Honestly all this does make Konovalenko look like an Osgood variation. When you play on an insanely overpowered team compared to the competition (and there is no way in hell Sweden was just 40% 'weaker' than USSR back then), that record loses a lot of luster.
1. It sounds like you have the mindset that being on a better team automatically makes you a worse goalie. I never posted anything that hinted Holmqvist was better, only that Konovalenko had more team success, which meant he certainly had a better team, but considering his numerical and recognition cases are as good or better nearly across the board, I don't see how it follows that he was automatically the lesser goalie.
2. I'm pretty much at peace with where Osgood gets selected in these things. Individually, he was an average to above average goalie for a long time, which is pretty good. Imagine a sean burke playoff record and the same individual regular season numbers and recognition, and he's already been selected by now, right? And we're only about 40 goalies past where he gets taken regularly. Add in the fact that he
did make a lot of playoff saves, he
did win a lot of playoff games, and he
did win two cups as a starter, and it's not really unfair for him to be taken in the range of goalies with moderately better individual numbers and/or recognition but far less team success. Team success does count and it does matter. It shouldn't be completely disregarded and it shouldn't be used against a player.
Holmqvist was better than Konovalenko according to canon. Both are underrated in these parts as well as Kjell Svensson.
"because canon" is a poor argument though. I've gone over a lot of little details to compare the two, and your response is kind of broad. Is there something more nuanced you can provide on this matter?
Seth Martin looks to have been way better than either Konovalenko or Holmqvist. His WC All-Star record absolutely blows them away. Also, anecdotes talk about how the next generation of European goalies (led by Tretiak and Holecek) were so impressed by Martin that they modeled their games off of his. Tretiak chosing to model his game off Martin, not Konovalenko, is especially telling.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a Tarasov quote about how the USSR wasn't able to produce a top goalie until Tretiak?
- I agree Martin was likely better than either of them, but the binary counting of WC all-star teams is not exactly a bulletproof argument. We can accept that it's the best evidence we have, but there's a wide potential variance built into that, as far as what the real truth was.
- If you read my Konovalenko bio for the passages from Tretiak's book, I don't think it's as simple as saying "he modeled his game off Martin, not Konovalenko".
- I don't think I'm aware of the exact Tarasov quote you refer to, but you may have been referring to something that I posted in last year's bio, verbatim from his book, as opposed to the occasional paraphrasing I employed in years prior. I was a little harsh on Kono and it might have rubbed off on others. In any case, if you're referring to a different quote where he said literally that, there's a lot that it could mean. What's a "top" goalie? Good enough to win tournaments with the national team repeatedly? Good enough that you sweep the all-star award every year at the worlds? Good enough that you're legitimately in the conversation for best goalie in the world?
I believe shots were counted lot before that in International tournaments. I didn´t have much time, but I quickly looked shots against stats from few tournaments. Source is Finnish yearly hockey books.
1965 7 games
CSSR 140
USSR 148
SWE 166
1968 7 games
CSSR 148
USSR 148
SWE 160
1969 10 games
SWE 228
USSR 230
CSSR 253
1970 10 games
USSR 214
SWE 223
CSSR 246
After the top nations it usually took big jump. For example in 1969 there were over 500 shots against USA. in 1970 about 450 against Poland. The difference between the top nations in this regard wasn´t that big.
Overall I think that Konovalenko is underrated. He had rough start for his International career and there were talks at the time in Soviet Union that Puchkov would have been the only good goalie in the country. But he did improve lot after that. He also had interesting relationhip with Tarasov.I hope I have more time during the Euro top project (if Konovalenko even comes to the discussion).
edit. I only had these yearbooks on my memory stick.
This is awesome information, thank you. And USSR, SWE and CSSR are a LOT closer in shots against than I ever would have guessed. (interesting that these 1969 numbers contradict what Tarasov counted so greatly)
Did all these countries play exactly that many games all these seasons? Often one country plays 10 or 11, and others play 8 or 9 depending on how far they go.
Assuming they did, we have these totals for the four years:
USSR: 740
CSSR: 787
SWE: 777
Taking the cumulative goals against for these teams over these years, we'd easily be able to get some approximate cumulative team save percentages. Considering USSR was typically allowing only about 71% as many goals as Sweden (and this indicates that the shot difference was only about 5%) it's hard to see Holmqvist outperforming Konovalenko. (but to be honest, these shots against totals seem way too close; you'd think they would be a lot more different from USSR to SWE than this)