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

[MadLuke]

Truman Capote and Harper Lee were neighbors.

Patrick Roy and Mario Lemieux are born the exact same day, specially for something a bit odd like goaltender, who decide to do, who push kids to take the position, how expensive it is, for example really big family like Plante (11).

Could be a stretch, but both Plante-Swachuck for example had significant injuries that reduced their mobility early on (Plante could not skate for a while. ankle injury when he was 5, Bower was discharged of the military for arthritis in his hands, Sawchuck rugby injury that never healed), does that push them into their position ?

Being great depression kids that saw ww2 (some took part in it), does that create adults with a different "mental toughness", often speculated that war generation boxer could have an advantage over peace time one, for a position like goaltender before the very modern version of equipment, it is easy to imagine. Not everyone can play that position and it is not impossible for the great depression kids to have in by capita been more able too than the post ww2 one.

And as mentioned, when you talk of such small numbers, it can be really noisy, team usa at basketball in best on best tourney does not always have the best player on the floor, while obviously the 1000th best American is probably better than the 100th best player of that country.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

And could all (like goaltender during an Olympic tourney or MLB shortstops defensively) be very good at the same time i.e. the median goaltender here can be a top 3 in the world, making how good versus their peers talk a bit hard to do and for a part of it; no too almost no video.... Contemporary testimony can become a lot of what people rely on.

Think of a tournament like the 2016 world cup, Halak-Price-Bobrovksy-Lundqvist-Rask-Quick-Rinne-Markstrom.... what would being just average in a 50 games tournament with those teams would mean for someone in that group, would finishing in the bottom 2 mean you are bad ?

I've heard old-timers in Springfield talk about how Marcel Paille dominated in the AHL in the early 1960's. Much like Bower he got a shot with the lousy Rangers early in his career but then got stuck in the minors. Wonder if he had a shot at that time with a good team (like Bower did in Toronto) if he could have written a different story.

 

[overpass]

I said the NHL goalies of 1959-60 were the very top of the talent pool. What did the talent pool look like below the NHL? Were there NHL quality goalies in lower leagues? In fact, in addition to the 14 goalies who played NHL games that season, there were 25 more playing in lower leagues who played NHL games at some point in their careers.

I'll go through the lower leagues and pick out goalies who were active in the 1959-60 season and had significant professional careers. I'm not making a case for any of them to be represented on the list. At this point I'm trying to give a perspective of the pre-expansion goalie talent pool, and point out that playing 50+ games in an NHL season was a significant achievement in it's own right. Many of these goalies in the minor leagues had their rights owned by NHL teams, attended big league training camps, and were gunning for the jobs at the big club.

In the 6 team NHL of 1959-60, there were 6 goalies who played only in the NHL. 4 were all time greats with pro careers of 2 decades or more. The 5th was Hall of Famer Harry Lumley, and the 6th was Don Simmons, who played 248 NHL games and 735 pro games over 15 years.

Goalie​

1959-60 league​

Year of birth​

First pro season​

Final pro season​

Pro GP​

NHL GP​

WHA GP​

AHL GP​

WHL GP​

QSHL/QHL GP​

EPHL GP​

CPHL/CHL GP​

IHL GP​

USHL GP​

EHL GP​

PCHL GP​

Jacques Plante​

NHL​

1929​

1950-51​

1974-75​

1138​

837​

40​

105​

0​

148​

8​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

Glenn Hall​

NHL​

1931​

1951-52​

1970-71​

1173​

906​

0​

68​

199​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

Terry Sawchuk​

NHL​

1929​

1947-48​

1969-70​

1157​

972​

0​

128​

0​

0​

0​

0​

3​

54​

0​

0​

Johnny Bower​

NHL​

1925​

1945-46​

1969-70​

1207​

552​

0​

592​

63​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

Harry Lumley​

NHL​

1926​

1943-44​

1960-61​

1077​

803​

0​

211​

61​

0​

2​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

Don Simmons​

NHL​

1931​

1951-52​

1968-69​

735​

248​

0​

241​

72​

0​

0​

69​

24​

0​

81​

0​

The next step down were 8 goaltenders who played NHL games and also in the minor leagues in 1959-60. Or in the case of Jack McCartan, for the US National team in the Olympics. Dennis Riggin and Gilles Boisvert had more marginal careers, with only a handful of NHL games and fewer than 500 pro games, but the other 6 all had long professional careers, including HHOFer Gump Worsley.

I've excluded Joe Schaefer, an amateur goalie from New Jersey who played a game as the Rangers' emergency goalie.

Goalie​

1959-60 league​

Year of birth​

First pro season​

Final pro season​

Pro GP​

NHL GP​

WHA GP​

AHL GP​

WHL GP​

QSHL/QHL GP​

EPHL GP​

CPHL/CHL GP​

IHL GP​

USHL GP​

EHL GP​

PCHL GP​

Gump Worsley​

NHL/AHL​

1929​

1949-50​

1973-74​

1246​

861​

0​

126​

82​

0​

0​

0​

0​

64​

47​

66​

Marcel Paille​

NHL/AHL​

1932​

1955-56​

1973-74​

1017​

107​

15​

765​

70​

60​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

Ed Chadwick​

NHL/AHL​

1933​

1955-56​

1967-68​

736​

184​

0​

417​

68​

0​

67​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

Al Rollins​

NHL/WHL​

1926​

1944-45​

1961-62​

819​

430​

0​

32​

162​

0​

0​

0​

0​

60​

0​

135​

Dennis Riggin​

NHL/WHL​

1936​

1955-56​

1962-63​

341​

18​

0​

19​

304​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

Charlie Hodge​

NHL/EPHL​

1933​

1953-54​

1970-71​

903​

358​

0​

195​

83​

123​

82​

0​

62​

0​

0​

0​

Gilles Boisvert​

NHL/EPHL​

1933​

1954-55​

1969-70​

498​

3​

0​

147​

212​

117​

16​

3​

0​

0​

0​

0​

Jack McCartan​

NHL / US National​

1935​

1960-61​

1972-73​

682​

12​

42​

0​

391​

0​

122​

115​

0​

0​

0​

0​

Then the following goaltenders were playing in the American Hockey League in 1959-60. All played NHL games during their careers, all played well over a decade in pro hockey.

Goalie​

1959-60 league​

Year of birth​

First pro season​

Final pro season​

Pro GP​

NHL GP​

WHA GP​

AHL GP​

WHL GP​

QSHL/QHL GP​

EPHL GP​

CPHL/CHL GP​

IHL GP​

USHL GP​

EHL GP​

PCHL GP​

Bruce Gamble​

AHL​

1938​

1958-59​

1971-72​

679​

327​

0​

117​

106​

0​

68​

61​

0​

0​

0​

0​

Gil Mayer​

AHL​

1930​

1949-50​

1962-63​

689​

9​

0​

680​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

Roy Edwards​

AHL​

1938​

1957-58​

1973-74​

801​

236​

0​

238​

142​

0​

73​

87​

25​

0​

0​

0​

Bob Perreault​

AHL​

1931​

1951-52​

1972-73​

971​

31​

1​

512​

138​

243​

0​

0​

46​

0​

0​

0​

Al Millar​

AHL​

1929​

1949-50​

1969-70​

777​

6​

0​

175​

324​

160​

2​

78​

0​

4​

0​

28​

Here are seven more goaltenders who played in the Western Hockey League in 1959-60. All had pro careers over a decade in length, and 4 of the 7 played in NHL games.

