HOH Top 60 Goaltenders of All Time (2024 Edition) - Preliminary Discussion Thread

[jigglysquishy]

You absolutely penalize goalie B. Those extra 5-15 games of having a starter compared to a backup will have a major impact on the team's point totals.

Even more so in playoffs. It's the only position where stars don't play all 82 games. So the extra availability is huge.

 

[blogofmike]

You absolutely penalize goalie B. Those extra 5-15 games of having a starter compared to a backup will have a major impact on the team's point totals.

Even more so in playoffs. It's the only position where stars don't play all 82 games. So the extra availability is huge.

Yes, but I also wouldn't want to punish Grant Fuhr and Billy Smith for being in a platoon situation, especially when they bring the heat in the playoffs.

I also don't want to overrate say, Ed Giacomin, who seemed to earn post-season all star votes for his high availability, and then served as a one man stimulus package to New York area golf courses with his high GA counts in the playoffs.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Agreed, although I was specific about the reason for absence because it’s important. Both Fuhr and Smith wanted the net more.

And also in those cases, the penalty for playing the backup was less.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Definitely penalize goalie B.

Also, it's not like Fuhr or Smith were doing something "suspect"...from '81 to '87 the most games started in a season was 66 (Hextall in '87). There was only 12 total seasons of >60 game starters in that span. That's out of 285 "seasons" where a goalie played 20 or more games in that same span.

It's a product of rule changes and development (individual and for the position as a whole) and maybe talent pool, etc.

I'm not saying I won't fault them at all - as I have my doubts about a lot of stuff - but it's not the same as the scenario posed. Also, it worked...those guys won all the Cups haha

 

[jigglysquishy]

Ya it's all era dependent. Brodeur and Kiprusoff playing 5-10 more games a season than their contemporaries is important to me.

On the flip side, Thomas finishing 17th in GP in 2009 is suspect.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Ugh, just when I thought js was real...this is clearly just an algorithmic serotonin bot...

 

[MadLuke]

At the end of the season, Goaltender B has more impressive numbers than Goaltender A.

Do you penalize Goaltender B? Your best ability is your availability.

As long as playing the extra game does not make it longer to reach back peak ability again, seem a too easy question (what was the downside of A strategy?), did playing those game had that effect ? Less peak game being played ?

 

[MXD]

Supposing you have two goaltenders - at the peak of their games they are of identical skill.

Goaltender A plays day-in and day-out (let's say 65-70 games per year) because he and his coaches know that even doing so, it's far better for the team for Goaltender A to be in net.

Goaltender B will only play when they're at the peak of their game, and so begs out of games either overtly or through hurt disguised as injury, forcing the backup into net more often. This even occurs occasionally in the playoffs, although God forbid a beat reporter mentions it.

At the end of the season, Goaltender B has more impressive numbers than Goaltender A.

Do you penalize Goaltender B? Your best ability is your availability.

Are they contemporaries?

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Are they contemporaries?

Sure.

 

[MXD]

Sure.

Fair enough.

 

[ChiTownPhilly]

You've heard of "Friday afternoon News-Dumps?"

Well, here's my Monday morning verbiage-dump!

If Vezina has a shot to break up the top 8, then surely Brimsek does too.

I'd feel a lot more comfortable trying to make a case for Brimsek in the top-8 than trying to make a case for him outside the top-10. The two classic bullet-points for Brimsek are 1) his "AS-2"s are well-known to be the result of the rote-custom of awarding 'AS-1's to the Prince of Wales winning Goaltender at that time, and 2) He lost 2+ prime years to WWII.

I wasn't part of the pre-merger project but like... how is [Benedict's] time on the Maroons not something that bolsters his resume? The team in front of him was not nearly as strong as in Ottawa.

The (alphabetically-listed) Benedict-Gardiner-Vézina tier is something that can be ordered 6 different ways, with all six ways being defensible.

I think Vezina or Brimsek are the strongest challengers. Or if someone is really low on Dryden because of his team strength/ career length/ international performance.

