TLDR: in my opinion, goalie equipment has constantly progressed since the 80's and every era of goalie has had advantages over the previous (yes even the guys now vs the Michelin men of the early 00's)
I'll take on the goalie argument.
A few relevant points of context:
- I'm 49 years old, which means I grew up wearing leather goalie pads and felt chest protectors (like what Mike Palmateer or Pete Peters would have started their career with).
- I played less in the late nineties and early 00's (my college sport was soccer... also a goalie), but enough to have a worn out a then-modern gigantic chest protector and the used (but still mostly leather) Heaton pads I used (like what Brodeur started with)... you were huge, but still couldn't move.
- Post grad school I picked up the sport with renewed interest, then playing low level beer league in the last of the >11" pads (circa 2005)
- I still play beer league, in fact I play more now than at any time in my life, wearing a full modern set of V9s and often playing against guys who once played Div1 and every few weeks even a recently retired pro (ECHL, and even some NHL/AHL tweeners)
- I'm still in ok shape for my age, but like any 49 year old, I'm nowhere near as agile, flexible or fit as I once was, eyes don't track the puck as well either...
None of that is meant as any sort of humble brag (in fact the opposite as you'll see), but as there probably fewer and fewer guys who played in the gear available in 1, 2, 3, above and are still playing in 4 above... any not too many years until all those pucks to the head cloud our judgement, my observations are as follows:
A) In my experience, (factoring out defensive structures which matter ALOT) the quality of the goaltending today vs yesteryears is 90% equipment. I know this because there is ZERO reason a (mostly soccer) goalie should be playing (and being invited back) with #5 above... I am a better goalie now than when I was 16 and the gear made the majority of that difference... EVERYTHING is just easier to do and you are far less likely pull (even a 49 year old groin) doing it.
B) The biggest jump in gear (performance wise) was from 2 to 3... everything got lighter, everything got bigger, pads began to rotate (for butterfly) and pro-fly pushes became possible... this happened during the careers of Brodeur and Roloson... it arguably prolonged their careers and at the end of that era you ended up with guys like Price who'd trained most of their life in it and guys like Quick whose speed and skating was enabled by it (despite being "too small" to excel in the #2 era).
C) The equipment (and therefore the goaltending) is better still today (#4) than it was with the larger pads pre-2006. How could that be? The equipment got smaller right?... Yeah it did, but as above, the emphasis on skating and sliding rather than a more static blocking style allowed guys like Quick and Price to outcompete the Garth Snows (or Devan Dubnyk's) of the world... sure there are plenty of huge goalies, but cowling-less skates allow goalies to crouch even closer to their butterfly and edge even better... meaning guys who are athletic and lighting quick (like Shesterkyn) can come out to cut angles (and appear bigger) and still make it back to the post when the play goes down low.
D) Yes scoring went up after the first lockout... yes the goalie equipment shrunk, but IMO the uptick in scoring had a lot more to do with less hooking/holding and elimination of the two-line pass. Goalies were still getting better as the equipment went from 2-3.