Goalie​

1959-60 league​

Year of birth​

First pro season​

Final pro season​

Pro GP​

NHL GP​

WHA GP​

AHL GP​

WHL GP​

QSHL/QHL GP​

EPHL GP​

CPHL/CHL GP​

IHL GP​

USHL GP​

EHL GP​

PCHL GP​

Hank Bassen​

WHL​

1932​

1954-55​

1967-68​

623​

155​

0​

252​

206​

0​

3​

7​

0​

0​

0​

0​

Bev Bentley​

WHL​

1927​

1947-48​

1966-67​

618​

0​

0​

0​

559​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

15​

44​

Marcel Pelletier​

WHL​

1927​

1949-50​

1968-69​

1033​

8​

0​

41​

672​

151​

0​

93​

0​

44​

24​

0​

Lucien Dechene​

WHL​

1925​

1945-46​

1960-61​

799​

0​

0​

15​

449​

49​

0​

0​

0​

0​

7​

279​

Ray Mikulan​

WHL​

1934​

1955-56​

1965-66​

657​

0​

0​

0​

270​

0​

8​

0​

379​

0​

0​

0​

Emile Francis​

WHL​

1926​

1944-45​

1959-60​

877​

95​

0​

348​

391​

0​

0​

0​

0​

7​

36​

0​

Ernie Wakely​

WHL​

1940​

1959-60​

1978-79​

848​

113​

334​

175​

43​

0​

52​

131​

0​

0​

0​

0​

And 5 more pro goalies playing in the IHL in 1959-60, all with long pro careers. 4 of the 5 played in the NHL.

The fifth, Glenn Ramsay, holds most IHL goalie records and was an 8 time first team all star in the IHL. He started his pro career with the Montreal Canadiens organization, going to training camp with Jacques Plante, Gerry McNeil, and Charlie Hodge, and was placed with their IHL affiliate in Cincinnati. Eventually he gave up on his NHL dreams and played his final 12 seasons in Toledo, turning down an offer from the St Louis Blues after expansion.

Goalie​

1959-60 league​

Year of birth​

First pro season​

Final pro season​

Pro GP​

NHL GP​

WHA GP​

AHL GP​

WHL GP​

QSHL/QHL GP​

EPHL GP​

CPHL/CHL GP​

IHL GP​

USHL GP​

EHL GP​

PCHL GP​

Glenn Ramsay​

IHL​

1935​

1956-57​

1973-74​

954​

0​

0​

9​

0​

0​

0​

0​

945​

0​

0​

0​

Marv Edwards​

IHL​

1935​

1959-60​

1973-74​

786​

61​

0​

19​

130​

0​

0​

39​

64​

0​

473​

0​

Carl Wetzel​

IHL​

1938​

1959-60​

1972-73​

326​

7​

1​

17​

6​

0​

59​

110​

114​

12​

0​

0​

Les Binkley​

IHL​

1934​

1955-56​

1975-76​

942​

196​

81​

303​

53​

0​

0​

0​

123​

0​

186​

0​

Jim Henry​

IHL​

1920​

1941-42​

1959-60​

644​

406​

0​

154​

0​

0​

0​

0​

9​

75​

0​

0​

Here are another 5 goalies who were playing in the EPHL in 1959-60. 4 of the 5 played NHL games in their career.

Goalie​

1959-60 league​

Year of birth​

First pro season​

Final pro season​

Pro GP​

NHL GP​

WHA GP​

AHL GP​

WHL GP​

QSHL/QHL GP​

EPHL GP​

CPHL/CHL GP​

IHL GP​

USHL GP​

EHL GP​

PCHL GP​

Gerry McNeil​

EPHL​

1926​

1945-46​

1960-61​

829​

276​

0​

239​

0​

286​

28​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

Gerry McNamara​

EPHL​

1934​

1955-56​

1969-70​

352​

7​

0​

183​

22​

0​

111​

0​

0​

0​

29​

0​

Denis DeJordy​

EPHL​

1938​

1959-60​

1973-74​

741​

317​

0​

226​

0​

0​

102​

96​

0​

0​

0​

0​

Don McLeod​

EPHL​

1932​

1958-59​

1970-71​

576​

0​

0​

1​

190​

0​

39​

0​

346​

0​

0​

0​

Claude Evans​

EPHL​

1933​

1952-53​

1961-62​

528​

5​

0​

128​

107​

149​

79​

0​

60​

0​

0​

0​

6 more goalies who were playing in the Eastern Hockey League for 1959-60. 4 of them made the NHL, and two of them, Giacomin and Johnston, had very substantial NHL careers.

Goalie​

1959-60 league​

Year of birth​

First pro season​

Final pro season​

Pro GP​

NHL GP​

WHA GP​

AHL GP​

WHL GP​

QSHL/QHL GP​

EPHL GP​

CPHL/CHL GP​

IHL GP​

USHL GP​

EHL GP​

PCHL GP​

Ed Giacomin​

EHL​

1939​

1958-59​

1977-78​

936​

610​

0​

258​

0​

0​

1​

0​

0​

0​

67​

0​

Eddie Johnston​

EHL​

1935​

1956-57​

1977-78​

962​

592​

0​

0​

173​

64​

70​

0​

0​

0​

63​

0​

Norm Defelice​

EHL​

1933​

1953-54​

1968-69​

731​

10​

0​

60​

0​

2​

0​

0​

41​

0​

618​

0​

Jacques Caron​

EHL​

1939​

1959-60​

1976-77​

556​

72​

26​

291​

107​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

60​

0​

Gaetan Dessureault​

EHL​

1934​

1954-55​

1964-65​

565​

0​

0​

0​

0​

10​

0​

0​

58​

0​

497​

0​

Ivan Walmsley​

EHL​

1928​

1947-48​

1965-66​

807​

0​

0​

7​

0​

0​

2​

0​

227​

0​

571​

0​

Here are another 4 goalies who were playing senior amateur hockey in 1959-60 and would eventually make the NHL. Cesare Maniago in particular had a very good NHL career. John Henderson was the goaltender for the famous Whitby Dunlops amateur team that won the Allan Cup and the World Championship. Seth Martin's pro career was limited to one NHL season, but he was an outstanding amateur goalie with a lot of success and accolades in international play.

Goalie​

1959-60 league​

Year of birth​

First pro season​

Final pro season​

Pro GP​

NHL GP​

WHA GP​

AHL GP​

WHL GP​

QSHL/QHL GP​

EPHL GP​

CPHL/CHL GP​

IHL GP​

USHL GP​

EHL GP​

PCHL GP​

Cesare Maniago​

OHA-Sr​

1939​

1960-61​

1977-78​

868​

568​

0​

59​

61​

0​

107​

73​

0​

0​

0​

0​

John Henderson​

OHA-Sr​

1933​

1953-54​

1969-70​

321​

46​

0​

185​

27​

22​

39​

2​

0​

0​

0​

0​

Don Head​

OHA-Sr​

1933​

1960-61​

1970-71​

456​

38​

0​

0​

418​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

Seth Martin​

WIHL​

1933​

1967-68​

1967-68​

30​

30​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

That's a list of 46 goalies active in 1959-60, all of whom had significant pro careers (or, in Martin's case, a significant amateur career). They averaged 767 professional games played.

