2010-11 Hart Trophy Revisit.

[BigBadBruins7708]

He didn't kill his wife and a waiter, it's not like we're gonna take it away from him. He just wasn't a very good player that got put into a perfect situation. And was not considered NHL caliber outside of that. So, that means either he somehow got really good at 34 and 36 years old somehow...or, he was just never very good, and it's another example of team effects dictating averaging stats.

He was given away at age 38, which is evidently his prime haha

And we have the video, we know now that it was a bad goaltender where it worked out for a little bit. Like you said, he burned hot for a minute statistically - Cechmanek, Elliott stuff...no big whoop. Difference was having a team to bail him out and little league-wide competition at his position.

He was good before "34 or 36 years old". It's not his fault the league failed to notice.

He was an all american goalie at Vermont and helped lead the team to the Frozen Four
He won the equivalent of the Vezina in SM-Liiga at 24
He won the equivalent of the Hart and Pearson in SM-Liiga at 30. A league full of NHL talent due to the lockout
He was 7th in the NHL in sv% (.917) on a terrible 2006 Bruins team at 31

His Vezina wins weren't out of nowhere just because most people weren't paying attention to what he was doing. 2006 he had a .917 (7th in NHL) and 18.8 GSAA (9th in NHL), then in 2008 he had a .921 (4th in NHL) and 21.3 GSAA (2nd in NHL) and posted a .914/2.65 pushing the heavily favored Habs to 7.

Ironically for all the flash in the pan derision, let's compare him to Price. He has 4x Top 10 in sv% to Price's 5, each have 5x Top 10 in GSAA and Thomas has a significantly better career GSAA with 131 to Price's 110. Seems to me that if we're going to agree to the flash in the pan label, you also have to say in that time he accomplished as much as other HOF goalies did over 10+ year careers.

 

[MadLuke]

Hasek, the decorated Czech U18, U20, pro, and international player before stepping foot in the NHL?

Yes even him teams did not give a starting role before quite late ( I mean this is just factual), were they right or were prejudiced to his style and attributed his success to unsustainable luck ? Why anyone thought old Furh > peak Hasek (maybe they did not, but acted of fear)

Plus, even if we take their stories as somehow similar for some reason...exceptions don't prove the rule.

Does do not prove anything, just trying to disprove that no team giving a goaltender a shot before age X does not mean much when it happened to Hasek to all players.

 

[Michael Farkas]

He was good before "34 or 36 years old". It's not his fault the league failed to notice.

And then stopped noticing him immediately after he left out from under Julien? Wild coincidence.

He was an all american goalie at Vermont and helped lead the team to the Frozen Four

Deep pull. If we're using the ECAC as a barometer here...I'd like you to recant on Carey Price being overrated because he only has one Vezina and one Hart. Not a peep for his Calder Cup championship while being the playoff MVP in the AHL, the top goalie at the World Junior Championships, the WHL goalie of the year, and all that other stuff that we typically don't look towards because of how low level the competition is relative to the world we operate in.

But we're dipping into the EZ-AC. Then, boy, do I have some goalies for you haha

Seriously, I'm super impressed with him being able to contend with Marko Tuomainen and Patrice Robitaille...

I'm framing it up, so it's a little sillier than it was...but even the overtime goal where Thomas lost in the Frozen Four is just peak him haha

He won the equivalent of the Vezina in SM-Liiga at 24

Well...it was like the 5th best league in the world. So...if he was good, I'd hope so. Boris Rousson had just won it before him in '95 when there were NHL players there. Rousson went on to have a nice career in Germany. That's about right.

He won the equivalent of the Hart and Pearson in SM-Liiga at 30. A league full of NHL talent due to the lockout
He was 7th in the NHL in sv% (.917) on a terrible 2006 Bruins team at 31

His Vezina wins weren't out of nowhere just because most people weren't paying attention to what he was doing. 2006 he had a .917 (7th in NHL) and 18.8 GSAA (9th in NHL), then in 2008 he had a .921 (4th in NHL) and 21.3 GSAA (2nd in NHL) and posted a .914/2.65 pushing the heavily favored Habs to 7.

