Goldilocks and the 3 Pairs ... (of knee pads)

[Mroy31]

I'll try to keep this as point form as possible, because I tend to get long winded sometimes and there are a lot of points to cover.  I've got a narrow butterfly and so my knees close my five hole, not the tops of my pads.  I've spent the last few years figuring out what knee pads work best for me.  I've almost always needed volleyball knee pads or the padded Bauer base layer pants.  With those just now starting to have some of the padded sections coming apart, and switching to the Oneiric Genesis base layer, I started playing around with lots more options.  Had been in the Bauer Supreme 1st gen yellow-inside ones, then 1S until this switch.  Also I wear hockey socks over all of these.  Here we go...

Stock Models

Bauer 1S

Pros

• Anchor strap keeps my knee in the knee cradle
• Grippy material on the top knee strap
• Not very bulky
• No stingers

Cons

• Top thigh strap too tight.  It either leaves hook velcro exposed to rub against your base layer if you do it looser, or is so tight it forces its way down your thigh and can bunch up
• Knee cradle padding is not great, well documented elsewhere
• Loops to attach to garter belt require either skate lace tying, or adding some kind of slick clip
• Needed a garter belt

Note the size difference between these and the Vaughns, and also the different loops to attach to either pants or garter belt

Here is the well documented knee cradle.  Not super comfortable.

Vaughn V7 Pro XR

Pros

• Very comfortable, pretty much right sized for my legs
• Grippy material on top thigh strap
• Thigh strap was right sized, not too tight, no worries wearing it looser
• No additional knee padding needed in the knee cradle
• Black Nash in knee cradle keeps it from moving around (mostly)
• No stingers
• Comes with the best garter belt.  Waist is adjustable and wide enough to actually hold knee pads up.  Straps are modular enough to be added to most knee pad models.

Cons

• Very bulky, was weird trying to close five hole for the first couple of skates
• Pushed pads out and needed to do professor strap up looser to accommodate
• Lacks anchor strap, knee cradle would ride up slightly sometimes

Maltese KTP Pro Return
(thicker than stock, @Chenner29 might remember how much thicker, also came with garter belt and added velcro patch on lower middle knee portion)

Pros

• Lower profile, easy to pack, not bulky in the knee cradle of your pads
• I could tighten my professor strap back up
• No stingers+ (This gets an extra plus in my books because of how low profile they are and felt no less protective than either of the other 2)
• Garter belt uses mostly nylon straps with small elastic section and velcro tabs at the bottom.  Good combination of locking in location of knee pads while giving when moving around

Cons

• Got rug burn on one part of my right knee after the first skate (this was while wearing them under my base layer, but I didn't like the feel of all the strapping right against my skin)
• Lots of straps, but some don't feel quite right sized for some of the locations
• Needed an anchor strap, had to get creative
• Garter belt wasn't wide/strong enough to hold knee pads up, more often the knee pads would pull the belt down

On to the Mods!

Bauer 1S

• Added Vaughn garter belt at one point (no pics).  Improved keeping them in place.
• Added Maltese inserts from Fazio Spec M****** knee blocks.  Improved comfort when landing, but would require more modding to get them right sized.

• Final Verdict:  These ended up being pretty solid with all the modifications, but ultimately the number of things I had to change put these as rank 3 out of all of the sets.

Vaughn V7 Pro XR X 1st Gen Bauer

• Added anchor strap from 1st Gen Bauer Supremes (pictured you can also see the wear that those had on the top section that they seemed to fix on the next gens)
  These were a pain to rip off but I only needed one line of stitching with the speedy stitcher to attach them and they are very solid.
  
• 
  
• Final Verdict:  The anchor strap dialed these in really well.  The knee cradle stopped moving around on my completely.  The only downside was that these were the bulkiest of the 3, which knocked them down to rank 2.

Maltese KTP Pro Returns with Vaughn belt

• Added a size Long Bauer 1S/2S knee strap as an anchor strap, leveraging the double sided velcro to wrap it around my calf and attach to itself
• I started wearing them above my base layer, gave my knee a break for a while as I tested the modded Vaughns and my hotspot healed up.  I think that hotspot was partly because I didn't have an anchor strap the first few skates, so the front piece was free to move a bit more and cause friction against my knee.  No rug burn since.
• Made some little velcro tabs that I could attach to the Vaughn garter belt and then use that with the KTP.  Below you can see the differences in the garter belts.  Maltese on the right: Blue is nylon, green is elastic, velcro tab at the end.  Vaughn on the left: Whole length of straps are elastic. Electrical tape used to guard against the velcro attachment for my socks.  Used some plastic clips from a garbage CCM garter belt that I tried briefly and some extra velcro to make my own tabs.  Vaughn belt is also adjustable in the back, basically 2 pieces that attach in front and back for some extra adjustability.
  
• Final Verdict:   I'm still figuring out the strapping (to criss cross or not etc.) a bit, and I might try to figure out a better anchor strap option (something like an elastic/neoprene sleeve that attaches to that front velcro patch).  Ultimately, even though the strapping is still evolving, these are the most comfortable and lowest profile (which lets me wear my pads more snug like I like them), so these came out on top.

[TheGoalNet]

Fantastic stuff!

I demoed some Maltese knee pads. I love the concept, but I feel like Maltese was too stubborn in the design. Having a flat piece of padding wrap perfectly around the most dynamic joint in goaltending seems like too much of a stretch.

If these had a rounded knee cup cradle like the other models you showed, some grippy straps, and some sort of material on the inside of the knee cup that doesn't slide against the base layer... I think we could have a winner.

[Teezle]

3 minutes ago, TheGoalNet said:

Fantastic stuff!

I demoed some Maltese knee pads. I love the concept, but I feel like Maltese was too stubborn in the design. Having a flat piece of padding wrap perfectly around the most dynamic joint in goaltending seems like too much of a stretch.

If these had a rounded knee cup cradle like the other models you showed, some grippy straps, and some sort of material on the inside of the knee cup that doesn't slide against the base layer... I think we could have a winner.

That's exactly how I felt about the Maltese ones, too. I did like how low-profile they were, but the combination of a single, flat sheet of padding and their strap setup kept moving around my leg, no matter how I did them up. 

I'm currently using the Bauer 1X knee pads, and they are pretty perfect for me. I don't have an issue with the top strap, but my thighs aren't very wide - I can see how you would start running into the issue with the top strap being too short if they were.

[Chenner29]

@Mroy31

Thanks for taking the time to write up a well thought out, thorough comparison.  I personally am a huge fan of this kind of stuff. 

I wanna say the Maltese knee pads are 1/8” thicker than stock.  I believe stock units were 1/8” HD gel and 1/4” regular gel. These may have had 1/4” HD and 1/4” regular. Matt O Connor pro returns. 

[Mroy31]

I think what works for me about the Maltese was once I got the strap around my calf dialed in nice and firm, with the rest of them mostly just snug. That kept it locked in place at the front of my knee, while the rest of the main sheet could slide just a bit when moving and the circles on the side just kind of float there. 

I don't remember if that front Velcro patch was an option for the stock, but without it I don't think I would have gotten them to work for me. 

@Chenner29 and thank you for selling them to me

[TitanG]

Awesome post @Mroy31! I might have to try some of those mods with my own Maltese KTPs.