Of the 46 goalies, during their careers:
14 played in 300+ NHL games,
8 played in 100-299 NHL games,
10 played in 10-99 NHL games,
7 played in 1-9 NHL games.
7 never made the NHL.

That's the talent pool that Glenn Hall and Jacques Plante were at the top of in 1959-60. Not just the 15 goalies who got into an NHL game that season, or the 4 goalies who played in at least 50 GP (Hall, Plante, Bower, Sawchuk). They beat those goalies out for all-star positions, first by winning and keeping starting positions in the National Hockey League, and then by playing well in the 1959-60 season.

In addition to the pro and senior players, these six future NHL goalies were all playing in the OHA junior league in 1959-60. They were a little young to compete for NHL spots, but they would soon join the talent pool competing for NHL positions. (Except for Ken Broderick, who took a detour through attending the University of British Columbia and playing for Canada's national team before turning pro.)

Goalie​

1959-60 NHL​

Year of birth​

First pro season​

Final pro season​

Pro GP​

NHL GP​

WHA GP​

AHL GP​

WHL GP​

QSHL/QHL GP​

EPHL GP​

CPHL/CHL GP​

IHL GP​

USHL GP​

EHL GP​

PCHL GP​

Roger Crozier​

OHA-Jr​

1942​

1962-63​

1976-77​

645​

515​

0​

52​

0​

0​

73​

5​

0​

0​

0​

0​

Gerry Cheevers​

OHA-Jr​

1940​

1961-62​

1979-80​

924​

418​

191​

181​

0​

0​

80​

54​

0​

0​

0​

0​

Wayne Rutledge​

OHA-Jr​

1942​

1962-63​

1977-78​

624​

82​

176​

6​

107​

0​

4​

179​

65​

0​

5​

0​

Dave Dryden​

OHA-Jr​

1941​

1961-62​

1979-80​

508​

203​

242​

5​

8​

0​

0​

50​

0​

0​

0​

0​

Gilles Villemure​

OHA-Jr​

1940​

1960-61​

1976-77​

822​

205​

0​

300​

199​

0​

0​

0​

0​

0​

118​

0​

Ken Broderick​

OHA-Jr​

1942​

1968-69​

1977-78​

309​

27​

73​

51​

142​

0​

0​

16​

0​

0​

0​

0​

 

[Professor What]

I think I wonder more if some of those guys who were more or less career AHL'ers would be considered worthy of consideration. I can't help but think that if there were a larger league, giving more slots to potential candidates. I've got Johnny Bower specifically in mind there. Mid-30s before he makes the NHL full time, and we could have easily never gotten him. It's not so far-fetched that there could be others like him, in my opinion.

 

[MXD]

Craig Anderson?! Never, ever considered him a candidate for the initial Top-80, and frankly, I don't know why I should.

But, hey... I may have missed something out of his career.

 

[MXD]

Anyone has any kind of insight on Don Edwards?

Statsheet screams short prime with possible favorable team effects, but he also played a lot of games in that short prime, meaning the drop after his first season in Calgary could be explained by wear as opposed to team effects.

I can't see a valid argument that he's better than his contemporary Mike Liut, but Liut is also a serious top-half candidate.

 

[Vilica]

I appreciate the detailed responses overpass, and while I don't think I'm going to make paragraph responses in this post to those points explicitly, I'm going to try to compose some in the near future. Let me first try a different tack in illustrating my initial point, breaking the sample down to individual seasons. There are 12 seasons for which we have save percentage data pre-expansion, 55-56 through 66-67. We have more than 12 seasons post-lockout, but let's choose the last 12 years, 12-13 through 23-24. Now let's take the AS-1, AS-2, AS-3, and AS-4 finishers each year, and average out their GAA and save percentages, as well as games played. Here's an initial table:

	LA GF	LA GF/G	LA GF/82		LA GF	LA GF/G	LA GF/82
55-56	177	2.53	207.3	12-13	127	2.65	217.0
56-57	188	2.69	220.2	13-14	219.0	2.67	219.0
57-58	196	2.80	229.6	14-15	218.0	2.66	218.0
58-59	203	2.90	237.8	15-16	219.0	2.67	219.0
59-60	206	2.94	241.3	16-17	223.0	2.72	223.0
60-61	210	3.00	246.0	17-18	240.0	2.93	240.0
61-62	211	3.01	247.2	18-19	244.0	2.98	244.0
62-63	208	2.97	243.7	19-20	208	2.97	243.7
63-64	194	2.77	227.3	20-21	162	2.89	237.2
64-65	201	2.87	235.5	21-22	255.0	3.11	255.0
65-66	213	3.04	249.5	22-23	258.0	3.15	258.0
66-67	209	2.99	244.8	23-24	253.0	3.09	253.0
		2.88	235.8			2.87	235.6

Basically, almost exactly the same scoring level in each 12 year period. Also, because there were 3 shortened seasons in the second sample, teams only played 912 games during those years, compared to the 910 games played pre-expansion. [I could have opted for 05-06 through 16-17 as an alternative sample, though that would've been lower scoring, at 225.5.]

Now, here's the aggregated average of the postseason all star place each year. There were a few years with missing votes pre-expansion, so for those years I chose the best season by GA%- not already picked - ends up being 3 Worsley seasons, 2 Bower seasons, and 1 Simmons season to cover 57-58 3rd/4th, 58-59 3rd/4th, 59-60 4th, 61-62 4th.

			AS-1							AS-2
	GP	Shots	Sh/G	GA	GAA	SV%		GP	Shots	Sh/G	GA	GAA	SV%
66-67	66.83	2015.17	30.170	160.17	2.413	0.921		59.17	1677.33	28.132	141.92	2.428	0.915
23-24	55.42	1649.75	29.781	118.42	2.175	0.928		54.50	1568.58	28.702	116.50	2.176	0.926
			AS-3							AS-4
	GP	Shots	Sh/G	GA	GAA	SV%		GP	Shots	Sh/G	GA	GAA	SV%
66-67	50.42	1586.67	31.322	130.67	2.582	0.918		54.67	1758.00	31.624	153.08	2.788	0.913
23-24	59.00	1693.83	28.582	135.58	2.319	0.920		54.08	1606.83	29.610	124.33	2.352	0.923

You have a couple outliers in games played, but 4 of the 8 samples are right at 55 games. When you break down the games played into 10s, 11 pre-expansion goalies played 70, while only 2 modern goalies did, then 16 pre-expansion goalies played between 60-70, while 19 modern goalies did (27-21 total), then 9 pre-expansion goalies played between 50-60, while 13 modern goalies did (36-34 total), then 3 pre-expansion goalies played between 40-50, while 10 modern goalies did (39-44 total), and finally 9 pre-expansion goalies played between 30-40, while 4 modern goalies did (48-48 end total).

Professor What did an aggregate of the 6th best goaltender from the lockout just above, and came up with a GAA of 2.36 and a save percentage of 0.919, virtually indistinguishable from the AS-4 line. There's basically a packet of 4th-10th goalie-seasons that you'd take ahead of the AS-4 pre-expansion because all of those seasons are below-average. They don't magically become above-average stats just because they're the 4th best season of the 6-10 total seasons. I mean, look at the GA numbers - in virtually the exact same number of games (54), modern goalies are giving up 29 less goals in a year.

