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

[Professor What]

Isn't he also the only goaltender to captain his team to a Stanley Cup Championship?

Did Bill Durnan do it? He was only captain one season I believe.

According to hockey-reference, Durnan was only the captain for the 1947-48 season, and the Leafs won the Cup that year. So Durnan didn't do it.

 

[jigglysquishy]

I think Sawchuk is the most vulnerable of the 3 O6 goalies. For all the high praise in the 80s and 90s I can't find any in the 55-65 timeframe. You see praise during the Cup run, then a whole lot of so so praise until way after his retirement.

I don't know when his untouchable reputation starts, but I can't find anything pre 1985.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Short, fun video of LA vs California from '73. Good exhibition of:
a) Vachon vs Meloche and the obvious differences between them.
b) A game with no white jersey
c) music fit for some films that require ID to rent or purchase
d) what a hot dump the quality of the game looks like, I know these are original expansion clubs, but the third and fourth waves of expansion are really rough sometimes. Like, the Canadiens vs Blues Cups aren't bad. Clearly Montreal is better, but it's not a stealth bomber versus some archers and pikemen. This game is just both teams........bad. Boo.



Is @SealsFan still around? It'd be cool to hear what he thinks of Meloche and, if it springs to mind, Meloche vs. the rest of the circuit. Because, I got news friends...I'm not sure Meloche isn't better than Vachon. Vachon is more mobile and fun. But....hmmm...

 

[nabby12]

Isn't he also the only goaltender to captain his team to a Stanley Cup Championship?

Did Bill Durnan do it? He was only captain one season I believe.

Yes, that's correct! As far as I'm aware, Gardiner is the only goalie to captain a Stanley Cup winning team.

 

[nabby12]

I think Sawchuk is the most vulnerable of the 3 O6 goalies. For all the high praise in the 80s and 90s I can't find any in the 55-65 timeframe. You see praise during the Cup run, then a whole lot of so so praise until way after his retirement.

I don't know when his untouchable reputation starts, but I can't find anything pre 1985.

Agreed he's the most vulnerable of the 3 O6 goalies. But to anyone that actually physically saw Sawchuk play from 1950 to 1955, he's the GOAT, which carries some weight.

Obviously he didn't sustain that peak throughout his career, but his 1967 cup run was nothing short of heroic, in addition to being the first goalie to reach 100 shutouts.

 

[DN28]

I'm not saying don't rank Kralik, I'm just arguing that maybe Irbe should be higher. Part of this comes down to how you rate peak vs. career, and how you interpret career arcs (I'm not saying we should completely distrust late bloomers, but everything counts, and most goalies don't get the framing of "look at these 3 good years and ignore the rest"). It also has to do with how you rate the depth of the goalie talent pool in 1985 vs. the 1990s/2000s.

Kralik's domestic play is absolutely important to consider, and I agree it makes him a serious candidate for the list. But with respect to his international career, he also has the following on his record:

1979 WC: Arguably the worst performance by a Czechoslovakian starting goalie from 1964-1992 at a WC, including 24 saves on 34 shots in two GP against the Soviets

1980 Olympics: Arguably the worst performance by a Czechoslovakian starting goalie from 1964-1992 at an Olympics, with 11 GA in the 2 crucial games against USA/Sweden

1981 Canada Cup: Plays 19 minutes backing up Karel Lang

1984 Canada Cup: Either doesn't make the team or doesn't play

1984 Olympics: Plays 1 game and shuts out Austria, Jaromir Sindel plays the rest and puts up a 1.50/.954

And that's pretty much it, other than some Izvestia appearances where he mostly did well against Sweden/Finland and less so against the Soviets.

Arturs Irbe, on the other hand, burst onto the scene at the age of 21 while touring with Dynamo Riga in the 1988 Super Series against NHLers where he was widely praised, playing behind a relatively weak squad. He then had a short but seemingly strong run on a great team very early in his international career for the USSR:

1.72/.926 in 3 GP at the 1989 WC
1.60 GAA in 5 GP at the 1989 Izvestia
0.95/.950 in 6 GP at the 1990 WC
1.35/.930 in 5 GP at the 1990 Goodwill Games

He then played for Latvia where he led them to the world championship A group in 1996 and then proceeded to do this over the rest of his career:

World Championships for Latvia, 1997-2005:

Irbe: 21-13-7, 2.36, .913
Everyone else: 2-14-1, 3.83, .867

Obviously Irbe's backups are replacement level at best but his defence wasn't anything special either, and that gives him success on both powerhouses and underdogs. Hence why I'd argue that Irbe had the better international career (and definitely the more consistently strong one), even if you view Kralik as having a higher peak.

I agree ranking Irbe or Králík (and any other goalie) depends on what a voter is looking for in a goalie. I definitely prefer goalies with a staying power, longevity, with consistent performances through multiple eras.. goalies who maintain their level in high leverage games..

So I should clarify why I even included Králík on my list. Although his case rests on 3 great seasons, I don't want to create a picture where he was a bush league goalie through all of his other years.

There are some positive indications of his talent from late 60s till mid 70s but Králík truly became relevant in 1977. He led the league in SV% (over Holeček, Dzurilla, Crha..) and received decent Golden Stick support in spite of not playing anything international yet.

Králík was Holeček's backup in the National team during the 1978 season but at the last minute before the Championship, coaches went back to Jiří Crha whom they took as a 2nd goalie. (Crha would later emigrate and play 2 seasons for Toronto).

