'4", then they'd be even better. That doesn't mean that short goalies can't be elite, but it's a disadvantage when you naturally take up less of the net.

It's not the most important thing, but it definitely makes a difference.

No they wouldn't, what makes Wolf so great is his lightning quick lateral movement which is largely because he's not a 6'4 mutant.

 

[Romang67]

Maybe part of the reason people don't think <6ft goalies are underrated is that Saros is brought up as an example of excellent <6ft goalies in the league, despite having a grand total of one Vezina finalist finish to his name since he was drafted almost 12 years ago.

 

[NVious]

Maybe part of the reason people don't think <6ft goalies are underrated is that Saros is brought up as an example of excellent <6ft goalies in the league, despite having a grand total of one Vezina finalist finish to his name since he was drafted almost 12 years ago.

Because there is systemic bias against shorter goalies. In the past 20 years a sub 6' goalie has won a Vezina/Smythe 5x with Quick/Thomas having 2 of the highest peaks of any goalies ever. During that same time frame a 6'5+ goalie has won a Vezina/Smythe 1x, despite there being infinitely more 6'5 goalies drafted/playing in the NHL. Goalies over 6'5 are seen as a great asset, yet looking at the results that height of goalies (and abundance of them too) has produced in the past 20 years, it is far worse than a sub 6' goalie.

It is literally equal with 6'4 goalies and above (5 to 5), yet if you asked scouts/coaches "knowing nothing about groups of goalies, would you suspect 6'4 goalies do better/the same/worse than sub 6' goalies?" Do you think anyone would take the sub 6' goalies?

If you have a talented goalie who is tall, that's great, but height isn't anything to overly fawn about and if you see a talented goalie even sub 6', they are 100% worth a shot. The real problem the way I see it is the amount of atrocious goalies who have gotten a shot because they are 6'4+, meanwhile looking at the results of sub 6', it's astonishing considering how few of them there are.

Even using the biggest outlier I can find, it's astonishing that at 5'5 Darren Pang posted the 8th best save percentage in the league over a season. Even when he fell off the following year, he still wasn't the worst in the league like you'd expect someone as short as him to be (on a terrible team too).

 

[GrumpyKoala]

Oh, well as an Oilers fan I fell big goalie are overrated.

 

[glenngineer]

The problem with a shorter goalie is they rely on technique and quickness. If one of those goes slightly off the rails, so do the results - see Saros.

 

[ONO94]

The easy answer is yes - they aren't tall enough to be overrated

 

[NVious]

The problem with a shorter goalie is they rely on technique and quickness. If one of those goes slightly off the rails, so do the results - see Saros.

Saros is in the 5'9-10 range, his worst season is a league average 901 sv% (33/67 goalies who have 10+ games) on one of the worst teams in the league. Again if height were such a big advantage for goalies, how is he not clearly the worst in the league with his massive handicap and how is someone like Fedotov managing to put up 876 at 6'7 or even some of the other bottom goalies in the league who are in the 6'3+ range?

Clearly being below 6' nearly DQs you from the NHL (hence why so many goalies lie about their height despite being 5'9, 5'10, 5'11) looking at the 2% draft rate in the last 10 year of sub 6' goalies, yet looking at some of the atrocious goalies in the 6'3+ range and some of the all time legends in the sub 6' range, there should at least be more parity.

One thing you can guarantee about a short goalie is they're going to have heart, some of the monsters have just the opposite trait of getting by on their size, getting shot after shot just due to their height when I don't think that should be the case at all.

It's interesting that we may never see an official 5'8 goalie in the league ever again, yet you can bet your bottom dollar year after year you will find 6'2, 6'3, 6'4, 6'5, 6'6, 6'7+ goalies putting up 840-880 sv percentages.

 

[centipede2233]

I think there is a concern with taller goalies and injuries. The sweet spot you want your goalie to be is Patrick Roy, brodeur and hasek, all 6’2. 6’3 and higher injury risk goes way up.

 

[Brodeur]

I think there is a concern with taller goalies and injuries. The sweet spot you want your goalie to be is Patrick Roy, brodeur and hasek, all 6’2. 6’3 and higher injury risk goes way up.

I think the overarching thing with injuries is the pure amount of stress that playing the butterfly does to your lower body. Brodeur in particular didn't go full butterfly until later in his career (same for somebody like Curtis Joseph). For most of his career Brodeur would have one pad face on the ice instead of being flared out. As a beer league goalie, it's not as strenuous but you don't cover as much of the net.

(humblebrag: I have pro return version of both of those pads. Brodeur went from 34" CCM Heaton 10's to 36+1" Vaughns in his final years)

I remember one trade deadline Columbus picked up Keith Kinkaid and he never officially played in a game. But they just wanted to give Sergei Bobrovsky some practices off / not make Bobrovsky suit up as backup for a handful of games down the stretch. Injuries/fatigue is just tough now since practically every current goalie has been butterflying since they were a kid.