I had a different point continuing on from here, but it expanded enough that I'm gonna put it in a separate post. Let's just conclude by doing a quick comparison - the Serry Tawchuk character from my last post, and Semyon Varlamov's career from 11-12 to 23-24. Before I post the stats, let me state that I'm not trying to downgrade Sawchuk or upgrade Varlamov - Sawchuk's probably still in my top 10, Varlamov is not making my top 60, if he makes it at all. The seasons I'm excluding from Sawchuk are 5 peak years as good as any goaltender in history. Anyways, here's the stats:

Name	GP	Shots	Saves	Sh/G	GA	GAA	SV%	Min
Sawchuk	569	16979	15408	29.84	1571	2.81	0.907	33526
Varlamov	552	16727	15320	30.30	1407	2.67	0.916	31611

And here's the league around them - Sawchuk and Varlamov - and the most relevant issue is what to set the minimum games played to get your rankings. I have it set at 100 games initially, but you could also use 200 or 400.

	Sawchuk		Varlamov
100	5/16 GAA; 7/16 SV%		t43/108 GAA; t16/108 SV%
200	5/9 GAA; 6/9 SV%		32/54 GAA; t14/54 SV%
400	4/5 GAA; 5/5 SV%		19/26 GAA; t8/26 SV%

All of the lower games played goalies (apart from Hodge) are below Sawchuk in their statistics, so he's anywhere between the 3rd-5th best goaltender of his era, depending on how much you value the 9000 more minutes he played than Johnny Bower, and what you think of Worsley, no matter which games played metric you use. On the other hand, you're basically dividing Varlamov's sample in half every jump, 108 to 54 to 26. Based on a minimum of 400 games played, Varlamov is somewhere between the 8th and 19th best goaltender of his era. Feel free to go through all 26 to rank him more precisely, my exact ranking isn't really the purpose of this comparison.

In a scoring environment that's virtually identical, their shots faced and saves are nearly identical, and I'm not even trying to claim anything about which stats are better - they're just broadly similar. I was casting about for another similar goaltender, and this one turned up. Scoring's significantly higher in this person's era between 67-68 and 77-78 (I cut out their first year and their last 4), but here's the career:

Name	GP	Shots	Saves	Sh/G	GA	GAA	SV%	Min
Vachon	576	16464	14899	28.58	1565	2.80	0.905	33530

Vachon made it to the Hall of Fame, but it took him 35 years to do so. Here's his contemporaries and their numbers. It's weird that there's 6 guys that played 500 games, and nobody that played 400 in the sample, but whatever. Vachon's probably the 5th or 6th best goaltender of his era.

I don't know whether or not the aggregate comparisons or the 3-way comparison make my point in any sensible manner, but I've spent way too much time on this post to delete it now. I will be posting that separate post shortly after this, which also may or may not illustrate my points.

 

[Vilica]

I went away from this for a bit, and thought about another metaphor that might help illustrate my point. In the pandemic year of 20-21, the NHL was divided into 4 different leagues, with no crossover, 3 of 8 teams and 1 of 7. Much like pre-expansion, there is a 4th best starter in each of those 4 leagues, one where if voters were restricted to a single division of voting, would finish 4th in Vezina/AS in that league. Here's the guys from each division that played 20 games or more (behind a spoiler):

Spoiler: Goalies by Division

		Pacific	GP	GAA	GA%-			Canada	GP	GAA	GA%-
12	VGK	Fleury	36	1.98	78	77	EDM	Smith	32	2.31	84
33	COL	Grubauer	40	1.95	84		TOR	Campbell	22	2.15	85
	MIN	Talbot	33	2.63	93	45	WPG	Hellebuyck	45	2.58	91
	LAK	Petersen	35	2.89	96		VAN	Demko	35	2.85	92
	STL	Binnington	42	2.65	98		MTL	Allen	29	2.68	101
	ARI	Kuemper	27	2.56	101		CGY	Markstrom	43	2.66	104
	ANA	Gibson	35	2.98	105		MTL	Price	25	2.64	107
	MIN	Kahkonen	24	2.88	107		EDM	Koskinen	26	3.17	109
	LAK	Quick	22	2.86	111		TOR	Andersen	24	2.96	114
	SJS	Jones	34	3.28	113		OTT	Murray	27	3.38	116
							VAN	Holtby	21	3.67	120

		East	GP	GAA	GA%-			Central	GP	GAA	GA%-
56	NYI	Varlamov	36	2.04	77		CAR	Nedeljkovic	23	1.9	74
	NYI	Sorokin	22	2.17	89	64	NSH	Saros	36	2.28	79
	BUF	Ullmark	20	2.63	90		FLA	Driedger	23	2.07	80
	NYR	Shesterkin	35	2.62	91	21	TBL	Vasilevskiy	42	2.21	82
	BOS	Rask	24	2.28	94		CBJ	Merzlikins	28	2.77	91
	PIT	DeSmith	20	2.54	96		DET	Bernier	24	2.99	93
	PIT	Jarry	39	2.75	99		DAL	Oettinger	29	2.36	96
	WAS	Vanecek	37	2.69	100		DET	Greiss	34	2.7	96
	NJD	Blackwood	35	3.04	106		CHI	Lankinen	37	3.01	98
	PHL	Elliott	30	3.06	121		NSH	Rinne	24	2.84	101
	PHL	Hart	27	3.67	134		CAR	Reimer	22	2.66	102
							FLA	Bobrovsky	31	2.91	102
							DAL	Khudobin	32	2.54	103
							CBJ	Korpisalo	33	3.3	115

The same 7 players got all the votes for Vezina/AS, the first number is the Vezina finish, the second number is the AS finish. Look at the GA%- number for the 4th guy in each division that started over half the team games - Petersen 96, Allen 101, Vanecek 100, Oettinger 96. The seasons don't become above-average because they're 4 of 8 instead of being 16 of 31. Like I said before, if voters are restricted to each division, those players are going to get random 2nd/3rd place votes. Here's that same list sorted by league:

Spoiler: Goalies by League

			GP	GAA	GA%-
1	CAR	Nedeljkovic	23	1.9	74
2	NYI	Varlamov	36	2.04	77	56
3	VGK	Fleury	36	1.98	78	12
4	NSH	Saros	36	2.28	79	64
5	TBL	Vasilevskiy	42	2.21	82	21
6	COL	Grubauer	40	1.95	84	33
7	EDM	Smith	32	2.31	84	77
8	BUF	Ullmark	20	2.63	90
9	WPG	Hellebuyck	45	2.58	91	45
10	NYR	Shesterkin	35	2.62	91
11	CBJ	Merzlikins	28	2.77	91
12	VAN	Demko	35	2.85	92
13	MIN	Talbot	33	2.63	93
14	BOS	Rask	24	2.28	94
15	LAK	Petersen	35	2.89	96
16	DAL	Oettinger	29	2.36	96
17	DET	Greiss	34	2.7	96
18	STL	Binnington	42	2.65	98
19	CHI	Lankinen	37	3.01	98
20	PIT	Jarry	39	2.75	99
21	WAS	Vanecek	37	2.69	100
22	ARI	Kuemper	27	2.56	101
23	MTL	Allen	29	2.68	101
24	FLA	Bobrovsky	31	2.91	102
25	DAL	Khudobin	32	2.54	103
26	CGY	Markstrom	43	2.66	104
27	ANA	Gibson	35	2.98	105
28	NJD	Blackwood	35	3.04	106
29	SJS	Jones	34	3.28	113
30	TOR	Andersen	24	2.96	114
31	CBJ	Korpisalo	33	3.3	115
32	OTT	Murray	27	3.38	116
33	PHL	Elliott	30	3.06	121

Petersen, Oettinger, Vanecek and Allen are in the middle, just like they're supposed to be. Fleury/Grubauer show that you can have 2 great goalie seasons in the same division. I'm saying that the 2nd or 3rd best, or even 4th best, can still be an objectively good season in a league with a limited amount of teams. All I'm asking you to do is consider how your Vezina/AS vote would go if you were forced to consider all 4 divisions independently, and extrapolate that out to the 6 team pre-expansion era.

