Best goalie to never make the Stanley Cup Finals?

[dalewood12]

There are some great and/or elite goalies that never won a Cup, like Luongo or Lundqvist.

But what about the best goalie to never make the finals?

Also, are there any very good goalies in history that had very underwhelming playoff appearances? For instance, mostly first or second round exits?

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[MadLuke]

CuJo is the first one that came to mind, must be the most playoff wins without reaching the finals by a good margin.

Joseph(63)
Anderson (38)

If a name did not escape me looking at the list.

Some name that did not play in the finals with really nice career:

Thomas Vokoun
Varlamov / Hellebuyck / Shesterkin in the still active, could change, obviously.
Bryzgalov
Ryan Miller
Darren Puppa
Felix Potvin
Sean Burke (second most regular season games played after Cujo I think, nice intl career has well)

 

[carjackmalone]

Don Edwards
Pat Riggin
Mike palmateer
Felix Potvin
Glen Hanlon

 

[JMCx4]

MIke Liut, had the most wins for an NHL goalie in the 1980s (251), but his teams never made it to the SCF in his 13 NHL seasons.

 

[jigglysquishy]

We actually voted Hellebucyk first on the goalie project.

Then Joseph, Liut, Shesterkin.

 

[Staniowski]

The large majority of the best are relatively recent goalies - and this will increasingly be the case - due mainly to the number of teams, and partly because of the quality of goaltending.

 

[Albatros]

Niklas Bäckström, entered the league late and never made it past the first round, but was an absolute wall his first three years in Minnesota.

 

[MadLuke]

Many teams combined with the cap limit also make it more difficult to have a Brodeur-Roy-Belfour-Hasek all featuring at some point on some super teams between 1998-2002 and crowding the finals from 1992-2003.

From 1992 to 2003 the finals featured one of those 4 every year but 3 (and that usually took RedWings level team to block them).

Tampa making a $9.5m star goaltender work like that was really special in today nhl.

 

[VaCaps Fan]

MIke Liut, had the most wins for an NHL goalie in the 1980s (251), but his teams never made it to the SCF in his 13 NHL seasons.

St. Louis was in an odd place as a franchise when he was there.

 

[Albatros]

St. Louis was in an odd place as a franchise when he was there.

The Norris Division also wasn't very good.

 

[The Panther]

The Norris Division also wasn't very good.

True, though Liut's best seasons -- probably 1970-80 and 1980-81 -- were before the "Norris" as we remember it existed (St. Louis was actually in the Smythe division). In those days, the NHL schedule was perfect: Each team played every other team 4 times. Period. That was it.

But yeah, Liut had 3.5 years in the crappy Norris, during a time when the Blues' franchise almost relocated. And then he went to Hartford...