Dustin Wolf, Juuse Saros, and Being Small in Net

[JPT]

I do wonder if they benefit from being a different matchup than most goalies. Teams prepare for 6'4" goalies, not 5'11" goalies

Why don't they prepare for goalies of various sizes instead of just 6'4" goalies?

 

[joestevens29]

Why don't they prepare for goalies of various sizes instead of just 6'4" goalies?

Teams shouldn’t prepare for anyone like that

Should be preparing for the goalie you are playing next skill set, not their size

 

[Armourboy]

Having watched the two extremes recently, Rinne at 6'6" and Saros at 5'11", the difference is, well, pretty big?

Saros is very smooth, he always seems to be where he should be. His angles are really good, and his agility is insane. His downsides are that because he is smaller you will get some of those crazy bounces and tips that would catch a taller goalie in the shoulders going in. Obviously more room to shoot up top as well. His glove isn't anything special and his rebound control can get a little nasty, especially to start the season.

Rinne was much more choppy, more of a fish out of water. He was athletic but it didn't show up in smoothness. Now as he got older that got better, he settled down much more in his later years and did become much more smooth. His ability to move the puck was much better than Saros and his glove hand was so good it could actually get him into trouble. He tried to catch everything early in his career.

I'd say the advantage being big gives you is that you don't need to be as precise. When you are smaller you gotta be agile and things like angles need to be dead on or you will just leave even more space for shooters.

 

[evdog]

Here's the link again.

Unmasked: Wolf of Flames impressing as undersized goalie | NHL.com

Rookie performing well despite atypical positioning, depth in crease

www.nhl.com

If it doesn't work, just search "unmasked wolf"

 

[Frank Drebin]

I don't think teams prepare for goalies size, rather than style. ie if he plays the puck well, rebound control and where to shoot for said rebounds, tendencies, etc.

I love watching wolf and saros play. They just move around so athletically its nice to watch. Rask was a lot like that too.

 

[NotCommitted]

Having watched the two extremes recently, Rinne at 6'6" and Saros at 5'11", the difference is, well, pretty big?

It's funny because you have a small guy playing whose game is based a lot on positioning and angles and a big guy who relied on his agility. Some nights watching Rinne was like a watching a run of "big save" highlights. Some of that because he was just that great when he was on, some of it was because he had a tendency to get out of position and just rely on his agility to make the save. He was one of the more entertaining modern goalies for sure. I think someone like Hellebuyck is more like people expect big goalies to be like, just let pucks hit you. Sometimes Hellebuyck makes it look so easy.

Not saying Saros is not agile or athletic, just that I think sometimes people overlook his angles and positioning.

 

[JianYang]

Having watched the two extremes recently, Rinne at 6'6" and Saros at 5'11", the difference is, well, pretty big?

Saros is very smooth, he always seems to be where he should be. His angles are really good, and his agility is insane. His downsides are that because he is smaller you will get some of those crazy bounces and tips that would catch a taller goalie in the shoulders going in. Obviously more room to shoot up top as well. His glove isn't anything special and his rebound control can get a little nasty, especially to start the season.

Rinne was much more choppy, more of a fish out of water. He was athletic but it didn't show up in smoothness. Now as he got older that got better, he settled down much more in his later years and did become much more smooth. His ability to move the puck was much better than Saros and his glove hand was so good it could actually get him into trouble. He tried to catch everything early in his career.

I'd say the advantage being big gives you is that you don't need to be as precise. When you are smaller you gotta be agile and things like angles need to be dead on or you will just leave even more space for shooters.

I've also wondered about the bishop sized goalies and whether the 5 hole would be more difficult to manage for them as opposed to the smaller guys.

I have had a theory of goalies being too big for the position although being too small seems to get more attention.

I'm not saying bishop was bad though. I actually thought he was pretty good but also an exception to the size theory.