[You could also do this for the 12-13 season using conferences, but no way I'm gonna dig up those numbers now, I've spent too many hours on these posts already.]

 

[MXD]

I'm curious on any arguments to break up what is usually considered a clear top 8 for goalies. Vezina came out of the pre merger project looking really good.


Price is going to be ranked all over the place. By contemprary reputation he's in the 10-15 range. By award voting he's outside the top 30. I think the truth is in the middle.

I thought it was mostly a Top-7 that's widely considered lock-and-shut.
Anyways... I do see myself a Top-8, with what's probably considered a surprised invitee (and not 8th).

As to Price, I just got to 20 and it didn't cross my mind even once that he belonged there, considering there has to be a certain distance between him and Lundqvist (and that Lundqvist in the Top-10 feels absolutely ludicrous... I mean, it may be right, but it does feel ludicrous, and as far as I know, I've traditionally been amongst the highest on Lundqvist). And I suspect I'm the participant who has been exposed to most to Price.

I'll tell you someone else I'm looking forward to discussing, and that's Holecek. The stats are lacking (as in hard to find, not poor,) but the reputation is good, and WC three gold medals, outdueling Tretiak is nothing to sneeze at. He's a recent guy to dig a lot of stuff up on, but I wonder if there's something we're missing with him.

I think he has to be very close to Tretiak for history to make any sense.

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

Jonathan Quick. Not saying he has to be in or anything, but he certainly feels like one of the best 80 netminders of all time.

As a comparison, in 2012, the 80th netminder was Don Edwards (I swear that has nothing to do with my post above). Dan Bouchard and José Théodore were 78th and 79th. Granted, that was an aggregate list of Top-60ies, instead of Top-80ies.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Anyone has any kind of insight on Don Edwards?

I'm curious about him too. Added to my list.

Fairly similar numbers to his Buffalo contemporaries, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

 

[ChiTownPhilly]

While I'm dabbling on the scouting time machine...if anyone has any goalies that you thought might have looked good but the team wasn't or the numbers don't jive with what you saw...feel free to drop that name in here, I'm happy to check him or them out as time allows...

Capable Goaltender playing on a squad with denizens of Llareggub as teammates kind of screams Al Rollins- but a) video for that wretched team's gotta be hard to come by, and b) Al Rollins will probably wind up getting his love on an 80-deep list, anyway.

Anyone want to make an argument for anyone other than Hasek or Roy at #1? They've owned that spot on our lists. Does anyone think that's wrong?

From memory, I recall that two contributors to the most recent top-100 all players/all time list had Plante as the GOAT. Now, two on a panel of 30+ makes that decidedly an outlier opinion- but let the record reflect: that viewpoint is out there.

As to Price, I just got to 20 and it didn't cross my mind even once that he belonged there, considering there has to be a certain distance between him and Lundqvist (and that Lundqvist in the Top-10 feels absolutely ludicrous... I mean, it may be right, but it does feel ludicrous, and as far as I know, I've traditionally been amongst the highest on Lundqvist). And I suspect I'm the participant who has been exposed to most to Price.

I think [Holecek] has to be very close to Tretiak for history to make any sense.

1) I don't have him there now- but Lundqvist has a non-trivial top-dozen case. A decade-and-a-half has passed since Brodeur was relevant in the conversation of world's best netminders. So- does the consensus best Goalie of the last 15 years merit a spot at least in the top-20?

2) Holecek scraped his undercarriage a bit more often than Tretiak did. So, I think previous panels have done right by having a few postal codes between Tretiak and Holecek.

Now, I think one could make a case for the duo Holecek/Dzurilla to be not so far behind the duo Tretiak/X (most famously Myshkin)- but that's not to do with the Tretiak-Holecek head-to-head.

 

[Michael Farkas]

At some point or another, I'm (we're?) gonna be up on cinderblocks when it comes to goalies from too far back. I also wonder at what point they actually became goaltenders, as opposed to defensemen with bigger pads. I've read some accounts of guys on the Coast skating out with the puck to a degree that sounds a little fishy to me. I think it's in the pre-1950 goalie research thread, but since I'm working backwards from present day, I haven't gotten close to that yet.

But I'll check on Al Rollins briefly. He doesn't really have enough seasons of obviously quality play to really qualify for my list. But he's worth a quick look, if possible.

I think Lundqvist should get a lot of consideration. He was consistently upper tier for a long time. A decade straight of basically elite play...yes, on generally good defensive teams, but he was a high quality goalie, he was very good in the playoffs, but got no run support. International play is there. He's basically just really good everywhere for an uncommon length of time for this era while also playing workhorse games.

It's gonna be a struggle to push him out of the top 20. Perhaps higher...

 

[jigglysquishy]

I'm putting Lundqvist in my top 20.

 

[Michael Farkas]

@ContrarianGoaltender bro, I ****** see you haha...when can we expect your list?

 

[MXD]

As of now, Lundqvist is Top-20 (comfortably, too); Price and Vasi top-30.

 

[overpass]

I appreciate the detailed responses overpass, and while I don't think I'm going to make paragraph responses in this post to those points explicitly, I'm going to try to compose some in the near future. Let me first try a different tack in illustrating my initial point, breaking the sample down to individual seasons. There are 12 seasons for which we have save percentage data pre-expansion, 55-56 through 66-67. We have more than 12 seasons post-lockout, but let's choose the last 12 years, 12-13 through 23-24. Now let's take the AS-1, AS-2, AS-3, and AS-4 finishers each year, and average out their GAA and save percentages, as well as games played. Here's an initial table:

	LA GF	LA GF/G	LA GF/82		LA GF	LA GF/G	LA GF/82
55-56	177	2.53	207.3	12-13	127	2.65	217.0
56-57	188	2.69	220.2	13-14	219.0	2.67	219.0
57-58	196	2.80	229.6	14-15	218.0	2.66	218.0
58-59	203	2.90	237.8	15-16	219.0	2.67	219.0
59-60	206	2.94	241.3	16-17	223.0	2.72	223.0
60-61	210	3.00	246.0	17-18	240.0	2.93	240.0
61-62	211	3.01	247.2	18-19	244.0	2.98	244.0
62-63	208	2.97	243.7	19-20	208	2.97	243.7
63-64	194	2.77	227.3	20-21	162	2.89	237.2
64-65	201	2.87	235.5	21-22	255.0	3.11	255.0
65-66	213	3.04	249.5	22-23	258.0	3.15	258.0
66-67	209	2.99	244.8	23-24	253.0	3.09	253.0
		2.88	235.8			2.87	235.6

Basically, almost exactly the same scoring level in each 12 year period. Also, because there were 3 shortened seasons in the second sample, teams only played 912 games during those years, compared to the 910 games played pre-expansion. [I could have opted for 05-06 through 16-17 as an alternative sample, though that would've been lower scoring, at 225.5.]