I read all that stuff in the paper. I got it. You guys don't have to keep re-purposing that information, I've read it.

Ironically for all the flash in the pan derision, let's compare him to Price. He has 4x Top 10 in sv% to Price's 5, each have 5x Top 10 in GSAA and Thomas has a significantly better career GSAA with 131 to Price's 110. Seems to me that if we're going to agree to the flash in the pan label, you also have to say in that time he accomplished as much as other HOF goalies did over 10+ year careers.

Heh, I didn't even realize the Price stuff was gonna come into this because I don't read ahead very often haha

I don't consider save pct. or its re-purposed mutation to be "accomplishments".

 

[Michael Farkas]

Does do not prove anything, just trying to disprove that no team giving a goaltender a shot before age X does not mean much when it happened to Hasek to all players.

Did Hasek have legitimate and reasonable opportunity(ies) to become an NHL player prior to his actual shot?

 

[MadLuke]

Did Hasek have legitimate and reasonable opportunity(ies) to become an NHL player prior to his actual shot?

Not sure how the immigration and emigration issue were and I do not imagine than when he was drafted in 83 that he was easy to come up (Jagr and Hasek did come in 90-91, so by that time hard to see why not ?), by 92 and 93....he was litteraly in the nhl that he could have been a team starter and was not. People thinking (or acting on fear) that Fuhr was a better goaltender.

The Sabres got him for Beauregard and a 4th, made him a number 2, what does evaluation of nhl team tell us in that context ? Specially of goaltender without a pretty to look at style ? Maybe it is better now, but they are strange animal and maybe a bit of a mental game.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Not sure how the immigration and emigration issue were and I do not imagine than when he was drafted in 83 that he was easy to come up (Jagr and Hasek did come in 90-91, so by that time hard to see why not ?), by 92 and 93....he was litteraly in the nhl that he could have been a team starter and was not. People thinking (or acting on fear) that Fuhr was a better goaltender.

The Sabres got him for Beauregard and a 4th, made him a number 2, what does evaluation of nhl team tell us in that context ? Specially of goaltender without a pretty to look at style ? Maybe it is better now, but they are strange animal and maybe a bit of a mental game.

IMHO, it just doesn't make sense to say Performance in X year is diminished because in X - Y, he wasn't in the NHL and X + Z he wasn't in the NHL (when he was into his 40s).

X year is just X year. It's not a career retrospective.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Not sure how the immigration and emigration issue were and I do not imagine than when he was drafted in 83 that he was easy to come up (Jagr and Hasek did come in 90-91, so by that time hard to see why not ?), by 92 and 93....he was litteraly in the nhl that he could have been a team starter and was not. People thinking (or acting on fear) that Fuhr was a better goaltender.

The Sabres got him for Beauregard and a 4th, made him a number 2, what does evaluation of nhl team tell us in that context ? Specially of goaltender without a pretty to look at style ? Maybe it is better now, but they are strange animal and maybe a bit of a mental game.

Right. So most of his 20's were wiped out by world affairs. That's not an evaluation deal. Hell, Hasek being in a virtually inaccessible situation was even drafted his first time around. Thomas wasn't drafted at least one time around, perhaps two. Also, Hasek's rights were retained by the team that drafted him that whole way. So, I don't think there's any alignment there.

But yeah, weird trades - especially with goalies, especially around expansion drafts can occur...Hasek had requested out if he didn't get playing time, and even winked at the notion of going back to Czechoslovakia...so, his value probably wasn't super high. And yes, I don't blame teams for not being sure about it.

But again, I don't see the equivalency between Hasek and Thomas in their coming-of-age tales. They're wildly different at the "amateur" level, they're different in the NHL beginnings, they're very different ages, they're wildly different in terms of usage, longevity, etc.

It's just not a Hasek situation. It's more like a.....uhhh...Roman Cechmanek meets Yutaka Fukufuji...

