He's the NHL's all-time leader in GSAA with 498
www.hockey-reference.com
www.hockey-reference.com
Nah, I know he is awful. One of the 70s/80s guys is not good too, I never remember which. But he has no second save ability at all. Just goes all jellyfish after the first shooter's flinch...Gotta be Cechmanek that you are thinking of, he some how got great numbers in Philly but is out of the league one year after leaving them for LA Kings:
Roman Čechmánek Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Salary, Title | Hockey-Reference.com
Checkout the latest stats of Roman Čechmánek. Get info about his position, age, height, weight, trade, draft, salary and more on Hockey-Reference.com
Had no idea he died last year...
This is all excellent, thank you. The number one thing that stood out to me when researching his amateur career was how highly regarded he was as a softball player, actually. I can definitely buy that he said he preferred it to hockey. It's easy to imagine that the hand-eye coordination developed from softball would've contributed to his ambidextrous play, which was actually not remarked upon very often from what I've read so far.
The Hamilton Spectator - 14 October 1937 said:
Would you mind collecting some research on him for the rest of us? Maybe I'm the only one behind the ball here, but he isn't on the first draft of names I have written down.
Hasek...
I'm looking forward to that about as much as I'm looking forward to the battle for #1 OA coming down to a wearisome repetition of "but STATz & NUMBERz!"
1. @The Macho King's suggestion would also be an improvement on the status quo.
I'm not trying to bring my filthy ATD-ways over to this project- but one of the things I felt was interesting was that Dzurilla had a great mentality for being a back-up goaltender- and I've always believed that being at peace with a "second-fiddle" role is something that has been routinely undervalued in ATD.
Vladimir ("Maco") Dzurilla
22 Year career in European Leagues
14 Years an International for Czechoslovakia [1961-1973, and again in 1976 & 1977]
Born- Bratislava, Slovakia, August 2, 1942
Made Upper-Division league debut for venerable Slovak Firm Slovan Bratislava in 1960, as an 18-year-old
Became starter for Czechoslovak Team in 1962
Early International Highlight was 1965 World Championships .947 save percentage in Czechoslovakia's Silver Medal performance. Directorate Best Goaltender/Media All-Star Goaltender, likely choice for tournament MVP, if such an award was given.
Perhaps his most famous performance of the '60s was 1969 IIHF Worlds, where the Czechoslovak squad defeated the Soviet Union twice, ended the tournament tied with USSR & Sweden on 16 points, but wound up with Bronze on (apparently?) point-differential tiebreak. Jan Suchý, playing at white-hot peak, was a difference-maker in the first TCH-URS match, but Dzurilla proved to be man-of-the-match for the second encounter, a 2-0 shutout. For those Championships, Dzurilla split honors with Swedish Netminder Leif Holmqvist, with the latter awarded Directorate Best Goaltender, and 'Maco' named Media All-Star Goaltender.
Individual heroics aside, Dzurilla also had plenty of struggles versus the Soviets, and eventually became minority-partner in a Goalie-tandem with Jiří Holeček. He remained second on the depth-chart- but was often ready to step in, as he famously did in the 1972 Olympics, after the US lit up Holeček for three goals on 11 shots in the second period of their match. Dzurilla would carry on from that point, with a 6-2 defeat- again(st) the USSR being the only true blemish. Holeček would go on to re-focus & re-assert in the World Championships a month later- Dzurilla would at last get his World Championship Gold- but as a back-up.
Next three years present as something of a mystery in the Dzurilla portfolio- broomed out of Bratislava after a tepid 1972-73 Season, and also dropped from the National Team, he latched on with Brno and continued with some ordinary play. Eventually, Dzurilla broke out of his downward spiral, re-claimed a spot on his country's squad, and made a modest contribution, again as Holeček's back-up, in the 1976 World Championship, his second Gold.
Dzurilla would go on to grab worldwide Hockey headlines one more time- in the 1976 Canada Cup. Jiří Holeček had a performance-to-forget that tournament, and 'Maco' came in and ensured that the Czechoslovaks would be the first to establish their place in the final with a 29-save shutout against Canada- renowned as one of Hockey History's great international encounters. This forced the Canadians to have to beat the USSR to earn the right to rematch- which they did. When Canada played the Czechoslovaks again, it was Dzurilla's turn to be batted-out-of-the-box as the 1976 Canadians, arguably the greatest collection of talent ever wearing one uniform at the same time, blitzed Dzurilla with four first-period goals. Czechoslovakia naturally turned to Holeček the following game, but he gave up two goals in not much more than three minutes, and Dzurilla took matters the rest of the way, but ultimately succumbed in Overtime.
In 1977, Dzurilla would finally get World Championship Gold as (more-or-less) a starter, as he played in seven games to Holeček's four. In a karmic parallel of TCE's avoidance of the top-2 steps of the podium in 1969, the Soviets went into their final game merely needing to avoid losing against Sweden. Instead they fell, 3-1, freezing their standings points at 14 and allowing Czechoslovakia to achieve clear first on 15.
Now in career twilight, Vladimir Dzurilla played out his final three seasons in West Germany, where he was, by acclamation, held to be the best Goaltender in the leagues of that country- a grouping that once again included his old teammate, Jiří Holeček. After the end of his Hockey career, he took up Goaltender instruction in three different countries. Dzurilla was last seen in Hockey-action in 1995, in an Old-Timer Game in Stockholm, where the 50+ year-old was tapped Player of the Game. Before the summer was out, he passed away from a heart attack, less than a week shy of his 53rd birthday. He would be posthumously inducted into the salutatory (2nd) class of the IIHF Hall-of-Fame in 1998, along with his old colleague Holeček, in addition to Kharlamov, Firsov, Balderis, and Vasiliev (most notably).
Did you know?
[A Mother's Dreams] Dzurilla acquired a significant background in music during childhood- and his mother hoped that young Vladimir could make a career in music.
[Working Class Man] Dzurilla's working trade was refrigerator-repair.
ATD-Use: World-Class Goaltender who nonetheless has proven psychologically comfortable with back-up role. Not ideal for workhorse Regular Season volume, nor against teams that primarily attack in a crisp, lateral manner, he is nonetheless well-suited for spot-starts against teams that attack north-south, as well as use in smaller arenas that tend to induce that sort of playing-style. He is equally comfortable with starts after a Primary Goaltender's sub-optimal outing, and with relief-duty, giving focused effort regardless of the current score.
Hat-tips:
@DN28 (q.v.: HoH project, top non-NHL Europeans, particularly Round 2 Vote 7)
Elite Prospects (mostly for background)
Quant Hockey (less scope, but visibly more reliable for details than Elite Prospects)
Joe Pelletier's "International Hockey Legends"
Wikipedia (primarily for results of certain International Tourneys)
I've played around with the idea of GSA#3 (goals saved above the third place SV% finisher) as a better plumb-bob.
Hope it's not too late to consider shortening the list-length.
sounds like Dzurilla, maybe. Got so much street cred because he beat Canada in 76.... don't think he did much else.