Now, here's the aggregated average of the postseason all star place each year. There were a few years with missing votes pre-expansion, so for those years I chose the best season by GA%- not already picked - ends up being 3 Worsley seasons, 2 Bower seasons, and 1 Simmons season to cover 57-58 3rd/4th, 58-59 3rd/4th, 59-60 4th, 61-62 4th.

			AS-1							AS-2
	GP	Shots	Sh/G	GA	GAA	SV%		GP	Shots	Sh/G	GA	GAA	SV%
66-67	66.83	2015.17	30.170	160.17	2.413	0.921		59.17	1677.33	28.132	141.92	2.428	0.915
23-24	55.42	1649.75	29.781	118.42	2.175	0.928		54.50	1568.58	28.702	116.50	2.176	0.926
			AS-3							AS-4
	GP	Shots	Sh/G	GA	GAA	SV%		GP	Shots	Sh/G	GA	GAA	SV%
66-67	50.42	1586.67	31.322	130.67	2.582	0.918		54.67	1758.00	31.624	153.08	2.788	0.913
23-24	59.00	1693.83	28.582	135.58	2.319	0.920		54.08	1606.83	29.610	124.33	2.352	0.923

You have a couple outliers in games played, but 4 of the 8 samples are right at 55 games. When you break down the games played into 10s, 11 pre-expansion goalies played 70, while only 2 modern goalies did, then 16 pre-expansion goalies played between 60-70, while 19 modern goalies did (27-21 total), then 9 pre-expansion goalies played between 50-60, while 13 modern goalies did (36-34 total), then 3 pre-expansion goalies played between 40-50, while 10 modern goalies did (39-44 total), and finally 9 pre-expansion goalies played between 30-40, while 4 modern goalies did (48-48 end total).

Professor What did an aggregate of the 6th best goaltender from the lockout just above, and came up with a GAA of 2.36 and a save percentage of 0.919, virtually indistinguishable from the AS-4 line.

I'm with you so far.

There's basically a packet of 4th-10th goalie-seasons that you'd take ahead of the AS-4 pre-expansion because all of those seasons are below-average.

And here you lost me. Why would I take those 4th-10th best seasons in one year ahead of the 4th best season in another year? What is so bad about being "below-average"? You realize that's just a mathematical property based on all the goalies in the league, it's not the colloquial use of the term "below-average" which implies a value judgement? Or are you equivocating between the two meanings of "below-average"?

They don't magically become above-average stats just because they're the 4th best season of the 6-10 total seasons.

Surely "4th best" is more important than "above-average". Especially when we're comparing stats from leagues that vary in size from 6 to 30 teams, so the average performance in one league was very different from the average performance in another league.

I think we all realize that "4th best" can also vary from season to season as well, and we can consider the competition in each season for those top rankings. But it's not biased by league size in the way that "above average" and "below average" are.

 

[Michael Farkas]

As of now, Lundqvist is Top-20 (comfortably, too); Price and Vasi top-30.

I'm pretty positive Vasy will be top 20 as well. I can't imagine Price is too far off of that for me either. Depends on how hard I lean towards talent, I'm thinking it's going to be pretty hard...team distribution just can't be such a strong factor in this, when we know its effects on goalie "performance" on paper...

 

[ChiTownPhilly]

...I'll check on Al Rollins briefly. He doesn't really have enough seasons of obviously quality play to really qualify for my list. But he's worth a quick look, if possible.

The problem with leaving Al Rollins, Seth Martin, Dzurilla or even Chico Resch off our lists is that we have to convince ourselves that there are seventy-five to seventy-nine options better than those- and I'm not sure I can get there from here.

With an 80-deep list, there will be no other positional project where we will so soon encounter obvious NON-Hall-of-Famers-and those Non-Hall-of-Famers will be, like, half our submissions.

 

[Michael Farkas]

I'm not ignoring this comment, I've just not worked back that far yet to comment coherently. You might be right, I might look back on this and go, "that's a crazy thought."

 

[Professor What]

I thought it was mostly a Top-7 that's widely considered lock-and-shut.
Anyways... I do see myself a Top-8, with what's probably considered a surprised invitee (and not 8th).

I see Dryden and Tretiak as being pretty interchangeable, personally. I'm open to the case as to why that's wrong though. I know that some people are a lot lower on Tretiak, and yet he still managed to finish just one rank behind Dryden on the last list. That's got to mean that a lot of people have them closer, right? Either way, I think they're pretty well locked into my 7/8 slots.

As to Price, I just got to 20 and it didn't cross my mind even once that he belonged there, considering there has to be a certain distance between him and Lundqvist (and that Lundqvist in the Top-10 feels absolutely ludicrous... I mean, it may be right, but it does feel ludicrous, and as far as I know, I've traditionally been amongst the highest on Lundqvist). And I suspect I'm the participant who has been exposed to most to Price.

I don't see the case for Price top 20 either. I've got him top 30 at the moment, but I don't see a case for him much higher. I get it, he passes the eye test, and he had one monster season, but outside of that, it's hard for me to see him as having any other great seasons. Several good ones, yes, and certainly enough to easily make the final list, but I just don't think the results represent the reputation. I may get eviscerated for that since I know he has his fans, but I'd like to hear the arguments that I should raise him that aren't based on him being "talented" or "advanced" or other adjectives like that. Tell me what it is about his actual results that have him top 20 or top 15 or whatever.

Capable Goaltender playing on a squad with denizens of llareggub as teammates kind of screams Al Rollins- but a) video for that wretched team's gotta be hard to come by, and b) Al Rollins will probably wind up getting his love on an 80-deep list, anyway.

Am I crazy for thinking Rollins belongs somewhere close to Hextall? You guys know how I feel about awards being the be all, end all, but Rollins' Hart record can't be ignored can it? I think it is somewhat overblown (as in I don't know why he won the Hart in 1954 unless it was a sympathy vote), but he did a pretty danged good job on some really bad Blackhawks teams. Not a lot of longevity, but meanwhile, Hextall had what? His rookie year? He finished 51 on the aggregate list last time, and while he would have been passed by a few, he's still going to be comfortably top 80, which I feel makes Rollins safe too.

From memory, I recall that two contributors to the most recent top-100 all players/all time list had Plante as the GOAT. Now, two on a panel of 30+ makes that decidedly an outlier opinion- but let the record reflect: that viewpoint is out there.

I can think of one poster off the top of my head that thinks that, and I wouldn't mind seeing him chime in here. I know the opinion exists, but I'd love to hear the rationale behind it. I see him in a logjam with Brodeur, Hall, and Sawchuk.

