Jack Bauer
Registered User
I get that, I do. In the long run it will diminish our place in the hockey world. Look what it did to our tending... Nearly decimated it.
I disagree in a huge way.
The way we coach the sport is what's killed our goaltending depth.
Most here remember that the Q in the 90's/early 2000's was considered the goaltending factory of the NHL.
What happened right around 2000 though was the smaller and more offensive game being coached in Quebec started to fall apart as bigger and more complete players started to make their way into the league from the US and Maritimes after expansion to Atlantic Canada.
The result was the smaller and more offensive league turning into more of a WHL style league due to coaching. That coaching is meant to limit offensive chances to a minimum and limit shot quality meaning goaltenders stopped seeing near as many shots and the shots they were seeing were starting to be a worse quality. Obviously that started to radically effect the development of the goaltenders in this era.
Take that same style down the ranks to midget and bantam and it's obvious why we started to produce less high quality goaltenders. We completely changed the environment that was developing them and changed it to a system trying to develop systems for players to play within rather the individual skill.
Goaltending depth falling off was the negative part of that change that somehow nobody seen coming yet in a way was obviously going to happen.