NHL Trends: Why the NHL Is No Longer a Goaltender's League

When I started watching hockey around the age of 12 I remember settling into my parents living room for a lot of NHL playoff match ups. This was before the days of NHL Center Ice, so regular season games were few and far between unless you could catch them on ESPN. But playoff hockey was on the air and I would get thoroughly excited to watch any teams compete for the Stanley Cup. I remember the dominant teams of the late 90s: Detroit, Colorado, Dallas and New Jersey. With all their splendor these teams and a select few others were always in the mix for primarily one reason: goal tending. Every playoff series featured two star goalies. Conventional wisdom was that if you were in the playoffs a great goaltender had gotten you there in the first place, and the result of the series depended on which net minder would blink first. Often times, no one even knew the name of the goalie serving as a backup, due to the star status and importance of names like Patrick Roy, Martin Broduer, Ed...