1) I don't have him there now- but Lundqvist has a non-trivial top-dozen case. A decade-and-a-half has passed since Brodeur was relevant in the conversation of world's best netminders. So- does the consensus best Goalie of the last 15 years merit a spot at least in the top-20?

I've got him top 20. I'd be interested in hearing the top dozen case though. That's putting him with the likes of Broda and Benedict.

 

[jigglysquishy]

Vasilevsky has been in the most favourable situation of any goalie the last ten years. Deep possession strong team. Consistently good. D able to clear the zone and minimize second chances.

But he's always looked good and the bedrock of the team. I'll keep him in the 20-30 range, but I would need to be convinced to put him higher.

 

[Vilica]

I'm with you so far.



And here you lost me. Why would I take those 4th-10th best seasons in one year ahead of the 4th best season in another year? What is so bad about being "below-average"? You realize that's just a mathematical property based on all the goalies in the league, it's not the colloquial use of the term "below-average" which implies a value judgement? Or are you equivocating between the two meanings of "below-average"?



Surely "4th best" is more important than "above-average". Especially when we're comparing stats from leagues that vary in size from 6 to 30 teams, so the average performance in one league was very different from the average performance in another league.

I think we all realize that "4th best" can also vary from season to season as well, and we can consider the competition in each season for those top rankings. But it's not biased by league size in the way that "above average" and "below average" are.

The falloff in statistical performance isn't linear when expanding from 6 to 30 teams. If you ranked years, you won't get 1->1, 2->2, 3->3, 4->4, 5->5, 6->6, it's more like 1->1, 2->7, 3->13, 4->19, 5->25, 6->30. Let me return to the 62-63/19-20 comparison again, because I've found another way to show you comparable seasons. [Reminder: Teams played 70 games in both those years, and scoring was the same in both years, at 208.]

Name	GP	Shots	Saves	Sh/G	GA	GAA	SV%	Min
Sawchuk	48	1328	1211	27.67	117	2.54	0.912	2760
Binnington	50	1430	1304	28.60	126	2.56	0.912	2948

Same games played, same shots faced, same GAA, same save percentage, same minutes played. Sawchuk had an AS-2 finish, Binnington finished 7th in both AS and Vezina voting. St. Louis scored 223 and allowed 190 in 71 games, Detroit scored 200 and allowed 194 in 70 games. They're identical resumes, 60 years apart.

2nd place doesn't have any intrinsic meaning. It's obviously harder to finish 2nd in a sample of 500 than it is in a sample of 2. As your sample expands, you're just getting a more accurate range of seasons, whatever you're measuring. You could add 498 sample seasons to your initial sample of 2, and end up with the top 2 being the same.

[For the sake of the argument, imagine a 100m dash - your initial sample includes Noah Lyles and Kishane Thompson, and their times are 9.784 and 9.789. You can add 498 other times (say of male 100m sprinters from this year) to your sample, those 2 are still going to be 1 and 2 in it. Now imagine your initial sample is Noah Lyles and yourself, and then fill in the other 498 slots. Now, given the same parameters, you finish 1st and 500th. 2nd place has no raw value.]

I could develop this further, but I'm trying to cut down on the time I spend on each post.

 

[ChiTownPhilly]

I see Dryden and Tretiak as being pretty interchangeable, personally. I'm open to the case as to why that's wrong though. I know that some people are a lot lower on Tretiak, and yet he still managed to finish just one rank behind Dryden on the last list. That's got to mean that a lot of people have them closer, right? Either way, I think they're pretty well locked into my 7/8 slots.

Am I crazy for thinking Rollins belongs somewhere close to Hextall? You guys know how I feel about awards being the be all, end all, but Rollins' Hart record can't be ignored can it? I think it is somewhat overblown (as in I don't know why he won the Hart in 1954 unless it was a sympathy vote), but he did a pretty danged good job on some really bad Blackhawks teams. Not a lot of longevity, but meanwhile, Hextall had what? His rookie year? He finished 51 on the aggregate list last time, and while he would have been passed by a few, he's still going to be comfortably top 80, which I feel makes Rollins safe too.

I've got [Lundqvist] top 20. I'd be interested in hearing the top dozen case though. That's putting him with the likes of Broda and Benedict.

1) I'm one of those dissenters who has Tretiak ahead of Dryden. I made some posts about it during the top-100 project of six years ago... and I suppose I could dredge them up if/when relevant.
[On my Top-100 Prelim List, I also had Tretiak ahead of Brodeur, but (as of the present moment) I've reconsidered.]

2) Rollins is BETTER than Hextall. I looked through the Hockey News top-100 Gs list, and quickly enough found a dozen-plus names to whom my reaction was "not in any universe I can see are they a top-80 Goaltender." Hextall's on that list. Crawford and Osgood have (imo) slam-dunk cases for being superior to Hextall... and Ranford & Nabokov have arguable cases for being superior- and none of those five have any kind of guarantee of rating a mention in my final submission.

3) I got Lundqvist behind Benedict, ahead of Broda. For me, this puts him close to the top-dozen, but not quite there. A key note on Broda is that he was the beneficiary of the most rigorously disciplined defensive system of the time, implemented by Hap Day. To be sure, Broda's results look golden in the playoffs- but when a couple of different projects looked at "Retro Smythes," they tended not to pick Broda- they chose Teeder Kennedy.

 

[Michael Farkas]

I may get eviscerated for that since I know he has his fans, but I'd like to hear the arguments that I should raise him that aren't based on him being "talented" or "advanced" or other adjectives like that. Tell me what it is about his actual results that have him top 20 or top 15 or whatever.

There is none. But - to use internet-argument pseudo-intellectual "science" - that's your own bias that's preventing you from getting there. (I don't really mean that, of course).

Here's my thing...and I'm trying my best to make this my approach within some degree of reason...otherwise my list will be rejected. And I would understand.

We know, especially in the modern era, whatever that is...we know that goalie stats are - to some degree - a product of team and team defense. It started with "wins is a team stat", then it was "GAA is a team stat", somehow save pct. was the last to go, but I think we can pretty plainly tell that there are team factors there now too.

There is at least some correlation between those stats and Vezina voting.

There is at least some correlation between Vezina voting + those stats and reputation.

We also know that over a longer period of time, eventually you get found out if you're a fraud in all likelihood. "Fraud" is too strong. Maybe, "you're not all you're cracked up to be" is better...

So...

Let's use Dominik Hasek. Everyone loves Dominik Hasek. VanIslander ordered "the Dominik Hasek" at a drive-thru the other day, he can't stop talking about great he was. Hasek played more years pro than basically any goalie ever, yet he's at least a mid-sized "what if" case.

What if...he could have come over from Czechoslovakia sooner?
What if...Chicago kept him instead of Belfour?
What if...Buffalo wasn't this, apparently, ragtag group of farmers and sheepherders...?
What if...that Ottawa team got to play in 2005 with him...?

Blah blah blah...why? Why does a man with a 48 year pro career where he had access to best on best tournaments, was thrust immediately into a Stanley Cup Final, played for a couple of pretty diesel teams (mid-2000's Senators, the Wings, etc.)...why does he get the "what if" so much...?

People thought he was unreal to watch and that he had unreal talent and that the prime of his career was "wasted" in Buffalo. And if only he had played somewhere else, far, far away from Vaclav Varada, he would have aced everything. Point of order, he left Buffalo for the best team in the land and immediately won a Stanley Cup.