I don't nerf Dryden on account of team-strength. Remember- his team lost during his holdout year, then won when he (at last) got paid closer to what he was worth. I DO think volitional lack of career-length is a legitimate note, though.

I'm looking forward to seeing where Tony Esposito does wind up here. I recently did a bit of a deep dive on posts about him in this forum and he's grown on me a lot. I think the individual hardware is pretty impressive, too.

Interesting.

When I made my prelim list for the top-100 (all positions) project, I found room for Tony-O in the 90s. Looking back, I suppose that over-rates him. I believe history shows that he's a great guy to turn to when you have nothing-to-lose. However, when you have everything to lose, I can think of at least two-dozen that I'd rather have donning the pads than that guy.

I'm hoping Charlie Gardiner gets his due here. I still see him so underrated on many lists.

If we're not discussing him by at least Round 2, Vote 3, then we took a wrong turn.

Goaltender B will only play when they're at the peak of their game, and so begs out of games either overtly or through hurt disguised as injury, forcing the backup into net more often. This even occurs occasionally in the playoffs, although God forbid a beat reporter mentions it.

Extra non-positive value bogus points if Goaltender B waits until a few minutes before the game starts before letting his team know he's not feeling it today.

Y'know, if it weren't for International Play, such a Character might not make my podium.

In other observations, I've seen that (by interesting coincidence), there are 40 male Goaltenders (famous primarily for being Goaltenders) currently in the HHoF. Of that number, only two strike me as markedly dubious... Cheevers and Mike Vernon. [On a list of 80, I guess you gotta consider them, but HoFers?!]

Related: at the risk of getting all 'qpq' on y'all- on a list of 80, should we entertain a thought for Kim St-Pierre on a page of 80 names?

Would be interested in knowing more about the methodology behind the 'Hockey News' list. Appears that they limited things to the NHL, as evidenced by separate articles on non-NHL & International Netminders. Even limiting it to NHLers, which is the Bigger Howler? Ron Hextall in the Top-50, or Lorne Chabot in the Top-20? Both look like embarrassments to me.

 

[Professor What]

I'd feel a lot more comfortable trying to make a case for Brimsek in the top-8 than trying to make a case for him outside the top-10. The two classic bullet-points for Brimsek are 1) his "AS-2"s are well-known to be the result of the rote-custom of awarding 'AS-1's to the Prince of Wales winning Goaltender at that time, and 2) He lost 2+ prime years to WWII.

I'm guessing you meant the Vezina? But yeah, the all-star voting at the time feels very misleading. Maybe the guy that won AS-1 really was the best, maybe not. If not, it's probably the AS-2 guy, but there are no asterisks to differentiate. I don't really feel like you can rely too strongly on the voting at the time, but for a guy like Brimsek, it hurts him if anything, and his record is already danged good.

Would be interested in knowing more about the methodology behind the 'Hockey News' list. Appears that they limited things to the NHL, as evidenced by separate articles on non-NHL & International Netminders. Even limiting it to NHLers, which is the Bigger Howler? Ron Hextall in the Top-50, or Lorne Chabot in the Top-20? Both look like embarrassments to me.

Chabot at 20 is a big miss, for sure. I do agree that Hextall was a bit overrated, but did it miss by that much? He finished just outside the top 50 on the last aggregate list, and I've got him just outside the top 50 at the moment on my list. (Could move as I'm working on that section of the list.) Even is we consider the Hextall ranking a miss (which I'm not opposed to), I'm not sure that those two things are on the same level.

 

[overpass]

I'd feel a lot more comfortable trying to make a case for Brimsek in the top-8 than trying to make a case for him outside the top-10. The two classic bullet-points for Brimsek are 1) his "AS-2"s are well-known to be the result of the rote-custom of awarding 'AS-1's to the Prince of Wales winning Goaltender at that time, and 2) He lost 2+ prime years to WWII.

I suggest looking at the all-star goaltenders as voted by the coaches, rather than the writers. From 1932-33 through 1945-46, Jim Hendy solicited all star votes from all the NHL coaches and compiled all-star teams using a 3-2-1 voting system. Votes are in this thread.

