HOH Top 60 Goaltenders of All Time (2024 Edition) - Round 2, Vote 1

[ContrarianGoaltender]

I wanted to do a post on coaching impacts for the Original Six guys, so throwing this in now. Probably too late to change any rankings, but this is for my own research and interest as much as anything else.

I'm not doing any backup numbers because goalies of these era often played the entire season. I will use my coaching ratings (explained in post #103), and I'm also posting team discipline numbers, although be warned that the pre-1964 team data is missing and is therefore purely based on PIM relative to league average, which is an estimate at best (that number reflects which teams are more or less likely to fight or take misconducts, not just penalties which actually need to be killed).

I have made a few manual edits to the raw coaching numbers for situations where a goalie's sample represents over 50% of the coach's career, and therefore the estimate isn't going to be as reliable. They are marked in bold with the raw number in parentheses, I'll explain them all in some detail just to be clear so you can make your own corrections if you disagree with me.

Let's start with Terry Sawchuk:

Goalie

From

To

GP

SA

Sv%

LgAvg

Coach

GP

% w/G

Coach

Disc

Adj

GSAA

Sawchuk

1950​

1954​

277​

7754​

0.931​

0.911​

Ivan

503​

55%​

0.90 (0.78)​

0.95​

0.923​

96.3​

Sawchuk

1955​

1955​

68​

1786​

0.926​

0.915​

Skinner

247​

43%​

0.96 (0.89)​

0.99​

0.923​

15.0​

Sawchuk

1956​

1957​

102​

3113​

0.917​

0.916​

Schmidt

770​

13%​

1.09​

1.07​

0.924​

24.4​

Sawchuk

1958​

1958​

70​

2172​

0.905​

0.909​

Skinner

247​

43%​

1.02 (0.89)​

0.88​

0.901​

-4.3​

Sawchuk

1959​

1964​

306​

8989​

0.903​

0.909​

Abel

964​

32%​

1.08​

0.89​

0.910​

15.1​

Sawchuk

1965​

1967​

91​

2705​

0.912​

0.907​

Imlach

889​

10%​

0.92​

1.07​

0.904​

-7.9​

Sawchuk

1968​

1968​

36​

912​

0.891​

0.910​

Kelly R

742​

5%​

1.06​

1.13​

0.898​

-10.9​

Sawchuk

1969​

1969​

13​

318​

0.912​

0.908​

Gadsby

78​

17%​

1.01​

1.13​

0.913​

1.6​

Sawchuk

1970​

1970​

8​

187​

0.893​

0.912​

Francis E

778​

1%​

1.00​

0.95​

0.893​

-3.5​

O6 Total

1950​

1967​

914​

26519​

0.915​

0.910​

1.00​

0.96​

0.914​

125.8​

Exp Total

1968​

1969​

57​

1417​

0.896​

0.910​

1.05​

1.11​

0.901​

-12.7​

Notes:
- Tommy Ivan's raw coaching number is 0.78, in large part because half of his career was coaching Sawchuk during the Red Wings dynasty. This is a huge outlier on my coach's list, as the next-best mark for any coach with at least 300 games in the NHL is Al Arbour's 0.88. The other well-known elite defensive coaches (Burns, Lemaire, Shero, Bowman, Imlach, Julien, etc.) tend to be clustered around 0.90-0.92, which indicates we'd expect a very good defensive coach on a good team to fall closer to that range.
- I adjusted Ivan in Detroit to a 0.90, as I do think this was probably one of the more favourable goalie environments. The Wings look like they were fairly disciplined, and I think they played pretty hard during the regular season.
- Jimmy Skinner's actual coaching number was 0.89, but he spent his entire career with either Sawchuk or Hall in net in Detroit, which again means that his number is going to be not representative. I think by the mid-'50s the Wings were declining a bit, but they were likely still allowing easier than average shots, so I'll set his number at 0.96 (and use the same number for Hall later). For 1957-58, the Wings had clearly declined, and Skinner was fired around midseason and replaced by Abel. Normally I'm just taking the coach who played the most games for each season, but here to be fair to Sawchuk I'll take an average of their two ratings and assign 1.02.
- This method gives Sawchuk a fair amount of credit for the Boston years and his second time around in Detroit, as Milt Schmidt and Sid Abel both had well below-average goaltending results over their long coaching careers.
- I rate Sawchuk as a minus for the rest of his career. Punch Imlach pretty clearly had a favourable defensive environment for goalies, so it doesn't really surprise me to see Sawchuk a touch below average (keep in mind that Original Six average is still a tougher bar to clear than post-expansion league average though).
- Post-expansion Sawchuk didn't achieve a lot, he was playing in tough situations but still was likely subpar.
- Overall, most of Sawchuk's value is peak, but he was probably still very effective through 1963-64, and that was despite often declining in the second half of seasons as posted upthread. After that he likely did fall off significantly.

