The familiar sight of 6-foot 4-inch Ken Dryden of Montreal Canadiens, resting his arms and chin on his goal stick during breaks in the action, will be missing during the next National Hockey League season.
Dryden, 31, five-time winner or co-winner of the Vezina Trophy as the league's top goaltender, announced his retirement yesterday. He had indicated a year ago that he wanted to move on to other things, but delayed the move at the club's request.
''Retiring was a whole lot easier yesterday than it is today,'' Dryden said.
He said it felt ''the way you feel when you're going to get married. ''To have lived in Montreal and to have played in the Forum, to have played before the people of Montreal and to have played with the kind of people I've had the opportunity to play with, makes for a really remarkable experience.''
Dryden declined to speculate on his future.
''All I can say is that I'm talking with a few people and beyond that I really don't know.''
He said he had considered the ''extremely interesting idea'' of playing in the Soviet Union for a year, but the suggestion was turned down by the Soviet Ice Hockey Federation.
''In any case, it was not an either-or proposition and was but one option I had been considering. The hockey part of it was really almost incidental.''
A graduate of Cornell University at Ithaca, N.Y., Dryden played hockey there and with Canada's national team before joining the Montreal organization in 1970-71. He joined the Canadiens for the last six games of that season and won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the outstanding player in the playoffs.
Montreal won the Stanley Cup with Dryden in the nets for all 20 playoff games.
The next season, he won the Calder Trophy as the top rookie in the NHL and won his first Vezina one year later. He was on the second all-star team in his first full season - 1971-72 - and was chosen to the first team five times. The Canadiens won six Stanley Cups during his tenure.
He sat out the 1973-74 season because of a contactural dispute with the Canadiens and spent the year articling for a law firm in Toronto.
Dryden's retirement leaves Michel Larocque as the team's No. 1 goaltender, a status Larocque has been seeking for a number of years. The No. 2 spot remains open, with Richard Sevigny and Robbie Holland from Montreal's farm system as candidates, barring a trade.
Dryden's retirement is another loss to a team that has lost key members since winning its fourth consecutive Stanley Cup.
Veteran centre Jacques Lemaire has left for a post in Switzerland. Coach Scotty Bowman has gone to Buffalo Sabres as coach and general manager, and Al MacNeil, director of player personnel, has taken over as coach of Atlanta Flames.
Dryden said he is considering writing a book. He also has applied for a six-month course leading to admission to the bar next year.