There have been several changes and new rules around the mandatory EBUG position. To qualify, a goalie must not have played in an NHL game under a standard player contract, played more than 80 professional games, or played professional hockey in the previous three seasons. EBUGS will all also wear No. 00 and must conform to the equipment-sizing charts that govern their NHL counterparts.
That means being measured for the appropriate pant and chest protector sizes and having their pads sent to Kay Whitmore of hockey operations at the NHL offices in Toronto to make sure they're within the sizing limits corresponding to individual leg measurements.
The biggest change for many will be regular practice usage, especially as the season progresses, and taking extra reps after practice. If sticking around to be a shooter tutor for post-practice skills sessions and shooting drills doesn't sound like that big a deal, keep in mind studies have shown the force of every butterfly drop is equivalent to two times a goalie's body weight.
For Oettinger, that's 450 pounds of force every time he slams his pads to the ice. Why would you expend that energy on extra reps that are often not only not beneficial to the goalie but can often lead to bad habits?
Philipp Grubauer of the Seattle Kraken, who has long advocated for a third goalie, said that even practice drills featuring too many odd-man rushes can create diminishing returns for a goalie.
"Like after like 10 or 15 shots, you're not going play them as hard or accurately because you know you can't leave the net, right," Grubauer told NHL.com at the NHL/NHLPA European Player Media Tour in September. "So, definitely bad habits creep in, and if you have a (third) guy there you can change with, you play five or six shots to 100 percent like in-game level, and then get out of there, take a rest, and then take the next drill."
Some teams were already using a third goalie to ease the workload, including a few that brought their practice goalie on the road. That includes 22-year-old Utah Mammoth EBUG Colten McIntyre, who traveled with the team all last season and dressed in a game at the Colorado Avalanche on Dec. 23 because of an upper-body injury to Karel Vejmelka.
Though that appearance got the headlines, with McIntyre, who is from Park City, becoming the first Utah native to dress for the Mammoth, the work he did away from the spotlight was perhaps more valuable -- and not just for the other goalies. During game days on the road, McIntyre would take the net at one end facing the Mammoth's top power-play unit while Vejmelka and then-backup Vitek Vanecek warmed up at the other end.
Unlike most morning skates, when power play-reps come after everyone has warmed up, this allows Utah's power play to practice on fresh ice as preferred.
It's an added benefit, even if the primary purpose is managing goalie workload, which helped Vejmelka lead the NHL with 64 appearances and 63 starts last season, four more than the next goalie on the list, Juuse Saros of the Nashville Predators.
"It helps a lot on the load management," Mammoth coach Andre Tourigny said. "There's a balance between 'Vej' or (new backup Sebastian Cossa) to keep their momentum, but as well to not overload certain situations where you don't want them to have to. Because if you don't have that emergency goalie, you can't rest any of your goalies or it's tougher for practice, to have that quality.
"Colten does a great job for us. He behaves every day and the way he competes in the net every time he goes out there, he gave us a really good option."
When Devan Dubnyk set a Minnesota Wild record with 38 consecutive starts in 2014-15, he pointed to the fact there were two other NHL goalies on the roster at the time, Darcy Kuemper and Nicklas Backstrom, which allowed him to get some early work with the goalie coach, maybe take a few regular practice line rushes and get off the ice.
More than a decade later, some NHL teams will use EBUGS in the same way.
"It definitely used to be the guy who doesn't play gets trapped in there because guys want to run certain drills and they need a goalie to shoot on," Grubauer said. "And then you played the night before, maybe didn't sleep well, and then you have to take those shots and you can't escape.
"It just gives us an opportunity the next day after you play to take whatever you need, and might be just like a couple warm-up shots with the goalie coach running through two or three drills, and then having the third goalie -- the practice goalie -- take the practice with all the guys, right? And you can manage your workload."
NHL.com staff writers Shawn Roarke and Tracey Meyers contributed to this report
Main photo: Hurricanes EBUG Jorge Alves, who is also the team's equipment manager, keeps an eye on goalie Pyotr Kochetkov before a game last season.