I also don't really get the point of this part either. My main thing is the talent evaluation and that it didn't lead to consistent success - even within the time of the averaging stat bonanza. I don't really care much about anything else, bringing up that he couldn't beat out Zac Bierk for being the 4th string goalie on the Lightning or whatever is just a breadcrumb to make it more approachable. If it were up to me, I wouldn't bring that up either because it distracts from his poor hockey sense, poor skating, awful rebound control, awful stickhandling and placement, etc. etc.

 

[MadLuke]

IMHO, it just doesn't make sense to say Performance in X year is diminished because in X - Y, he wasn't in the NHL and X + Z he wasn't in the NHL (when he was into his 40s).

X year is just X year. It's not a career retrospective.

That not someone running the 100 meter at 9.64 a single year and being average before and after, they are athlete of a team sports.

The talk is not about the performance that much (a little bit there some doubt with the Boston shot keepers historically, but home-away Thomas stats are virtually the same here), he did block those shots, the talk is about how much ti mean that Thomas was good for doing it.

Take it like someone pointing out what Zach Hyman or RNH did for years without McDavid vs when they play with him and saying their numbers are inflated by the situation and does reflect them being top 10 offensive player in the nhl.

Look where Kunitz-Dupuis scoring rate where:

Player Season Totals - Natural Stat Trick

Best in the nhl from 2011-2013, points by 60 minutes of 5v5 hockey

Malkin
Toews
Stamkos
sedin
sedin
Kunitz
St-Louis
Been
P. Kane
Girouz
Spezza
.....
17: Nash
Dupuis (109 points was Ovechkin, Zetterberg)
Kopitar
Marchand

Could one, by trying to say their numbers are inflated use the fact they had long career before being on peak Crosby line, and never scored that much ?

 

[WarriorofTime]

That not someone running the 100 meter at 9.64 a single year and being average before and after, they are athlete of a team sports.

The talk is not about the performance that much (a little bit there some doubt with the Boston shot keepers historically, but home-away Thomas stats are virtually the same here), he did block those shots, the talk is about how much ti mean that Thomas was good for doing it.

Take it like someone pointing out what Zach Hyman or RNH did for years without McDavid vs when they play with him and saying their numbers are inflated by the situation and does reflect them being top 10 offensive player in the nhl.



Could one, by trying to say their numbers are inflated use the fact they had long career before being on peak Crosby line, and never scored that much ?

Obvious problem here is that "look at what Thomas did without Julien" removes, what like, 2/3 of his NHL Career Starts? We're not just talking a one-season blip. Thomas was 4x All-Star Game participant which did occur during Julien tenure but that leaves only two years prior while the Bruins still stunk, where Thomas was already starting to get good becoming the bruins starter and outperforming backups, prior to Julien becoming Bruins coach. And then you gotta go to like 2013-14 as a 40 year old, lol. Thomas story is just that of a guy that didn't really get an opportunity in the NHL until he was in 30s, which has a lot to do with the nature of the position, unexpected development curve, mis-evaluation, whatever you call it. Like there's not a huge sample of Thomas playing in the NHL before and after. And if he was in an ideal situation? So what? So was Guy LaFleur. I just don't see how you can erase a team basically building their team around a Goaltender, it resulting in that team's only Cup in 50 years and pretend it just wasn't a thing because the powers that be stamped "NOT AN NHL GOALTENDER" at some earlier time period.

 

[Michael Farkas]

didn't really get an opportunity in the NHL

Was drafted, cut by that team, cut in several training camps from several teams. He had every opportunity. Wasn't good enough to make a team. In most cases, AHL teams either.

It's not "opportunity" that he was absent of...

 

[WarriorofTime]

Was drafted, cut by that team, cut in several training camps from several teams. He had every opportunity.

Once he got opportunity, he won 2 Vezinas and a Conn Smythe for Boston's only Stanley Cup since Bobby Orr.

Wasn't good enough to make a team. In most cases, AHL teams either.

It's not "opportunity" that he was absent of...

NHL teams made a mistake. News at 11...

 

[K Fleur]

Despite it being treated as such; Save % is not and should not be the end all be all of goaltender statistics.

Once you realize this you probably won’t just write off @Michael Farkas ’s Thomas takes.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Or maybe NHL teams didn't make a mistake...

 

[WarriorofTime]

Or maybe NHL teams didn't make a mistake...

