NHL GOALIES LIKELY CAN’T PAD THEIR RESUMÉS MUCH LONGER.
NHL LOOKS TO TAILOR NETMINDERS’ GEAR TO MATCH ACTUAL PHYSIQUE OF A GOALTENDER
The NHL’s goalie cop is working a different case these days. Clutching a binder in one hand and a measuring tool he picked up for $ 9.99 at Princess Auto in the other, Kay Whitmore walked unannounced into the visiting dressing room at Air Canada Centre recently and spotted Buffalo Sabres goaltender Robin Lehner undressing in his stall.
“Uh oh, here comes my nemesis,” said Lehner.
Whitmore laughed. Actually, nothing could be further from the truth. The former NHL goal tender-turned-equipment inspector might be on a quixotic crusade to shrink the sumo- sized masked men who have spent their careers bulking up and bending the rules, but he’s not here to bust Lehner. Well, at least not today.
Instead, he’s come to take his measurements so that goalie manufacturers can specifically tailor equipment that is fitted to Lehner’s body like a made to order tuxedo — not an off-the-rack polyester suit.
It is the latest and maybe last attempt at making goaltenders look like their actual size in net. Whether it helps increase scoring is not yet known. Who knows, it could make goaltenders more mobile and athletic. But at the very least, it levels the playing field and forces the NHL to look elsewhere for answers.
“I love that idea,” said Lehner. “It’s just not consistent through the league. A lot of goalies have way too big equipment on. They can fit four sets of arms in one sleeve of the chest protector. I know guys in this league who wear player pants underneath their goalie pants. That’s how big their pants are.
“You see guys look like absolute monsters on the ice. It’s nuts. You can have guys weigh 175 and they look like a 300-pound sumo wrestler out there.”
Lehner, who also wears the biggest pants he can find, also looks like one of those so- called monsters. But he comes about his size honestly. Listed at 6- foot- 5 and 240 pounds, Lehner said he is really closer to 250 pounds and has a 42-inch waist and ankles that Whitmore jokes are as big as some goaltender’s thighs.
“I am a big guy and I know that I am a big guy. I have very wide shoulders and big legs,” said Lehner. “If you look here (points at his waist), I don’t have much room in my pants. I’m an XL. But everyone in the league is an XL.”
This is the challenge presented to Whitmore. The NHL is not a one-size-fits-all league. Some, like Vancouver’s Ryan Miller, are tall and skinny. Others, like Los Angeles’ Jonathan Quick, are shorter and stockier. And there are several variations in between.
But most look of them look the same when they have all their layers of equipment on.
Whitmore’s goal is to make the equipment more representative of a player’s individual body type. He wants chest protectors that cling to the arms and shoulder rather than hang like drapes and for the pants to be more like what Justin Bieber — not MC Hammer — would wear.
Ultimately, he wants goalies to look different from one another. And for once, goalies want the same thing.
“I think we should all be on the same playing field, doing the same thing, and let the talent win out,” Cory Schneider, who is on the NHL- NHLPA Competition Committee, said in January. “If you’re talented, can move around the net and stop pucks, those are the guys that should be in the league.”
It was at the all-star game in Nashville where Whitmore presented prototypes of the new equipment to Schneider, Washington’s Braden Holtby and Tampa Bay’s Ben Bishop. They hated it. Not because it was too small — but because it wasn’t small enough.
“The PA and I weren’t super happy,” said Whitmore, who will make a presentation at next week’s GM meetings in Boca Raton, Fla. It wasn’t what we were looking for and the goalies agreed. Cory Schneider said it best: ‘ It’s hard to explain what we’re asking them to do, but when we see it we’ll know.’ ”
The problem here is twofold: in order to have equipment that is contoured to the natural shapes of the body, you have to physically measure every single goaltender to see what sizes they should be wearing. And then you have to have to convince each equipment manufacturer — Bauer, Reebok- CCM, Brian’s, and Vaughn — to design padding that simply protects the goalie rather than gives him an edge in eliminating the 5-hole.
“It’s not embedded in their mindset to make stuff just to protect like they do for players,” said Whitmore. “It’s always, ‘How can I fill space?’ It’s trying to get them to come around and think differently for once.”
It’s not as easy as analyst and former NHL goalie Corey Hirsch made it look in a recent video for Sportsnet, where he used a computer animation to visually shrink the equipment.
Whitmore has to singlehandedly measure every goalie in the league. Not just how long their arms and legs are, but also the curves in their shoulders and biceps. It’s new territory. In order to fit goalies into say four or five different sizes, he uses a contour gauge that woodworkers might use for making intricate moulds.
“The engineers think I’m crazy,” said Whitmore.
It is an ambitious goal and not without its challenges. Miller, who was part of the competition committee two years ago when the length of pads were decreased on average by two inches, said the NHL needs to take its time to do it right, “even if it’s a yearand-a-half from now. It’s not about, ‘Hey, we can do it over the summer.’ ”
But most of the goalies are on board and want this to get done as quickly as possible, if only because they are tired of hearing that oversized equipment is the only reason why scoring is down.
“Goalies are going to be faster and lighter,” said Lehner. “You look at the best goalies in the league, they already have small equipment.”
If that’s the case, maybe it’s time for the NHL to point the finger at someone else.