1995-96 Vezina Trophy Revisit

[Felidae]

Edit: sorry for the spelling errors in the poll section, I blame my phone lmao.

Bringing this series back, and since likely none of these finalists will be discussed in the all time goalie list, I thought I'd do a year with possibly the strangest and weakest trio of vezina Finalists I've seen yet.

Jim Carey, Chris Osgood and Daren Pupa..

Let's look at their cases, and as well as a few other folks who arguably should have been in the running.


Jim Carey

Won a very close Vezina race. Actually had the same amount of 1st place votes as 2nd place, and just 1 more than 3rd and 4th. But he had more 2nd and 3rd place votes than all of them, I'm guessing that's what sealed the deal?


Here are the stats..
4th in GP (71)
3rd in GAA (2.26)
17th in sv% (.906)
2nd in wins (35)
1st in SO (9)
10th in sv

Based on this, it seems like the voters saw his wins, workload and GAA. He also led the league in SO by a bit, with the next best goalie having 6. The team he was on, while struggling to score (20th in GF) also finished 3rd in GA.

In the end, I come away unimpressed by his vezina win, I can only assume voters didn't put much stock in sv%, because his was pretty underwhelming considering he was on one of the best defensive teams. But how do the other Finalists stack up? Well..





Chris Osgood

Runner up to the winner, he came pretty close too. Had just 6 less total votes than Carey, and half of those was just Osgood having less 3rd place votes.


Stats
16th in GP (50)
2nd in GAA (2.16)
9th in sv% (.911)
1st in wins (39)
Only 6 losses! You have to go far back to the 17th winningest goalie to find someone with the same amount of losses, everyone else is double digits!
26th in sv
3rd in SO (5)

Honestly? Arguably an even more unimpressive finalist. He was on arguably the best team in the league, they ranked 1st in GA and 3rd in GF. His workload pretty easy in both GP and the amount of shots he faced. Based on this, it seems like the voters at least value workload more than team stats like GAA and wins (or at least you'd think) which Osgood decidedly has over Carey.





Daren Puppa


Stats

10th in GP (57)
7th in GAA (2.46)
2nd in sv% (.918)
10th in wins (29)
11th in sv
4th in SO (5)

Surprisingly, he comes across as the strongest among the vezina Finalists. It's not just his sv%, but that he has those stats on a team that wasn't as defensively sound, and overall unimpressive. 18th in GF and 11th in GA.



Now let's take a look at a few of the goalies who probably should have been finalists...




Dominik Hasek.

Stats

8th in GP(59)
14th in GAA (2.83)
1st in sv% (9.20)
19th in wins (22)
1st in losses (30)
3rd in svs
23rd in SO (2)

Clearly should have been a vezina finalist, looking back it's kind of wild he finished 8th in vezina voting, though it just goes to show the votets placed heavy emphasis on team stats and apparently didnt care as much for sv%.

His team was average to below average, 14th in GF and 16th in GA and he faced a hell of a workload as shown by having the 3rd most saves despite the names surrounding him on the list playing 60+, 70+ games. Yet still finished 1st in sv%. He was probably the best goalie this year.




Martin Brodeur

Stats
2nd in GP (77)
5th in GAA (2.34)
7th in sv% (.912)
4th in wins (34)
6th in sv
2nd in SO (6)


Would have been a worthy finalist, and he almost was. Had the same amount of 1st and 2nd place votes as Daren Puppa, but had 3 less 3rd place votes than him.

Impressive season, out of everyone with 70+ games, he has by far the best sv%, even with players in the 60 game range, he still comes out on top.

And though he was on the 2nd best defensive team in the regular season, he was also on the 2nd worst offensive team too, placing 25th out of 26th in GF.


I'll stop there, but I could probably keep listing a couple more goalies that would have been more deserving finalists than Osgood and Carey.

So, feel free to share your thoughts on any of the goalies this year.

Do you think I'm being unfair to Carey and Osgood? Who do you think should have won the vezina trophy, and who would have been your other 2 finalists?

Click to read more...

 

[MadLuke]

It could have been Hasek-Puppa-Brodeur that year...

Hebert had a solid season has well, but like Hasek that year missing the playoff seem to hurt people trophy chance

 

[MadArcand]

I'd literally take any of the other poll options ahead of Carey and Osgood.

Edit: OK, not Ranford.