Only 1941-42 results are missing, and we know Brimsek was the coaches' first team pick for this season based on the 1942-43 article saying he was repeating from last year's team.

Results for goalies are summarized below. As you can see, there were 6 seasons when the writers voted the winner of the Vezina trophy to the first team all star position, and the coaches selected someone else. Coaches picked Gardiner instead of Roach in 32-33, Thompson instead of Chabot in 34-35, Cude instead of Smith in 1936-37, Robertson instead of Brimsek in 38-39, Brimsek instead of Mowers in 42-43, and they had Lumley tied with Durnan for first in 45-46.

I think we can conclude that the coaches were less influenced than the writers by the Vezina trophy results. I would add that I see no reason to believe that the coaches' 2nd pick was better than their 1st pick.

Season	Coaches 1st team	Coaches 2nd team	Writers 1st team	Writers 2nd team	Vezina Trophy (lowest GAA)
1932-33	Charlie Gardiner	Roy Worters	John Ross Roach	Charlie Gardiner	Tiny Thompson
1933-34	Charlie Gardiner	Roy Worters	Charlie Gardiner	Roy Worters	Charlie Gardiner
1934-35	Tiny Thompson	Roy Worters	Lorne Chabot	Tiny Thompson	Lorne Chabot
1935-36	Tiny Thompson	Wilf Cude	Tiny Thompson	Wilf Cude	Tiny Thompson
1936-37	Wilf Cude	Normie Smith	Normie Smith	Wilf Cude	Normie Smith
1937-38	Tiny Thompson	Dave Kerr/Wilf Cude	Tiny Thompson	Dave Kerr	Tiny Thompson
1938-39	Earl Robertson	Tiny Thompson/Frank Brimsek	Frank Brimsek	Earl Robertson	Frank Brimsek
1939-40	Dave Kerr	Frank Brimsek	Dave Kerr	Frank Brimsek	Dave Kerr
1940-41	Turk Broda	Frank Brimsek	Turk Broda	Frank Brimsek	Turk Broda
1941-42	Frank Brimsek	(unknown)	Frank Brimsek	Turk Broda	Frank Brimsek
1942-43	Frank Brimsek	Johnny Mowers	Johnny Mowers	Frank Brimsek	Johnny Mowers
1943-44	Bill Durnan	Paul Bibeault	Bill Durnan	Paul Bibeault	Bill Durnan
1944-45	Bill Durnan	Mike Karakas	Bill Durnan	Mike Karakas	Bill Durnan
1945-46	Harry Lumley/Bill Durnan	Harry Lumley/Bill Durnan	Bill Durnan	Frank Brimsek	Bill Durnan

Which goalies had better results in the coaches' voting?

Charlie Gardiner - an extra 1-AS from the coaches rather than a 2-AS
Roy Worters - two more 2-AS from the coaches
Tiny Thompson - an extra 1-AS from the coaches
Earl Robertson - a 1-AS from the coaches
Wilf Cude - a 1-AS and an extra shared 2-AS from the coaches
Harry Lumley - coaches had him share a 1-AS, writers gave him nothing

And these goalies did worse in the coaches voting

Frank Brimsek - 2.5 2-AS from the coaches, compared to four 2-AS from the writers (both gave him two 1-AS)
Dave Kerr - coaches had him sharing a 2-AS instead of holding it alone
Bill Durnan - coaches had him share one of his three 1-AS with Harry Lumley
Johnny Mowers - a 2-AS instead of a 1-AS from the writers
Normie Smith - a 2-AS instead of a 1-AS from the writers

If we take the coaches voting as more accurate than the writers voting - partly because coaches have more expertise, and partly because their voting was less correlated with Vezina trophy finishes - Frank Brimsek was actually a little worse than the official all star voting suggested, not better. I don't see him as a clear #8, or even necessarily a top 10. Bill Durnan and Turk Broda were long regarded as the better goalies of the 1940s, and the revisionist case to put Brimsek ahead doesn't convince me.

