Why wasnt the butterfly/ hybrid style popular from mid-70s on?
Considering that the goalie mask was conceived by the mid-70s
But then it took another 20, 30 years or so until the style was more spread throughout the league
Yes, the goalies then may not have grown up playing a butterfly style. However, they were not stupid people.
If covering down low on the majority of shots can help your team win, why didnt more goalies play a (stand-up/butterfly) hybrid style
when watching film from old games, there were way too many times that goals went in because the goalie was standing up trying to squeeze the pad together. Or it went to the corners because the goalie did not make themselves look big
The butterfly wasn't the dominant style until the late 90s/early 2000s, aka the dead puck era.
During the high-scoring 80s and early 90s, goalies got by just fine with the standup style. I suppose you could blame the high scoring on the goalies, but it's not like Patrick Roy won the Cup every single year.
Besides, standup is 100x more exciting to watch than the butterfly.
Butterfly was still possible with the old leather pads.
My theory:
In the 50s and 60s, the butterfly never developed because the kind of proper analysis and technique that is so common today was just starting. Also, the equipment protected the wearer much less; a goalie would be reluctant to drop to his knees if his face was unprotected. That carried over to the 70s and 80s, because while all goalies had masks and analytical techniques were growing, they had grown up and developed in a time w/o those. Even if told they could change their style and be more successful, goalies probably decided to stick to what they knew. Goalies who grew up in the late 70s and 80s, however, grew up learning about analytical technique and made full use of all the new equipments. They brought that play to the NHL, and boom, one has the butterfly. People see Roy dominating with it and emulate him, and a cycle continues.
The butterfly wasn't the dominant style until the late 90s/early 2000s, aka the dead puck era.
During the high-scoring 80s and early 90s, goalies got by just fine with the standup style. I suppose you could blame the high scoring on the goalies, but it's not like Patrick Roy won the Cup every single year.
Besides, standup is 100x more exciting to watch than the butterfly.
Bill Ranford ftw!!!!
EVery save he does feels like he's about to explode into many pieces ahahahah...yet, it was so cool to look at
lets reverse the question.
why do so many new goalies fall to their knees any time there is presure?
i cant count how many times ive seen goalies fall too their knees while facing a clear shot. and i mean a shot from the point with absolutely no traffic.....its an unscreened shot. they see it the entire time.
yet when that shot goes into the net, the goalie is on his knees swinging his catching glove up over his shoulder trying too catch it. but if he stayed on his blades, the puck would have hit him on his bicep or chest.
i was a goalie in the ohl back in the 70's ( good god, that was LAST century!!!! ) and the pads didnt really slow my feet down. i wont say that they werent heavy.....but thats what i was trained with.
if i still had my left knee, id go out there and do it all over again. you want too shoot over my shoulder? fine, go for it, just dont get mad when that "wicked wrister" or "sick back hand" goes over my shoulder and over my net!!
It all comes down to equipment.Back then when goalies wore normal equipment the butterfly style would have been quite useless because it didn't cover the net as much as the huge equipment does today and shooters would have just shot high.
It all comes down to equipment.Back then when goalies wore normal equipment the butterfly style would have been quite useless because it didn't cover the net as much as the huge equipment does today and shooters would have just shot high.
Jeez i never knew they were the typical butterfly goalies.
Hey even Dryden dropped to his knees when needed but don't assume that these goalies played what we today call the butterfly style.
Jeez i never knew they were the typical butterfly goalies.
Hey even Dryden dropped to his knees when needed but don't assume that these goalies played what we today call the butterfly style.
Hall and Espo were referred to as Butterfly goalies. The first time I ever heard the term was in relation to Espo back in the 70's. Compared to the butterflyers of today, they were more of a what we call a hybrid style, which is what this thread is about.
Try taking a slapshot in the shoulder with the old equipment. Now do it 15 times in a game.
The chest and head protection has changed the most in the past 20 years. Goalies can still get hurt by a shot in a weak spot around the shoulders, but not nearly as frequently as the 80's and back.