Speaking of Glenn Hall:

Goalie

From

To

GP

SA

Sv%

LgAvg

Coach

GP

% w/G

Coach

Disc

Adj

GSAA

Hall

1953​

1953​

6​

144​

0.931​

0.916​

Ivan

503​

1%​

0.90 (0.78)​

0.96​

0.923​

1.0​

Hall

1955​

1957​

142​

4165​

0.927​

0.915​

Skinner

247​

57%​

0.96 (0.89)​

0.81​

0.924​

38.2​

Hall

1958​

1963​

416​

12615​

0.912​

0.907​

Pilous

387​

100%​

1.04 (0.94)​

1.19​

0.915​

102.4​

Hall

1964​

1967​

202​

6201​

0.923​

0.910​

Reay

1102​

18%​

0.90​

1.06​

0.915​

31.3​

Hall

1968​

1970​

108​

3034​

0.917​

0.910​

Bowman

2141​

5%​

0.91​

0.96​

0.909​

-2.0​

Hall

1971​

1971​

32​

867​

0.918​

0.903​

Arbour

1607​

2%​

0.88​

1.00​

0.907​

3.7​

O6 Total

1953​

1967​

766​

23125​

0.918​

0.909​

0.99​

1.08​

0.917​

172.9​

Exp Total

1968​

1971​

140​

3901​

0.917​

0.908​

0.91​

0.97​

0.909​

1.8​

Notes:
- Jimmy Skinner shows up again, the adjustment to his numbers was explained above. As mentioned the Wings were likely declining through the mid-'50s, but they still finished first overall as late as 1956-57.
- 100% of the NHL games coached by Rudy Pilous were with Glenn Hall in net, which makes my coaching metric of no value whatsoever for judging Hall during this stretch. This is a very important adjustment, as it covers 416 games of Hall's career including some of his best seasons. I would argue that this was likely not a favourable save percentage environment, though. In 1958, Chicago missed the playoffs, but Hall was still named First Team All-Star goalie despite a below league-average save percentage, which definitely indicates that observers thought he had a tough job. The Hawks then barely squeaked into the playoffs by a 5 point margin in 1959 and 1960. They also had a very rate of PIM compared to league average, so unless they were fighting way more than average then that would have made it tougher for their goalie as well. There are some accounts of the Blackhawks that portray the team as being pretty run-and-gun, and I believe they are more from this period than the later stretch under Reay (who had pretty strong goaltending results during his career). I ended up putting down 1.04 (tougher than average); how you rate this period has a pretty big impact on how you view Hall's regular season career.
- Billy Reay has very good goalie stats over a very long career, and the Hawks were really good in the mid-'60s, so this indicates that Hall's numbers for those seasons were a bit team-aided. This might be a bit unfair to Hall, though, as the post-expansion league average bar would have been much easier to clear than the Original Six one.
- Hall's favourable environments continued in his late career with Bowman and Arbour, both among the all-time best according to my metric
- Overall, I think Hall delivered quite a bit more regular season value than Sawchuk, unless you think Rudy Pilous was a better defensive coach and you think that Sawchuk's team support at his peak was worse than estimated here. And it's entirely possible that the gap is larger still if you don't rate Billy Reay as highly either.

Lastly, Jacques Plante:

