TL;DR - Fix the TPE scale for goalies. It's way too easy to create a starting goalie, and that naturally created the logjam we're seeing right now.

Thanks @honkerrs for opening this can of worms. It's a subject I've been wanting to approach for a bit, but was too... stubborn in trying to find arguments against this theory (since I'm a big offender, being the hyper-active GM goalie you show in the forefront of your article ). But you have the right of it. There's a huge logjam at goalie incoming, and it's almost already upon us.

While allowing a position switch is a good suggestion, one that will help rookies that could feel the "backup" tag coming for them, I'd say that we may need to start taking a look at the goalie TPE scale. The reason why 1k-1.2k is considered the "sweet spot" to get to a "starting job" level as a goalie, is that goalies don't need the amount of TPE to flesh out their build, as opposed to the "standard" a skater has to aim for to be efficient in their roles.

We only have two "physicals" to worry about (as opposed to six... well, five for skaters), and 11 goalie attributes (as opposed to 17 possible attributes for skaters.)

Here's the kicker. That means that a goalie can theoretically have 15s everywhere in his attributes (which would put them at around a Cam Talbot-level starter, so weak, but still passable enough on a good team) with 806 TPE. It's laughably easy to achieve. Now, keep in mind some attributes are fairly useless, yet need to be somewhat kept up with the rest... Take out a few points here, put them there... Yep. You're getting very close to a .910 Sv% goalie on a good team with those 800 TPE, and around .900 Sv% goalie on a mediocre to bad team.

Louder for those in the back - 800 TPE, which is what is needed to build a capable 3rd line winger that can almost play on the 2nd line but not quite, is enough to build a starter in the SHL.

We cannot continue to keep the same updating scale for goalie - and I say that as a max earning, "possibly leaving according to RED even though I was named as a GM a month ago" goalie that is/was/will be planning to fight regression.

For what it's worth, I also did some testing on my end, and while the results were not as dramatic as honkerss seems to want us to believe (goalie incidence is real, but you need the right conditions for it, and right now, we absolutely don't have those conditions in place), there is also no real argument for a platoon, or a 1A/1B situation, in the SHL. There simply isn't. Goalie Stamina is a joke - as long as you have a 15, congrats, you're a starter. Builds are also fairly pre-determined - either you focus on your shot-stopping attributes, or you go for a Positioning/Recovery/Reflexes build. And even that stops being a real choice around 1.5k TPE, where you can have everything at 17 - which gets you closer to a Braeden Holtby type, to keep the NHL comparison alive. I mean, sure, you could be a Carey Price at 2k TPE... But tell me - how far are the Habs from winning with that D core?

...And there we have it. The crux of the issue. As good as a goalie is, when they have to stop 2 McDavids-ish, 2 Draisaitls-ish and 2 Pavelskis-ish, backed up by 2 Hedman-ish and 2 OEL-ish level defense partners, day in and day out (shoutout to you, Carpy, my Astral Twin, my guiding light, too pure for this league, too precious, Great Lakes don't deserve you) - their impact on sim results become purely anecdotal. And when a goalie actually has a good season under duress, since their conference is actually competitive in the middle-ground as opposed to the one where the "vouched for" goalies play, because their own team does not have said monsters on their first two lines... they get told that the numbers are skewed for them, and that we should simply disregard their season (yes, I'm still a bit salty about getting no recognition for the season I had in Minnesota, considering the TPE level of the rotting corpse of a D I had to carry last season - with no offense to Segi, my rock, my salvation - because Wins and GAA seem to be sacrosanct relics for some, and what the hell is a GSAA anyway?)

But the real defining factor behind goalie performance is team caliber. How good is your D corps at sheltering you, may it be by blocking shots, forcing turnovers, or just being general puck-retention monsters? Are your forwards able to play minimally well defensively? How's your surrounding system, and does it play to the skaters' strengths? The goalies themselves have no real impact on the sim - team tactics are built with the expectation that 800 TPE goalies should be more than enough. This gives no incentive to really push past that point, or even past the 1.2k point where your build stabilizes, apart from personal fantasies of longevity.

So we're stuck at a crossroads, then. Either we re-adjust the scale, and this impacts all current goalies, positively or negatively, or we simply let the league have the same 18 goalies for the foreseeable future. Because no amount of allowing a position switch for a goalie is going to fix that much, MUCH deeper problem we have at the SHL level. The goalies in the J are an entirely other subject of conversation.