I heard Marinaro pontificate and rudely attack callers over this.
It's a dumb argument to make. Best "ever", really? We all know that goalies from past generations had nowhere near access to the information, expertise, technical training, equipment and technology the goalies of today have.
The "technical" aspect of goaltending is only relevant if the comparison is between goalies who hail from a generation that has made technical training an integral part of their development.
And even then, technical development is relative -- is someone like Patrick Roy a comparable to say, Price? Roy was wearing oversized equipment, a sweater that was 3 sizes larger than it should have been and acted like a tent and adapted his technique to the largesses of the playing rules of his day. Plus, goaltending "technique" has seen so great an advancement from Roy's time to the current era that even comparing a goalie from this time would not constitute a fair or defensible comparative.
If you're going to compare Price to the goalie of another era, say a Jacques Plante, then a reasonable question might be "Would Price have been the best goalie of Jacques Plante's era if like Plante, he only had access to the limited technical knowledge of the goalies issued from that era?"
Of course there is an argument to be made that Price is the best amongst the "technical" goalies of this generation. Going beyond that, is another dumb Marinaro show moment in the field of meaninglessless and the absurd.