Goalie

From

To

GP

SA

Sv%

LgAvg

Coach

GP

% w/G

Coach

Disc

Adj

GSAA

Plante

1953​

1955​

72​

1991​

0.929​

0.916​

Irvin

550​

13%​

0.92​

1.11​

0.923​

14.3​

Plante

1956​

1963​

484​

13676​

0.920​

0.909​

Blake

914​

53%​

0.97 (0.93)​

1.05​

0.917​

114.4​

Plante

1964​

1965​

98​

3561​

0.908​

0.914​

Sullivan R

364​

27%​

1.08​

0.83​

0.914​

2.0​

Plante

1969​

1970​

69​

1990​

0.931​

0.910​

Bowman

2141​

3%​

0.91​

0.93​

0.924​

29.6​

Plante

1971​

1973​

106​

3267​

0.925​

0.901​

McLellan J

310​

34%​

0.93​

0.97​

0.919​

60.0​

Plante

1973​

1973​

8​

220​

0.927​

0.896​

Johnson T

208​

4%​

0.92​

1.05​

0.921​

5.4​

O6 Total

1953​

1965​

654​

19228​

0.919​

0.911​

0.98​

1.02​

0.917​

130.7​

Exp Total

1969​

1973​

183​

5477​

0.927​

0.904​

0.93​

0.96​

0.921​

95.1​

Notes:
- I think Dick Irvin's number is probably reasonably accurate, given his reputation
- Toe Blake's actual number was 0.93, mostly with Plante in net. These are the Hab dynasty years, so it has to have been a favourable environment for goalies, but it doesn't seem that the team was overly disciplined. I also think there had to be a clear difference between Irvin's more defensive style and Blake's "firewagon hockey". See these quotes from Jacques Plante by Todd Denault:

"Under Irvin, the Canadiens' defence was instructed to circle around the red line, while the forwards were in the opponent's end of the rink. Now, Blake wanted his defence-men to move up towards the blue line."

Dickie Moore: "We were urged to always pinch, to always take offensive chances. Sometimes those chances left Jacques all alone. He was the last man on the ice...There was a lot of pressure on him - he was the one who had to bail us out."

- If you ignore the Plante years and look at Blake's numbers from 1963-64 to 1967-68, he rates at 0.97, so I'm going to just use that number for him here, but you could certainly argue that the team quality of the dynasty Habs means that the adjustment should be stronger.
- Playing as a Ranger was difficult, no surprise there, but Plante did not do particularly well even taking that into account, which to me is the only significant strike against him in his career.
- Plante did well in a very favourable environment under Bowman in St. Louis.
- Plante's Toronto number should be taken with a huge grain of salt, as he had pretty much stopped playing against good teams in the regular season by that point of his career (although he still did quite well if you isolate him against good teams only - I have him at .918 vs .904 league average with what I define as non-contending teams removed from 1968-69 to 1972-73)
- Overall this has Plante slightly ahead of Sawchuk but well behind Hall in Original Six value, then blowing them both out of the water post-expansion.

Additional Considerations:

- I mentioned earlier in this thread about rewarding non-NHL years, when goalies were most likely NHL quality. All of these goalies were pretty much definitely NHL ready before they actually made it to the show.
- Sawchuk was the First Team All-Star in the AHL in 1949-50 in his age 20 season. He also impressed in his 7 game NHL stint. I ran across this quote from Lynn Patrick in 1950: "There are only three big-league goalies in the league right now and one of them is in the minors." Just a reminder that this was the guy actively coaching Chuck Rayner, in a league that also included Bill Durnan, Turk Broda, Frank Brimsek and Harry Lumley.
- Sawchuk also played a full season in the AHL the previous year at age 19, and had a similar GAA. He might even have been NHL good that early, but age 20 is a typical starting year for elite talents throughout history, so let's give him credit for one additional season, probably at star-level quality, given that people rated him highly, his team cleared the way for him the next season, and he hit the ground running strongly as an NHL starter (I'll say 24 GSAA in 63 GP, pro-rating his play in 1949-50 and 1950-51)
- Glenn Hall played one season in the AHL (age 20) and three in the WHL (age 21-23, where he was awarded 2nd Team All-Star in 1952-53 and 1st Team All-Star in 1954-55).
- It's tough to evaluate his AHL year, as he played on a team that was in its last year before folding and seems to have sold off most of their good players from the year before. But getting awards recognition at age 21 in probably the third-best league in the world is an indicator that he probably should have been playing in the NHL at age 21, so let's give him 3 additional NHL-quality seasons as a capable starter (15 GSAA in 210 GP, because of course he's playing every game)
- Jacques Plante was paid to be the Montreal Canadiens' practice goalie starting in the 1949-50 season, when he turned pro with the Montreal Royals, in his age 21 season, and was widely viewed to be #3 in the club's pecking order behind Durnan and McNeil. He very likely have been in the NHL in an expanded league at that age, as he was the First Team All-Star goalie in both the preceding seasons in the Quebec Junior League, a league that was pretty stacked with NHL prospects. Just a reminder, Plante didn't become a full-time starter until 1954-55 at age 26, so that's up to five additional seasons that we could potentially give him credit for. Plante's unofficial save percentage in the regular season and playoffs in 1952-53 and 1953-54 combined was .937 in 837 SA, which is fantastic. If use those numbers along with 1954-55 to estimate his previous years (and discount his GP because Plante wouldn't play the entire schedule), and assume he would have gotten the job in 1950-51 in another NHL scenario, I'll estimate additional credit of 37 GSAA in 220 GP.
- In addition, Jacques Plante sat out for three seasons from 1965-66 to 1967-68, mainly because of his wife's deteriorating health and a sense that he was away from his family too much, rather than a lack of an ability to play.