The 1958 poll of 70 sportswriters by Sport Magazine rated Bill Durnan #1
THN Top 100 players (1998) rated Bill Durnan #35 overall (6th among goalies), Turk Broda #60 overall (7th among goalies), and Frank Brimsek #67 overall (9th among goalies).
Without Fear, Duff and Allen (2002) rated Bill Durnan #6, Turk Broda #11, and Frank Brimsek #13.
THN Top 100 Goalies of All Time (2018) rated Bill Durnan #8, Turk Broda #10, and Frank Brimsek #12.

 

[overpass]

On the subject of coaches voting, the NHL actually changed the voting for the official all star teams from 1946-47 to 1949-50 to have the coaches do the voting rather than the writers. This could be viewed as validating the earlier coaches-voted Jim Hendy teams by admitting that the coaches were the superior choice for voting.

We have no writers selections for comparison in these seasons. Here are the results from the coaches.

Season	First team	Second team
1946-47	Bill Durnan	Frank Brimsek
1947-48	Turk Broda	Frank Brimsek
1948-49	Bill Durnan	Chuck Rayner
1949-50	Bill Durnan	Chuck Rayner

Voting results
1946-47: Durnan 13 (4-0-1), Brimsek 8 (1-1-3), Broda (1-2-0)
1947-48: Broda 19 (3-1-1), Brimsek 19 (2-3-0), Durnan 9 (1-1-1)
1948-49: Durnan 25 (5-0-0), Rayner 10 (0-3-1), Broda 7 (1-0-2)
1949-50: Durnan 21 (3-2-0), Rayner 17 (2-2-1), Broda 10 (1-1-2)

After the 1949-50 season, the voting was returned to the writers. Per the newspapers, the coaches had requested that they not continue with all star voting. Dink Carroll wrote in a column that any bias was supposed to be eliminated by forbidding coaches from voting from their own players. But now coaches were under pressure to carry out strategic voting for players who were competing with their players for votes. And many players had year-end bonuses tied to appearing on these all-star teams. The coaches found that voting for the official NHL teams turned out to be very different from voting from an unofficial team published by Jim Hendy.

So what should we make of these four seasons where the coaches voted officially? I would consider them to be similar to the earlier unofficial coaches teams, but it's possible that the pressures of voting for an official team skewed the results in some way. For example, maybe the first place vote for Durnan in 1947-48 was a strategic vote by either Hap Day or Dit Clapper to favour their goaltender. But we can't really know.

I would certainly be open to rating Brimsek ahead of Broda for 47-48, and Rayner ahead of Durnan for 49-50. Not because of some 2-AS > 1-AS jiu-jitsu, but because the AS voting was very close and the #2 finisher was the Hart winner for 49-50 (Rayner) and the Hart runner up for 47-48 (Brimsek). Certainly if you include the playoffs it's easy to see Rayner ahead of Durnan in 49-50.

 

[ChiTownPhilly]

I'm guessing you meant the Vezina? But yeah, the all-star voting at the time feels very misleading. Maybe the guy that won AS-1 really was the best, maybe not. If not, it's probably the AS-2 guy, but there are no asterisks to differentiate. I don't really feel like you can rely too strongly on the voting at the time, but for a guy like Brimsek, it hurts him if anything, and his record is already danged good.

Chabot at 20 is a big miss, for sure. I do agree that Hextall was a bit overrated, but did it miss by that much? He finished just outside the top 50 on the last aggregate list, and I've got him just outside the top 50 at the moment on my list. (Could move as I'm working on that section of the list.) Even is we consider the Hextall ranking a miss (which I'm not opposed to), I'm not sure that those two things are on the same level.