Of course they did. There are 2X, with x being # of NHL teams, blokes that are NHL goaltenders per year.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Oh ok, so then it's possible he would have been considered the ~60th best goaltender that year by stat watchers if he was in a different team situation?

 

[Hockey Outsider]

This was such an underwhelming season (in terms of high end performances). I know people consider 2015 to be a nadir in terms of the talent in the league, but this year was also a letdown:

• Crosby was clearly the best player in the world, but missed half the season.
• Ovechkin had a huge drop-off compared to his past three seasons. (That being said - he wasn't nearly as bad as most people thought. I see this as analogous to Jagr's 2002 campaign. Yes, it was disappointing, but objectively it was still really good. But it shows how unrealistically high the expectations were).
• Malkin missed half the year (and was hugely underwhelming when in the lineup).
• Toews and Stamkos both had good years, but neither was truly outstanding.
• Kane (who, like Toews, probably had a Cup hangover), missed nine games, and regressed from the previous regular season.
• Datsyuk missed 26 games.
• Thornton's production dropped significantly.

It's telling that many of the top scorers were players who peaked in the Dead Puck Era - Selanne (age 40!), St. Louis (35), Iginla (33), Richards (30), etc. Seven of the top ten scorers were 30+. I haven't checked, but I'd guess that's a post-expansion record.

Chara (13th) and Zetterberg (16th) should have ranked much higher in voting.

Ultimately, I don't have a problem with Perry winning (a few people have already written good cases for why). But Perry's season wouldn't have contended for the Hart in probably 90%+ of seasons from WWII onwards.

(Speculation - would Perry even be a (future) Hall of Famer without that incredible 16 game streak to end the year?)

 

[JackSlater]

This was such an underwhelming season (in terms of high end performances). I know people consider 2015 to be a nadir in terms of the talent in the league, but this year was also a letdown:

• Crosby was clearly the best player in the world, but missed half the season.
• Ovechkin had a huge drop-off compared to his past three seasons. (That being said - he wasn't nearly as bad as most people thought. I see this as analogous to Jagr's 2002 campaign. Yes, it was disappointing, but objectively it was still really good. But it shows how unrealistically high the expectations were).
• Malkin missed half the year (and was hugely underwhelming when in the lineup).
• Toews and Stamkos both had good years, but neither was truly outstanding.
• Kane (who, like Toews, probably had a Cup hangover), missed nine games, and regressed from the previous regular season.
• Datsyuk missed 26 games.
• Thornton's production dropped significantly.

It's telling that many of the top scorers were players who peaked in the Dead Puck Era - Selanne (age 40!), St. Louis (35), Iginla (33), Richards (30), etc. Seven of the top ten scorers were 30+. I haven't checked, but I'd guess that's a post-expansion record.

Chara (13th) and Zetterberg (16th) should have ranked much higher in voting.

Ultimately, I don't have a problem with Perry winning (a few people have already written good cases for why). But Perry's season wouldn't have contended for the Hart in probably 90%+ of seasons from WWII onwards.

(Speculation - would Perry even be a (future) Hall of Famer without that incredible 16 game streak to end the year?)

I expect that Perry gets in, but yeah probably not if not for his Hart clinching stretch. Without that he's more likely written off as Getzlaf's sidekick in my opinion. Which isn't to say that calling him Getzlaf's sidekick would be wrong most of the time. I'll add since Toews came up that I do think that he was outstanding, always a problem for the opposition whenever I saw Chicago that year. Probably should have been at least second team all star centre despite the wailing about how overrated he was. I like the idea that Zetterberg could have ranked higher but overall 2011 was not a good year on the individual level.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Oh ok, so then it's possible he would have been considered the ~60th best goaltender that year by stat watchers if he was in a different team situation?

