A.YOUNGGoalie's Stock Graphic Rankings

[IpaddyTECH]

Nice post @A.YOUNGoalie13, I love this kind of stuff. Agreed on Hzardus, E-flex, hyperlite, and even my Warrior pads. Glad you came around on the Mach's, despite the limited color zones. To me the techy/robotic looking details up close are great too. 

Okay I might be crazy, but I kinda like the Axis 2 graphic, even the asymmetrical one... (bracing for tomatoes being thrown at me). I will say it has to be exactly the right colors, but it can be done.

Finally, to me the Optik 3 is an amazing graphic. Very unique, endless versatility, and can be made to look simple or very modern and complex. It's vertical lines to me are more clean and less chaotic than the Gnetiks. Yes it's not a timeless simple graphic like my beloved Reebok P3's but to me it was in the top 3 for its year. But I will say, the 27 color zones sometimes do give guys enough rope to hang themselves with and I've seen some baaaad apples. Here's a few good ones and a bad mixed in, see if you can spot it haha

 

 

[johncho]

Yeah I like the Axis 2 graphics too, but I'm not a fan of those R2D2/Optimus Prime Brian's 

[A.YOUNGoalie13]

Aaaaaaaaand we're back! Strap yourselves in. Rest in piece Brians Iconik, I cannot find a single NHL or AHL guy wearing that graphic, and I don't totally blame them. Brians' custom game is strong that most guys wearing it go that route, like Hill with the retro set. Since this has never happened before, Iconik defaults to spot 10.

10. Brian's ICONIK - So bad no one will use it???

9. True HZRDUS - Doing Brian's dirty because the Iconik graphic is way better than this. My god change it already. This is so bad.

8. Vaughn SLR 4 - Uninspired, unoriginal, looks the last version, etc. Just boring. Hopefully the 5s are spiced up.

7. CCM Axis XF - So the name gets worse and the graphic somehow improves... man this line cannot and will not ever have it all. The graphic is lightyears better than Axis 1 and 2 but to be honest, it's still kinda shit. Almost like they let an ai take the wheel this go round, but they said make sure it still has lines, like all other goalie pads, so the ai just mashed a bunch of other designs into this. Also, Jet Greaves is actually a higher end prospect, but quite literally looks worse because of his gear.

6. Bauer Hyperlite 2 - Bauer got bailed hard in the last rankings by other companies fumbling the bag. This graphic is soooooo average. It's not axis terrible but it's not stellar by any means. Its tough when the NHL has maybe 2 guys actually using it, since they put so many guys in custom graphics, and Vasy is boring as all hell with his gear, but its lacks spice, fun, aggressiveness; you get the idea. They're like the all white 20th century modern house that has negative character. Just a white block. 

5. Vaughn VX1 - So I guess 11 was too easy so they had to do a diversity hire/sudo roman numeral type thing in there? Anyway to the graphic, I actually am a fan, there's just 4 more that I think are better. Gives me Vision vibes, a shorter lived line but it was huge when I was younger so it's nostalgic for me.

4. CCM EFLEX 7 - Alright, now for the good shit. CCM has come back from the depths of hell and in my opinion, put out an Eflex 4 level graphic this time. This is as versatile as you can get, but it's not messy. You can have tons of color while maintaining clean lines and it doesn't look like your kid's drawing that is terrible, but you have to put up on the fridge anyway to keep them from having a fit. Cheers CCM, we thought you were dead.

3. True Catalyst - Now I know what you're thinking, how could these go from 1 to 3? Well, it's nothing they did, I think it's still one of the best graphics on the market. Good on the two ahead for just being that good. But this is still one of the best graphics in recent memory for me. You virtually cannot mess these things up. A Toyota of goalie pad graphics.

2. Bauer Shadow - A banger, as the kids would say. Straight fire, no cap, skibidi rizz. All the things your local child replaces the world cool with, works here! The Shadows, unlike their vapor counterpart, are the cool modern house that you drive by and go "fuck do I want to live there". It's fresh, different, and makes you look like a transformer. Excellent design. (Oh and the guy in the red on the team none of you have ever heard of looks extra sick, doesn't he? Doesssnnn't heeee?)

1. Brian's Optik 4 - Is anyone here really surprised? I called Brian's out on the miss that was Optik 3, so maybe they saw that? (highly unlikely I'm a loser taking the time to rate goalie pad graphics) But boy did they rebound in a huuuuuge way. I love graphics that can make someone buying a retail pad feel like they're wearing custom, and this hits that to a tee. I know there's only so many stock colors, but these seriously bring me back to a time when you could go online a there would be 10-15 color-ways for each stock pad. It's aggressive, sharp, has edges, can be simple, busy, and it always looks awesome. Once again, Brian's owns stock graphics.

E6D27SBSAVDO5ECPRUQIPCQLNU.jpg.avif E6D27SBSAVDO5ECPRUQIPCQLNU.jpg.avif CFHIQGN4CBBE5BEBHP2U5T6FLY.jpg.avif MDPQVTQUS5GZXNSPD7F22QTBRA.jpg.avif CFHIQGN4CBBE5BEBHP2U5T6FLY-1.jpg.avif

Edited 8 hours ago by A.YOUNGoalie13

[keeperton]

1 hour ago, A.YOUNGoalie13 said:

Aaaaaaaaand we're back! Strap yourselves in. Rest in piece Brians Iconik, I cannot find a single NHL or AHL guy wearing that graphic, and I don't totally blame them. Brians' custom game is strong that most guys wearing it go that route, like Hill with the retro set. Since this has never happened before, Iconik defaults to spot 10.