 

[Crosby2010]

Fuhr, Hasek or Puppa do come to mind as good choices. Fuhr played 79 games, that's just unheard of. Hasek still led the NHL in save % and Puppa got an otherwise nonsensical team in the playoffs. Here is why I think Carey won it though. For starters, forget everything you know about him after 1996. He was a dumpster fire even in the playoffs that year. Played three games, had a 6.18 GAA and a .744 sv%. The 1996 postseason is when we were introduced to Olie the goalie, and Kolzig took the mantle in Washington after that. Carey was traded the following season. Who trades the Vezina winner in the middle of the next season? Well, the Caps did. Carey was a back up until 1998 and then played in the minors and was done playing by 1999. I don't know why though, he was a high draft pick (32nd overall) in 1992 and played in the WJC for Team USA and such. So this idea that he was a flash in the pan shouldn't have really happened. He in all honesty should have been a starting goalie on a team for years to come in the NHL. But things unfolded for him in the 1996 playoffs and he never recovered. It was Kolzig in net for that classic 4OT game vs. Pittsburgh in 1996. He was the 3rd stringer on Team USA in the 1996 World Cup, but never played. So my thought is that he really shouldn't have fallen off a cliff so hard. He was 3rd in Vezina voting the year prior as a rookie too. A lot of what we think about the 1996 Vezina race is what happened to Carey afterwards so quickly and we sort of do a revisionist look at it and say "This guy was the best in the NHL that year?"

But in reality he still does have a good case for it. The NHL might have figured him out shortly after but the stats are good. 9 shutouts, 35 wins, 2.26 GAA. All of this on a Caps team that was more or less mediocre. They finished 20th in goals. Their defense was alright, but this wasn't the 1980s Caps defense anymore. So they don't make the playoffs without Carey's season, that's for sure. So while I personally picked Fuhr on this list, I can also see why Carey won it. It was one of those obscure years for goalies too. It wasn't the usual suspects standing out. Roy was traded midseason and wasn't quite himself, at least in the regular season. Joseph held out part of the year, Brodeur was good but the team missed the playoffs and he was still just in his 3rd year. Hasek had a good year but the Sabres didn't and they missed the playoffs, and if anything he was probably competing against himself from 1994 and 1995. Belfour had the worst season of his career and they were playing Jeff Hackett a LOT as a back up in Chicago and he had better numbers than Belfour. Barrasso had a high GAA that year too. So it wasn't the usual names. Now all of the sudden you have a guy with the same name as the most famous actor in Hollywood at the time (come on, don't tell me this wasn't why the media didn't love him in Washington) who could stop pucks pretty good. No one knew he was going to flame out immediately afterwards. I get why he won the Vezina, and in hindsight it isn't outlandish to see him win. We just look at it from a post 1996 lens and not at the time it was.

 

[MessierThanThou]

Ignoring save percentage and favoring team stats such as wins and GAA was a ludicrous way to vote on goalies (just ask Cujo after his 92 and 93 seasons), but that's how we got two undeserving Vezina nominees in Carey and Osgood in 96. The rightful nominees were Hasek, Brodeur, and Puppa.

I'd probably go with Hasek, despite being unable to will his team into the playoffs like he would the following season...and earn a Hart for his troubles.

 

[MadLuke]

Carey was following a calder level rookie year has well where he was a Vezina finalist, not out of no where, 2 years in a row where the team did not much when he was not in net.

 

[Crosby2010]

Ignoring save percentage and favoring team stats such as wins and GAA was a ludicrous way to vote on goalies (just ask Cujo after his 92 and 93 seasons), but that's how we got two undeserving Vezina nominees in Carey and Osgood in 96. The rightful nominees were Hasek, Brodeur, and Puppa.

I'd probably go with Hasek, despite being unable to will his team into the playoffs like he would the following season...and earn a Hart for his troubles.

You look at the full package too. Not just wins. That's part of it, not all of it of course. This is why Luongo rightly finished 3rd in 2004 despite being on a bad team. I just don't see the Caps being good at all that year without goaltending. They aren't a playoff team without Carey that year. Regardless of what he did in the playoffs and the rest of his career, he was still good in 1996 - in the regular season. I think in a normal year he doesn't win the Vezina. Or Osgood never finishes 2nd either. 1996 wasn't a normal year, as I said above there were plenty of goalies who had off years for different reasons. Years that were below their normal standards. I think it was a perfect storm in 1996 for Carey and he doesn't win a Vezina any other time that decade.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

with today's voters it probably goes to Hasek.

 

[MadLuke]

Maybe, but a single winner missed the playoff since I think.

2013 Brobosky ? That was a 48 games season, so maybe people had less issues with a .573 missing the playoff by a single point.

Still not easy to do.