Butterfly style demands using the chest and helmet to take, and absorb, alot of shots. The old equipment wouldn't pull it off as effectively as present stuff; nor would it be very safe.
Huge, light goalie equipment makes the butterfly effective. Give today's goalies the equipment of 30 years ago and the butterfly would go away to a large extent.
I'm pretty sure it's not because the equipment didn't allow for it, it's because the game hasn't evolved to it. Equipment evolves to suit a players needs, not the other way around.
I think it's just a matter of discovery. Everyone was playing on straight stick blades until it the curve blade was discovered (accidentally, by a chicago player). Same thing with goalie techniques. There's wayyy too many danglers out there that a stand-up wouldn't survive in today's hockey.
It's called "progression". It's a natural phenomenon with many things in life.
Considering that the goalie mask was conceived by the mid-70s
But then it took another 20, 30 years or so until the style was more spread throughout the league
If covering down low on the majority of shots can help your team win, why didnt more goalies play a (stand-up/butterfly) hybrid style
"Conceived" and "highly effective" are two totally different levels.
First, most goaltenders of the 70's just wore those fiberglass pieces. Wire cage facemasks (which didn't really become prevalent until the 80's) disperse the force of a shot to the rest of the helmet. The Dryden-era masks just kept your face from being smashed open on contact. It was better than the bare-faced alternative at the time, of course, but you still didn't want to take a puck in between the eyes if it was humanly possible to avoid it. And, oh yeah, no protection for the back of the head whatsoever.
Now look at the picture you provided of Tretiak. No throat protection, limited ear and jaw protection, and given what we know of concussions and head protection today, I'm willing to bet even the cranial protection wasn't all that stellar on a direct impact.
The helmets of the 70's and early 80's were better than nothing, but they're medieval by comparison to today's stuff. No goalie in his right mind (and most goalies aren't all there to begin with) would consistently drop to his knees, fall over, and then dive head first to try to cover a loose puck with what was quaintly referred to as facial protection in those days. No goaltender of today's era would be caught dead going into a butterfly wearing those masks, lest they might actually end up dead.
Oh, and then from the point in the 80's where use of full cranium helmet & wire cage mask combos became commonplace in the NHL......the butterfly became a prevalent goaltending style within a decade's time.
Butterfly was still possible with the old leather pads.
Possible.....but not advisable. Or at least not as easy as it is in today's gear.
The pads I wear today are twice as big as the ones I wore just 10 years ago, and they are half the weight. Over the course of a game on ice, even those pads of the 90's would get noticeably heavier as they became covered in water as the game/practice wore on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stoneymcstone
Try taking a slapshot in the shoulder with the old equipment. Now do it 15 times in a game.
The chest and head protection has changed the most in the past 20 years. Goalies can still get hurt by a shot in a weak spot around the shoulders, but not nearly as frequently as the 80's and back.
Butterfly style demands using the chest and helmet to take, and absorb, alot of shots. The old equipment wouldn't pull it off as effectively as present stuff; nor would it be very safe.
This ^^^
It's not just the helmet and the leg pads, it is the chest protector, too. Chest protectors of today are lighter AND more protective than those of past generations. I remember my oldest chest protector. Seemingly every other game resulted in a shot that somehow found a sparsely area. Even the shots that caught me directly in the stomach in the middle of the protector could still occasionally leave a mark.
The stand-up style tried to kidk the puck away from the goal. As much as the butterfly is designed to take away the shots along the ice, it's also designed to trap a lot more pucks. Many pucks that hit a goaltender's leg pad now get trapped along the ice. Pucks that are elevated 18 inches which used to be kicked away by stand-up goalies are now caught in the larger glove or smothered in the chest protector. Those that aren't entirely controlled on the initial save lay right next to the crease.
Look at the pictures in this thread and the difference between the protection Ranford is wearing on his upper body (glove, blocker, helmet, chest/arm protection) and the protection Tretiak is wearing.....and then tell me: would you want to dive headfirst into a flurry of sticks and skates wearing Tretiak's gear to grab a loose puck with that glove while getting slashed at?