10. Brian's ICONIK - So bad no one will use it???

9. True HZRDUS - Doing Brian's dirty because the Iconik graphic is way better than this. My god change it already. This is so bad.

8. Vaughn SLR 4 - Uninspired, unoriginal, looks the last version, etc. Just boring. Hopefully the 5s are spiced up.

7. CCM Axis XF - So the name gets worse and the graphic somehow improves... man this line cannot and will not ever have it all. The graphic is lightyears better than Axis 1 and 2 but to be honest, it's still kinda shit. Almost like they let an ai take the wheel this go round, but they said make sure it still has lines, like all other goalie pads, so the ai just mashed a bunch of other designs into this. Also, Jet Greaves is actually a higher end prospect, but quite literally looks worse because of his gear.

6. Bauer Hyperlite 2 - Bauer got bailed hard in the last rankings by other companies fumbling the bag. This graphic is soooooo average. It's not axis terrible but it's not stellar by any means. Its tough when the NHL has maybe 2 guys actually using it, since they put so many guys in custom graphics, and Vasy is boring as all hell with his gear, but its lacks spice, fun, aggressiveness; you get the idea. They're like the all white 20th century modern house that has negative character. Just a white block. 

5. Vaughn VX1 - So I guess 11 was too easy so they had to do a diversity hire/sudo roman numeral type thing in there? Anyway to the graphic, I actually am a fan, there's just 4 more that I think are better. Gives me Vision vibes, a shorter lived line but it was huge when I was younger so it's nostalgic for me.

 

4. CCM EFLEX 7 - Alright, now for the good shit. CCM has come back from the depths of hell and in my opinion, put out an Eflex 4 level graphic this time. This is as versatile as you can get, but it's not messy. You can have tons of color while maintaining clean lines and it doesn't look like your kid's drawing that is terrible, but you have to put up on the fridge anyway to keep them from having a fit. Cheers CCM, we thought you were dead.

3. True Catalyst - Now I know what you're thinking, how could these go from 1 to 3? Well, it's nothing they did, I think it's still one of the best graphics on the market. Good on the two ahead for just being that good. But this is still one of the best graphics in recent memory for me. You virtually cannot mess these things up. A Toyota of goalie pad graphics.

2. Bauer Shadow - A banger, as the kids would say. Straight fire, no cap, skibidi rizz. All the things your local child replaces the world cool with, works here! The Shadows, unlike their vapor counterpart, are the cool modern house that you drive by and go "fuck do I want to live there". It's fresh, different, and makes you look like a transformer. Excellent design. (Oh and the guy in the red on the team none of you have ever heard of looks extra sick, doesn't he? Doesssnnn't heeee?)

1. Brian's Optik 4 - Is anyone here really surprised? I called Brian's out on the miss that was Optik 3, so maybe they saw that? (highly unlikely I'm a loser taking the time to rate goalie pad graphics) But boy did they rebound in a huuuuuge way. I love graphics that can make someone buying a retail pad feel like they're wearing custom, and this hits that to a tee. I know there's only so many stock colors, but these seriously bring me back to a time when you could go online a there would be 10-15 color-ways for each stock pad. It's aggressive, sharp, has edges, can be simple, busy, and it always looks awesome. Once again, Brian's owns stock graphics.

Okay, time for a small rebuttal/some notes:

10. Jake Allen is using the Iconik graphic, albeit very minimally. Fun note here is he's using Optik 4 gloves. It's not even a terrible graphic, but I haven't seen any great implementations of it. Brian's has kind of a short-end of the stick here in that one of their main users was Carter Hart, whoops.

9. The HZRDUS graphic is fine, though I like when the goalies do a little less with it like Comrie, Blackwood, Kuemper, and Blomqvist versus what Bobs has. It has the problem of potentially looking too busy.

5. "sudo" like you're over here trying to run a program from terminal. Graphic is fine, Vaughn doing their "anything but calling it the number" thing, except when they do. Oh well, the line looks actually good.

4. It's funny that Wolf isn't even wearing an EFlex 7 and that you chose someone using it in a completely solid color. Not a lot of individuals doing much with the graphic in the NHL.

3. For the Catalyst you only have examples of the PX3 and not the PX5. As much as I like the PX3 and mostly agree, it's robbing people of seeing the incredible style of a goalie like Dobes (I love his set-up, the stick really ties it all together). A side note I have is that I've noticed a lot more goalies in the NHL are using HZRDUS sticks this season than in seasons past. I find it specifically interesting that more goalies are using the low-kick stick than it specifically being the True model, than anything (I think Mrazek is still the only one in the NHL using a Warrior M series stick).

2. I don't personally think the Shadow is that good. I don't think it sucks, but to me it's "The Mach again but different."

1. Hell yeah. The Optik 4 is a little gaudy, but also a lot of fun.