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Originally Posted by Textcritic
I think this depends very much on what is considered "significantly shorter," and I honestly don't really know in this instance. However, I do think the following two factors are worth careful consideration here: 1) sub-6'1" goalies have not been especially common nor successful in the NHL for a long time now. There are a handful of outliers like Saros and Halas, but even these guys do not look all that capable of sustaining elite-level, championship quality goaltending. 2) We can't be sure, but it certainly seems like Wolf's height/weight are being artificially inflated like other small players such as Johnny Gaudreau or Matthew Phillips. I do tend to think that Wolf is frequently talked about being closer in height to the NHL average than he actually is. Maybe he will ve the one to finally make an elite-level NHL impact where so many undersized goalies have failed, but the fact remains that the odds are still stacked heavily against him.
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Tim Thomas was pretty small. Jonathan Quick is also below average height. Both were/are elite-level goaltenders.
Other decent goalies of similar height: Raanta, Nedeljkovic, Nabokov, Khodobin, Lundqvist.
Based on how Wolf has performed at the AHL (and at all levels) so far, I think the odds look much better than they did during his draft year.
Also, any seventh round pick at any position are going to have odds heavily stacked against them. If the idea is that it's slim that Wolf becomes an elite championship pedigree goaltender, then fine. I can say that about 99% of prospects of any size, age and position.
The idea that goalies HAVE to be big at the NHL level is an outdated concept. EDIT:
This line of thinking changed fairly recently. This is why we haven't seen a huge influx of small goalies yet.