Calling everyone who disagrees with your insane take that the Vezina/Conn Smythe winner was not an NHL goaltender a "stat watcher" is pretty lazy

 

[WarriorofTime]

This was such an underwhelming season (in terms of high end performances). I know people consider 2015 to be a nadir in terms of the talent in the league, but this year was also a letdown:

I don't there's really any evidence that the talent was just not good, just because the league was low scoring and it was harder for stars to really stand out. Like, if you look at the broader factors in terms of popularity of hockey in its traditional areas, number of hockey players at youth levels, systems and feeders into the NHL, demographic indicators (i.e., rich boomers putting their kids through hockey) globalization of hockey.. it seems odd to think that hockey players would suddenly just be less good than prior generations. I think what we saw more was a democratization of hockey via egalitarian measures to prevent loaded up teams via the hard salary cap, combined with a heavy emphasis on defensive systems that minimized risk-taking, and the big goalie pads that made a lot more guys have high save percentages. I'm not sure what would be considered the particularly bad run of draft years for instance that could produce a relative lull, and I think the best signs of relative lulls are when the League as a whole is dominated heavily by the really old guys that are hanging on more properly identified with earlier generations or really young guys that in theory shouldn't have been there yet. 2010-11 skewed a bit older, but many of those in the top 10 were exactly 30 which isn't exactly old, and as you pointed out, there were a lot of injury and other related factors involved from the ones who would have been the mainstays and some anomalies in a more tightly packed top of the scoring leaderboard.

 

[tabness]

Don't really want to get into the usual Thomas topic in too much detail, as I'm not super into goalies (only really watched Boston in final two rounds and I thought Thomas was pretty damn good even with his signature gumpyness but I never played goalie (except as a joke) so honestly I can only really go by like what a Luongo says about what's an easy save and what's not)

But wanted to add that aside from the Hasek example of goalies not being given a shot by teams early on, the fact is the Vezina is voted on by the GMs themselves, and they may have passed on him before but thought Thomas was good enough to win that thing a couple times.

Obviously even with trophies like the Lindsay and Vezina that aren't just media awards, players and GMs are affected by the media and general narrative of the time, so perhaps that was going on with Thomas in the media which influenced the GMs and the wins don't prove that much. In that case though the same sort of dismissal probably also applies to GMs originally passing on Thomas though...

 

[Michael Farkas]

Calling everyone who disagrees with your insane take that the Vezina/Conn Smythe winner was not an NHL goaltender a "stat watcher" is pretty lazy

Yeah, the way that is entirely more work for me is the "lazy" way haha

Anyhow, what about the question instead of the, as you like to say, "personal attacks" (or whatever...)

 

[WarriorofTime]

Yeah, the way that is entirely more work for me is the "lazy" way haha

Anyhow, what about the question instead of the, as you like to say, "personal attacks" (or whatever...)

I would say "stat-watcher" is a personal attack, yeah.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Yikes...ok.

Let's try again: is it possible Thomas could have been considered the ~60th best goaltender that year by [the nicest and best people in the world...smartest...most handsome] if he was in a different team situation?

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Despite it being treated as such; Save % is not and should not be the end all be all of goaltender statistics.

Once you realize this you probably won’t just write off @Michael Farkas ’s Thomas takes.

Agreed.

I realize that.

But I'm still not buying into this ridiculous fairy tale of a minor league level goalie winning 2 Vezina trophies and a Conn Smythe because he played for the greatest defensive coach ever on the greatest defensive team ever. I watched virtually every game of those seasons and the Bruins were certainly not that good.

It's not like Thomas was playing behind the late 70's Canadiens or the 95-03 Jersey Devils.

 

[MadLuke]

I just don't see how you can erase a team basically building their team around a Goaltender

That has been written a couple of times, but I am not sure what it would mean in this context (even in general it is a bit unclear how different you build a team because you have even Brodeur in net, outside maybe saving a bit of money of the number 2)

The 2008 Bruins before Thomas showed anything special had Chara-Bergeron-Krejci-Lucic-Marchand... Julien was the coach.

Some of the big move were Horton, Recchi, loosing Savard to injury something out of their control, trading away Kessel-, does any of this different if a young Rask is the 2010 and 2011 goaltender ?

Even for Price Montreal, in general they were terrible when Price was missing and quite good when he was playing and hot, but I am not sure they were built much (any ?) different than a pure best skating team we can make with the money left of the cap type of way, regardless of who would have been the goaltender.