 

[Armourboy]

It's funny because you have a small guy playing whose game is based a lot on positioning and angles and a big guy who relied on his agility. Some nights watching Rinne was like a watching a run of "big save" highlights. Some of that because he was just that great when he was on, some of it was because he had a tendency to get out of position and just rely on his agility to make the save. He was one of the more entertaining modern goalies for sure. I think someone like Hellebuyck is more like people expect big goalies to be like, just let pucks hit you. Sometimes Hellebuyck makes it look so easy.

Not saying Saros is not agile or athletic, just that I think sometimes people overlook his angles and positioning.

Saros is more agile than Rinne was, the difference is in how they use it. Rinne used his more in a diving manner, and yes sometimes he had great highlight saves because he created them being out of position to start with.

Rinne's overall game became much more like Saros' did as his career went on. I'm sure some of that was age and injuries, but he became much more fluid and became much more about less movement. I think in some ways its why he always seemed to get better even as he got older. He actually became much better on the technical side as the athletic side started to go.

I've also wondered about the bishop sized goalies and whether the 5 hole would be more difficult to manage for them as opposed to the smaller guys.

I have had a theory of goalies being too big for the position although being too small seems to get more attention.

I'm not saying bishop was bad though. I actually thought he was pretty good but also an exception to the size theory.

I don't recall it being any different with Rinne for example, but he was always really good with stick work so that may have played a part in why. Never watched Bishop much so can't really say.

 

[biturbo19]

One of the things with these smaller goalies with lightning reflexes is that they can be absolutely all world, but they rely so much on being letter perfect in their reading of the play and anticipation. They don't have that margin of error that bigger goalies have.

So when they go through a "slump", it can get really ugly. If suddenly their anticipation is just a split second off, or they don't position themselves exactly right...there can be some clunkers. They just don't have the same room for "guesstimating" and just trying to "take up space" that the bigger guys do.


It takes outstanding reflexes, attention to detail, and just general hockey IQ and ability to anticipate and read the play. And that's one of those things that is going to continue to limit the number of "small goalies" in today's NHL, for the foreseeable future. But the few who "make it" tend to be pretty good, or even "elite".

Same goes for "small Centers". You don't see very many of them stick at Center at all...but there are also examples of those guys being "elite" like Point. Because the hockey smarts and quickness that allow him to succeed, when they're enough, tend to really shine through brightly. Same with small goalies, where it's such a tough process, it tends to select out all but the "best of the best" who are able to make it, against the odds.

 

[1989]

Here's the link again.

Unmasked: Wolf of Flames impressing as undersized goalie | NHL.com

Rookie performing well despite atypical positioning, depth in crease

www.nhl.com

If it doesn't work, just search "unmasked wolf"

This article about the positioning reminds me of Lundqvist who also excelled while playing deeper in net.

Lundqvist - 6'1"
Thomas, Belfour - 5'11"
Roy and Nabokov - 6'0"
Kiprusoff, Khabibulin, Giguere - 6'1"
Hasek and Brodeur - 6'2"
Rask, Price, Luongo - 6'3"

Meanwhile, there is no shortage of tall goalies (6'4"+) but good ones are rare, and great ones even rarer.
There's Hellebuyck, Rinne, Vasilevskiy, Bishop, and Markstrom are probably the top ones, then you have Koskinen, Andersen, Oettinger, Lehner, Dubnyk, Smith... among many other far less successful big bodies.

Of the tall goalies, I think only Vasilevskiy, Rinne and Hellebuyck have any arguable claim to being great goalies and then the rest are mostly average/flawed.

I acknowledge that historically speaking there have been far more "short" great goalies throughout hockey history to choose from and that the taller breed and style of play has only seen more recent development, but I would also point out that there's a slew of mediocre goalies at any size range so it kind of balances out.

Also, if the expectation is that a taller goalie's natural genetic gifts will overcome other style deficiencies, I would have expected more successful tall goalie development to have begun earlier, not just within the last 15 years or so.