This is my first message to this list, being a recent subscriber.  This is
going to be kind of old for those of you who read Mike Machnik's nice
Merrimack vs ND story last week (Wednesday, I believe) but, during that
game, Merrimack coach Ron Anderson chose to start a different goalie for
each period.  I'm not sure I had ever seen this before, at any level, and I
was intrigued by his decision to do this.
   I have heard a few small conversations about this type of thing, maybe using
two goalies for a game, the first one for the first two periods and a "closer"
for the last two periods.  Now, the comparison to baseball jumped right out
at me, but I'm not sure if the two are comparable.
  First, there is the "hot goalie" theory, to which Mike Milbury subscribed
during his tenure as Bruins coach.  It is simply based on going with the goalie
who is winning and to stay with him until he loses or starts going badly.
  There is also the rotation theory, which is basically just alternating your
goalies more or less on a per game basis, a-b, a-b, or some variation thereof.
  Now as for Ron Anderson's decision last week, it paid off for him, it seemed,
until the third period.  Gosselin shut out ND for the first 19:55 of the third
period, but the game tying goal was very stoppable as was the game winner
1:42 into sudden death.
   Forgive me for my rambling, but I would like to read some other viewpoints
on this school of thought.  Do you think it is more advantageous to stay with
one goalie for a whole game and to stay with the "hot" goalie, or do you use
some kind of rotation, such as a 1 or 2 period stint?  I'll be interested to see
 the responses.  Thanks.
 
P.S. - This is a great format and makes for great reading.