How Less Became More for NHL’s Wins Leader

The word “athleticism” is like a goalie Rorschach test.

Everyone thinks of it differently, defines it differently, and values it differently.

The NHL is getting faster. Pucks and players are moving east-west more than ever (43% more according to ClearSight Analytics’ Steve Valiquette). A goalie layperson might think the solution to that is MORE. More explosive pushes. Wider stances. More splits.

A return to early 1990s scramble goaltending!

But we aren’t goalie laypeople. We know sometimes the answer to MORE is less. And so it was in August 2022 when Scott Wedgewood, who signed a one-year, $2.5 million extension with the Colorado Avalanche on November 13, appeared on Episode 183 of the InGoal Radio Podcast and cast his athleticism and aggression as, in some ways, a negative attribute.

“Early on in my career — I think it might have been a negative — I was very like old-style Jonathan Quick, just so athletic, so aggressive, fly around the net,” said Wedgewood, who leads the NHL with 10 wins. “But as you do that, it’d be harder to hit and be clean. So, there’d be the one where you’d reach high blocker and it’d hit your blocker, go through you.”