In 1979, Králík's recorded the single-season best SV% in the Czechoslovak league. His 0.9379 % exceeded the best individual seasons' SV% of Holeček, Dzurilla and other 60s-70s goalies as well as Hašek's later in the 80s. No other Czechoslovak goalie in the league brought forth the SV% as high as '79 Králík..

Which brings me to my point. How to rate this season? I'm afraid a lot of people would look at Králík's premiere at the '79 WHC and scratch that season off as "zero value". You correctly point out Králík didn't play well at the Championship (and played even worse a year later at Lake Placid) but he also displayed one of the best goaltending on a domestic level comparable to Holeček or Hašek's top performances.

Králík's play at the league level was good enough to secure him 4th place in the Golden Stick voting for both 1979 and 1980 in spite of disappointing or just outright terrible play at the Championship and Olympics.

Just to avoid misunderstanding, I'm not saying you, or anybody else in this thread, is stating this binary view I've just described. I only used your response to add more nuance to Králík's career. And to defend me ranking Králík above Irbe despite the latter being an NHL calibre goalie for longer.
_______________________

I'm glad you're bringing Irbe's international play. Irbe had very good 1990 WHC for Soviets and always played great for Latvia for a decade. I'm all for counting international tournaments post-1990. Some goalies made a great name for themselves thanks to multiple international achievements. Quality of those tournaments varied but the mental pressure put on goalies by the local fans was large. Off the top of my head goalies who performed well on this level were Pekka Rinne, Tommy Salo, Tomas Vokoun, Henrik Lundqvist, Niklas Backstrom, Vasilevskiy.. From North America, Price, Luongo, Brodeur, Ranford had a few great tournaments.. I'm sure I forgot some more..

 

[Mrb1p]

Carey Price bout to be under ranked by about 59 spots

 

[Dr John Carlson]

Carey Price bout to be under ranked by about 59 spots

Maybe, or maybe not. You have the power to sway opinion by submitting a list of 80, or making a case for him when he's up for voting!

 

[MadArcand]

Re: Burke/Irbe. Ok, Burke is holding in my watchlist right now. I had a former pro goalie tell me that he should be on my "C" list. Either way, it sounds pretty close. So, it could be on me and how I'm constructing the list by mostly going backwards through time.

Try to watch him as a Whaler or Coyote, he was at his best there and much more consistent compared to his Devils years. Seems to have changed his style a lot between those two stops as well, which is something you might find interesting.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Try to watch him as a Whaler or Coyote, he was at his best there and much more consistent compared to his Devils years. Seems to have changed his style a lot between those two stops as well, which is something you might find interesting.

- Sean Burke @MadArcand this is a tough one. He showed adaptability. He looks a lot different from New Jersey to Phoenix. He sort of starts out almost as a Sawchuk disciple - with a big hulking style. This was leaving some big holes in his lateral movement that appeared to cause him to give up a lot of five hole and other low goals. Then he sort of morphed into more of a Glenn Hall disciple. Shuffle ability wasn't really a big thing with pads yet, and he still wasn't the most agile skater, but he was able to use his size to make it work if the puck moved across the net. He's a mental game guru these days, so I assume his mental game was strong and not winning a playoff series after his rookie year was more a product of his teams than him. I guess I should check out the 1998 series vs Buffalo - that one sort of sticks out as winnable or at least competitive and it wasn't very close. He's on my W list right now. He's sort of like Liut in some respects, both seem like could have been a little better than they were...which made for some really great games and really meh games...

Indeed I do. I noted such here: HOH Top 60 Goaltenders of All Time (2024 Edition) - Preliminary Discussion Thread

 

[jigglysquishy]

Carey Price bout to be under ranked by about 59 spots

Well he's a lock guarantee for top 59 so we won't have to worry about that.

He'll end up top 30, maybe even top 20. At least one person will have him top 10.

 

[bobholly39]

Well he's a lock guarantee for top 59 so we won't have to worry about that.

He'll end up top 30, maybe even top 20. At least one person will have him top 10.

Hopefully 2

I've been working on a list - haven't had a chance to finish yet, been very busy past few weeks. I was hoping to have more time to work on this than I have.

 

[The Macho King]

I'm going to try and get a list together but I just started a new job so.... yeah.

 

[VanIslander]

Rinne > Rask in terms of contemporary Finn goalies, if you factor in/out team accomplishments and individual greatness.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Rinne > Rask in terms of contemporary Finn goalies, if you factor in/out team accomplishments and individual greatness.

That's a tough one, I don't think that's right. What Rask lacks in skating, he more than makes up for in his tracking and his incredible pad speed. Despite that pad speed, he had the thoughtfulness to do right by his heel extensions to mute rebounds pretty well - certainly much better than Rinne in that regard...Rinne is a rebound machine.

I think Rask is technically better in a lot of ways. Rinne can move laterally better, no question. Rinne's got the glove (not that I found Rask's to be bad by any stretch). They were both in choice situations for most of their respective careers, so I don't really need to mentally adjust for that.

Technically, I'd say that Rask is probably a good 1.5 or 2 tiers above Rinne. If you really, really value skating, maybe it's just 1 tier. That's fair, but you have to apply that down the line too...so that would hurt guys like Hasek, Thomas, Worsley, etc.