Ryan Frayne might well be a hockey goalie’s new best friend and a shooter’s fiercest foe.

The beer-league goalie, who is a PhD candidate in biomechanics at Western University, has come up with a faster, lighter goalie pad that could also leave netminders less prone to hip injuries.

And all of that has won his work the attention of a major gear manufacturer looking to measure the impact of design changes to its puck-stopping equipment.

“There’s been a lot of interest, more than I expected,” Frayne said of his research findings.

That shouldn’t be surprising when the lab science shows you’ve found a better way to close the five-hole.

Frayne started his work wondering whether modifications to straps on goalie pads could reduce the incidence of hip impingement, a chronic injury that sidelines or reduces the mobility of goalies who use a butterfly style of play.

He enlisted the help of 10 goalies, then attached an array of electronic sensors to their pads and to new CCM Premier model pads in a motion lab that simulated on-ice conditions.

As he removed different straps and adjusted others, Frayne measured the effect of the modifications on the goalies’ hip, knee and ankle joints and how each change affected their mobility.

Suddenly, the trial-and-error adjustments some goalies make to their gear became systematic, data-producing lab experiments.

And what Frayne discovered was that some pad modifications could help goalies slap their knees tighter to the ice and flare their legs more than they could before to improve upon what’s called a butterfly technique.

Specifically, getting rid of two leather straps, at the bottom calf and at the top of the thigh, proved the most effective in losing the weight, keeping the stability and enhancing the function of the pads.

“Depending on the pad set-up, they could drop into the ’fly faster . . . up to seven per cent faster,” Frayne said.

That speed can mean the difference between stopping a puck and allowing a goal through the famed five-hole between the legs.

Frayne hasn’t yet finished his data about the effect of the mods on preventing goalie hip injuries — the results look promising, though.

Reebok-CCM Hockey was interested early because it has grown increasingly keen on improving its products though quantifiable data, Frayne said.

The company is partners in the research and supplied the pads used in the lab but didn’t pay Frayne to conduct the research.

Some critics have said hockey features too few goals already and goalies don’t need any greater edge against shooters than they already have.

But Frayne, who plays a few times a week, disagrees. Goalies are more athletic and more skilled than ever, and if there’s a problem with the game it’s not with the netminder, he says.

At any rate, though players of all kinds work to get better, goalies of all abilities want to tweak their game, too. He had to limit the number of research subjects to just 10 goalies but “I had to end up turning people away.”