Efficiency goaltending is exactly what it sounds like...and I don't say that to be a smart ass haha. It's about playing percentages. Focus only on one action at a time, assume that all other things will be taken care of by the defense. Goalies stop some 97 or 98% of unscreened, untipped shots these days. The equipment is tailored to butterfly goalies who just drop and turn themselves into as expansive of a wall as they can humanly be. Don't let things go through you and if they want to make a perfect shot on me, then so be it...but the odds are, you aren't gonna hit that shot. Odds are: you're gonna hit me. Or you're gonna miss.
Stay within the confines of the posts, blockers, gloves, sticks, your head, everything stays inside the frame of the net.
Goalies of the past, like Hasek, maybe Grant Fuhr, whoever...were not efficient. They managed the game differently because the game was different then and the position was different then. Doesn't make them worse, per se...just different. Goalies had different skills and a different sense of the position then...more to manage. Billy Smith constantly catching pucks, putting them down and paddling them to Denis Potvin because the Isles didn't want excessive, needless defensive zone faceoffs. Defensive minded teams are defensive minded because of the way they play in the neutral zone (generalizing for effect here), so, naturally, you're gonna lose a lot of your defensive prowess if the puck and the play is already starting 30 feet from your net, right? You lose that draw, that's an automatic scoring chance against.
Compare to today, very few goalies have that sense, or that desire...stick skills are down across the board, goalies are rarely on their skates when they make saves, if you've played goalie any time in the last ten or so years, certain glove types make it really, really hard to get the puck out of it cleanly and predictably...they aren't like a baseball mitt. Hell, a very common goalie technique and this is really one of the few sticks skills that I even see taught at the youth levels these days is when facing shots that are going low and away, use your stick blade at an angle to ramp it up and OUT OF PLAY! In your own zone! Intentionally! Goalies ask for faceoffs in their own zone these days...because goalies today lack the necessary skills to make better plays.
I know it's fun to watch the highlights from the 80's...watch eight minutes of no saves being made and then go "wow, goalies were bad..." and the position did evolve certainly, that doesn't mean it didn't lose some skill along the way. Goalies are more efficient, they are more predictable...but that came at a price too...