Stands to reason that maybe he could have won more if he was with Detroit all that time...perhaps.

##

Carey Price played for the post-1994 Montreal Canadiens. A franchise that went from a Who's Who to Who's That in a snap and stayed that way for 30 years. Turnover at coach, at GM, at captain, can't find offense, sometimes can't play defense depending on the year...up until Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield, Habs fans were pining for the days of 35 year old Alexei Kovalev who was probably smoking a pack a day while on the ice because of how little talent this team has had.

Boston. Relatively little turnover in the last 15 years. The defensive center for all time that can still hang in there and dish his way to some nice point totals. The shutdown d-man for all time - one that Habs fans tried to have arrested. Defensive structure that changed offensive tactics for years to come. Their goalies of record...a minor leaguer and a hothead who can't skate. The latter I think retied as the all time leader in save pct. or very, very close to that. Not that he isn't good, but to have that skating in this era and produce that result...? Eeeeeeeeee....something else must be afoot.

##

Are you telling me...I'm not saying this for all goalies because not all goalies benefit from the same things...but in this case I am. Are you telling me that Carey Price as a Boston Bruin is not - at least - a 5x Vezina winner? Raycroft for the rights to Price or whatever. Just swap the trade out instead of Rask. Play it out. Because of the stats and the accolades, he is almost certainly the unquestioned goalie of the era - even over Lundqivst. I'm not saying perfect health and perfect well-being either. Just...he's a Bruin all this time. I think it's an absolute lock of, literally, the century.

Why does Hasek get the what-if? He was an "A" talent. He was an elite talent. It was weird, it had its flaws, but he was so good at it that he made it an art and he made it work for three decades.

Carey Price is an "A" talent. What if...................................

 

[Professor What]

There is none. But - to use internet-argument pseudo-intellectual "science" - that's your own bias that's preventing you from getting there. (I don't really mean that, of course).

Here's my thing...and I'm trying my best to make this my approach within some degree of reason...otherwise my list will be rejected. And I would understand.

We know, especially in the modern era, whatever that is...we know that goalie stats are - to some degree - a product of team and team defense. It started with "wins is a team stat", then it was "GAA is a team stat", somehow save pct. was the last to go, but I think we can pretty plainly tell that there are team factors there now too.

There is at least some correlation between those stats and Vezina voting.

There is at least some correlation between Vezina voting + those stats and reputation.

We also know that over a longer period of time, eventually you get found out if you're a fraud in all likelihood. "Fraud" is too strong. Maybe, "you're not all you're cracked up to be" is better...

So...

Let's use Dominik Hasek. Everyone loves Dominik Hasek. VanIslander ordered "the Dominik Hasek" at a drive-thru the other day, he can't stop talking about great he was. Hasek played more years pro than basically any goalie ever, yet he's at least a mid-sized "what if" case.

What if...he could have come over from Czechoslovakia sooner?
What if...Chicago kept him instead of Belfour?
What if...Buffalo wasn't this, apparently, ragtag group of farmers and sheepherders...?
What if...that Ottawa team got to play in 2005 with him...?

Blah blah blah...why? Why does a man with a 48 year pro career where he had access to best on best tournaments, was thrust immediately into a Stanley Cup Final, played for a couple of pretty diesel teams (mid-2000's Senators, the Wings, etc.)...why does he get the "what if" so much...?

People thought he was unreal to watch and that he had unreal talent and that the prime of his career was "wasted" in Buffalo. And if only he had played somewhere else, far, far away from Vaclav Varada, he would have aced everything. Point of order, he left Buffalo for the best team in the land and immediately won a Stanley Cup.

Stands to reason that maybe he could have won more if he was with Detroit all that time...perhaps.

##

Carey Price played for the post-1994 Montreal Canadiens. A franchise that went from a Who's Who to Who's That in a snap and stayed that way for 30 years. Turnover at coach, at GM, at captain, can't find offense, sometimes can't play defense depending on the year...up until Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield, Habs fans were pining for the days of 35 year old Alexei Kovalev who was probably smoking a pack a day while on the ice because of how little talent this team has had.

Boston. Relatively little turnover in the last 15 years. The defensive center for all time that can still hang in there and dish his way to some nice point totals. The shutdown d-man for all time - one that Habs fans tried to have arrested. Defensive structure that changed offensive tactics for years to come. Their goalies of record...a minor leaguer and a hothead who can't skate. The latter I think retied as the all time leader in save pct. or very, very close to that. Not that he isn't good, but to have that skating in this era and produce that result...? Eeeeeeeeee....something else must be afoot.

##

Are you telling me...I'm not saying this for all goalies because not all goalies benefit from the same things...but in this case I am. Are you telling me that Carey Price as a Boston Bruin is not - at least - a 5x Vezina winner? Raycroft for the rights to Price or whatever. Just swap the trade out instead of Rask. Play it out. Because of the stats and the accolades, he is almost certainly the unquestioned goalie of the era - even over Lundqivst. I'm not saying perfect health and perfect well-being either. Just...he's a Bruin all this time. I think it's an absolute lock of, literally, the century.

Why does Hasek get the what-if? He was an "A" talent. He was an elite talent. It was weird, it had its flaws, but he was so good at it that he made it an art and he made it work for three decades.

Carey Price is an "A" talent. What if...................................

I'm not sure I completely follow. I don't really see Hasek as a what if case myself. I see him competing for the #1 slot based simply on what happened. We're supposed to be taking their whole careers into account anyway. That's one thing I think this board does better than say, THN. We don't look merely at the NHL, it's a true history of hockey situation. What did Hasek do in Czechoslovakia? He make the big leagues at 16 and was a regular starter by 18. He won the Golden Hockey Stick three times. He was big time there.

If you're looking at Hasek as a "what if" it's a what if like Bobby Orr and Mario Lemieux are. We ultimately know what we're looking at, it's just a matter of getting more of it if he comes to the NHL sooner or is selected over Belfour (who is an arguable top 15 goalie of all time himself, so not immediately recognizing that Hasek would be better isn't really a slight), or if he plays for Detroit the whole time. The trophy case just looks more impressive (at least from a North American perspective), just as Orr's and Lemieux's would if they hadn't been injured so much.

But at the same time, if we're going to look at Price as a what if case, shouldn't we do the same thing for Lundqvist? What if Lundqvist plays his whole career in Boston? Would his trophy case not look something similar to what you're saying Price's would? Lundqvist actually was a five-time Vezina finalist. Is it so much of a stretch that he would have won five Vezina's on a loaded team? Do the Bruins not fare better in their Stanley Cup appearances? They're still going to win 2011, but I think they probably win in 2013 as well. Rask had an absolute meltdown in game 6 that year, something that I feel confident Lundqvist wouldn't have done. Could you say the same thing about Price there? Yeah, probably so, so what's the difference. Point is, if you can play the what if game with Price, I think you can play it with Lundqvist as well, and I think you can come to the same verdict.

The thing is, I'm not really interested in playing a what-if game. I'm interested in what actually happened. Hasek probably gets my #1 vote based on what actually happened. Lundqvist looks top 20 to me based on what actually happened. Price looks top 30 to me based on what actually happened. I have no issue with calling all of them A talents (or even A+ talents), but the results, for whatever reason, are what they are.