Yup, you're right on the first point. What we would nowadays call the Jennings winner was default-advanced to the AS-1 (and, of course, the Vezina) position. A quick review of the data show that the 'proto-Jennings runner-up' was frequently NOT awarded AS-2. This means that, at that time, the Goaltender AS-1 was a team award, and the AS-2 pretty much wasn't. Now sometimes, the Jennings winner IS the best Goaltender in the League. When Brimsek was collecting AS berths, it was against Prime Broda & Prime Durnan, and (on other occasions) it was against lesser lights benefitting from strong teams such as Johnny Mowers and Dave Kerr. Now, Dave Kerr's a notable dark-horse case- and his Hockey Story is almost as interesting as Dickie Kerr's Baseball Story-- but he's comfortably below the tier of Brimsek, Durnan, Broda.

Thing to remember about that time is that (not counting time-loss due to War) it was always 'X+Brimsek,' or 'Brimsek+X;' which was enough to make him the strongest Goalie ever, pre-Sawchuk.

Hextall is a classic case of someone for whom a video-montage could be assembled illustrating that it's frequently about at at what time and in what manner goals are given up, and not always the quantity of goals surrendered.

Even if relying on a numbers-based assessment for Hextall, if you take away his comet-across-the-horizon rookie season, his statistics for the remainder of his career are (among NHL-starters) league-ordinary. Now, that's not to discount that great season- and it would be unfair to call it a miracle season, since in that campaign, he WAS all that. Unfortunately, his inguinal area functioned intermittently afterwards. When working, you could see glimpses of what made him an instant hit that very first year. When not working, it was all flailing and flopping, and very, VERY uncomfortable to be a fan of that team during those times.

Mid to late 90s, Philadelphia Fan, Flyers w/1-goal lead, Hextall in net.
Early to late 2010s, Chicago Fan, 'Hawks w/1-goal lead, Crawford in net.

Not that I'm going to say Crawford's historically marvelous or anything-- but let me tell you, that was two REALLY different feelings, there.

So to conclude, even casually defaulting to the numbers, the entire case for Hextall being anything more than bog-standard is his (legitimately outstanding) rookie season. That makes him- what? The P.K. Subban of Goaltenders? Even on a list as deep as this, it doesn't seem like it should count for that much.

 

[The Macho King]

What active GTs are going to make it. Vasi, Helley... anyone else?

 

[Michael Farkas]

I haven't thought about my list yet, because I just want to reset as if I'm building a draft list from basically scratch. So I'm just surveying the world right now.

But...do I have to sit around and pretend that Hextall's 1987 plus 10 more years of inconsistent gibberish is better than Igor Shestyorkin's four straight seasons of excellence? Is that too modern-bias-ish...?

 

[jigglysquishy]

What active GTs are going to make it. Vasi, Helley... anyone else?

Bobrovsky is going to make a top 80.

Luongo, Lundqvist, and Price aren't technically active but are close to it.

 

[MadLuke]

What could be the argument for Hextall above say Fleury or Osgood... They also had some really high regular-season playoff peak (like 2018 playoff run for Fleury or 2008 for Osgood), but with so much more meat around the peak bone with them.

 

[Michael Farkas]

No argument for Hextall over Fleury, certainly.

 

[DitchMarner]

Goaltending isn't my area of expertise but whatever...

I'm sure Fleury won't make the Top 50 or anything. Obviously he gets onto a Top 80 or so list...

But how many notable goalies have basically been unplayable in the playoffs for a period of time during their primes? This guy was a hot mess in the playoffs in both 2012 and 2013. IIRC, he was decent enough in 2014 and not the reason his team choked that year.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Bobrovsky for sure. Luongo was turned away from at points for Schneider.

 

[BenchBrawl]

@BenchBrawl and @ResilientBeast come join the project!

I won't be able to participate in this one, but I'll follow it from a distance.

Hope you guys discover interesting material and enjoy the project!

 

[BenchBrawl]

Hope the old-timers get some love. Tom Paton is a hero in this house!

 

[MXD]

I didn't think of Corey Crawford as a basis of comparison for Hextall, but one would think that, if Crawford can't crack a Top-80, then Hextall probably shouldn't.

Regarding Fleury's unplayability ... I wouldn't call Conor Hellebuyck unplayable, but on first glance, he does appear to have made a negative difference a bit too much.