It all comes down to equipment.Back then when goalies wore normal equipment the butterfly style would have been quite useless because it didn't cover the net as much as the huge equipment does today and shooters would have just shot high.
Butterflying in old style equipment would still have taken up more net than standing up. Most butterfly netminders take pucks pretty much square in the chest, which, had chest padding been protective enough, you could have done in any era.
The reason almost no one did it was because it was unsafe and because it went against "tradition"
Goalies were midgets back then. It was more then likely that your stopper was a 5 foot 6 tall player then the 6 foot 3 monsters that we see today. Combine that with their equipment which added next to no width to a goalie and those short goalie pads and a goalie going into the butterfly would only cover about a quarter of the net. Plus back then when shots hit you in the arms or chest it hurt a lot more then it hurts the michelin man equipment that goalies wear today. For the most part goalies wanted to play pucks off the pads and gloves not the body.
Goalies were midgets back then. It was more then likely that your stopper was a 5 foot 6 tall player then the 6 foot 3 monsters that we see today. Combine that with their equipment which added next to no width to a goalie and those short goalie pads and a goalie going into the butterfly would only cover about a quarter of the net. Plus back then when shots hit you in the arms or chest it hurt a lot more then it hurts the michelin man equipment that goalies wear today. For the most part goalies wanted to play pucks off the pads and gloves not the body.
I picked the 72-73 season at random. Of all goalies who played more than 35 games.
Over 6'2" -- Cesare Maniago, Ken Dryden
Over 6'0" -- Dave Dryden, Ron Low, Phil Myre
6'0" -- Jacques Plante, Eddie Johnston
Under 6'0" -- Billy Smith, Ed Giacomin, Dunc Wilson, Gerry Desjardins, Doug Favell, Tony Esposito
Under 5'10" -- Wayne Stephenson, Roger Crozier, Jim Rutherford, Roy Edwards, Rogie Vachon, Gilles Meloche
i think it was just a difficult thing to think of. the body positioning of the butterfly is not at all intuitive or natural.
plus, there had been decades of tradition in the stand up style.
when hasek became a starter, some thought he was ridiculous, b/c he did not play a typical style.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch67
Goalies were midgets back then. It was more then likely that your stopper was a 5 foot 6 tall player then the 6 foot 3 monsters that we see today. Combine that with their equipment which added next to no width to a goalie and those short goalie pads and a goalie going into the butterfly would only cover about a quarter of the net. Plus back then when shots hit you in the arms or chest it hurt a lot more then it hurts the michelin man equipment that goalies wear today. For the most part goalies wanted to play pucks off the pads and gloves not the body.
but the butterfly would still cover more of the net than the stand up style.
most goalies were not that small, especially considering all players were on average shorter than today.
A lot of good points made. Being a goaltender from the 70's and early 80's I can confirm the following:
-butterfly positions were frowned upon by coaches
-letting a goal in through the "5-hole" was considered a shameful flaw in style
-Jacques Plante put out a goaltending manual that outlined that goalies should stand on their stick-side leg and let the glove side leg go out to the side in a semi-butterfly position. All moves required pushing off from the stick-side or vertically placed leg. Going down on the knees was considered a weakness and in poor form
-statistically more goals were scored at the bottom of the net (this was probably more anecdotal than proven fact) than were scored above 10 inches off the ice, a statistic that still holds today, likely. Coaches also specifically pointed this out to goalies to concentrate on keeping the stick blade on the ice at all times and improve foot speed. Today, the flat faces of the pads are forward and the pads and paddle are on the ice to address this same statistical scenario
-goaltending styles of the day suggested that pucks that went low along the ice to the corners of the net should be kicked away with the out-turned skate blade instead of the forward-facing goal pads
-as pointed out by others the equipment was different in shape and size and weight. Emphasis was put on snagging or deflecting pucks, not blocking them as is done today.
-personally, I suffered from torn hamstings and sprained knees but according to recent opinion, the butterfly position is responsible for more groin pulls and bad knees and ankles than the old stand-up style