Plante: "I have never been as well paid or any happier than I have been with New York. I won't make near the money in my new job but I'll be with my family and that is the most important thing right now. I enjoyed it, but it takes you away from your family for most of the year."

- In this period, he suited up for the Junior Canadiens and shut down the Russians in a famous 2-1 win. Obviously we don't know if playing those years would have impacted his eventual longevity, but in another environment he probably doesn't stop playing at age 36, especially given how much success he was still yet to have.
- I'm not going to give him much credit for this period, though, since he didn't have a lot of success with the Rangers and probably would have had some injury issues if he was playing any kind of starter workload. Let's say 6 GSAA in 120 GP.
- That said, I am not sure that Plante plays until age 44 in other eras (and especially not if he plays those 3 extra years in his late thirties). He was definitely one of the best old goalies ever, though, on the short-list with Hasek and Bower, but he might have got a bit more mileage out of the weaker expansion era than he would have at another time. Hasek did make it to age 43 in the post-lockout NHL, but that's also a pretty extreme outlier. Maybe we could subtract a couple off the back end for Plante, but that still gives him five or six additional seasons that he could have easily been an NHL goaltender in another era (I'll take off his 1971-72 and 1972-73 seasons from the estimates for my revision below, and adjust 1970-71 a bit for team quality).
- Opinions are going to differ based on how much "what if" credit different voters are prepared to give. But I rate Plante's elite longevity as the best ever. I doubt he would have been a below league-average goaltender at any point in his life from age 21 or 22 all the way until age 44, and transport him to another era and that's still mostly true, except maybe he probably doesn't get quite so far into his forties. Roy retired at 37, Brodeur had his last full regular season and Finals run at age 39. I think the only one of the group that has an argument for matching Plante is Hasek, if you think he was at least NHL average good in Europe (which I personally do).

Revised Career Estimates with Non-NHL Estimates Included:

	NHL	NHL	Non-NHL	Non-NHL	Combined	Combined	NHL	NHL
Goalie	O6 GP	O6 GSAA	O6 GP	O6 GSAA	O6 GP	O6 GSAA	Exp GP	Exp GSAA
Sawchuk	914​	126​	63​	24​	977​	150​	57​	-13​
Hall	766​	173​	210​	15​	976​	188​	140​	2​
Plante	654​	131​	340​	43​	994​	174​	109​	48​

Peak Play (Best Individual Seasons):

1. Sawchuk, 1952: 45.4
2. Plante, 1959: 34.3
3. Hall, 1961: 32.5
4. Plante, 1962: 31.9
5. Hall, 1957: 30.2
6. Sawchuk, 1951: 28.6

Playoffs:

	O6	O6	O6	O6	O6	Exp	Exp	Exp	Exp	Exp
Goalie	SA	SV%	Coach-Adjusted SV%	LgAvg	GSAA	SA	SV%	Coach-Adjusted SV%	LgAvg	GSAA
Sawchuk	2933​	0.918​	0.917​	0.911​	19.3​	186​	0.871​	0.880​	0.911​	-5.6​
Plante	2485​	0.922​	0.918​	0.911​	17.9​	566​	0.922​	0.915​	0.907​	4.9​
Hall	2706​	0.911​	0.909​	0.909​	-1.0​	899​	0.911​	0.902​	0.910​	-7.2​

Overall:

I came in with Plante in my top tier with Hasek and Roy, and Sawchuk and Hall in the next tier with Tretiak and Brodeur. I don't think that really changes as I still think Plante is the best of these three, when you factor in everything including playoffs, non-NHL years and elite longevity, but Sawchuk really rose in my estimation, especially since I don't care as much about workload, and I'm inclined to give a lot more "what-if" credit for injuries, which I think really hurt him in some of those second-half dropoffs. I think there is a pretty good chance that we're still underrating Hall's team situation here, both in the regular season and especially in the playoffs, so I'm not dropping him as far as some of the other voters. But I'm still going to flip Sawchuk ahead of Hall this round, for my first time ever in an all-time goalie ranking.

 

[overpass]

- 100% of the NHL games coached by Rudy Pilous were with Glenn Hall in net, which makes my coaching metric of no value whatsoever for judging Hall during this stretch. This is a very important adjustment, as it covers 416 games of Hall's career including some of his best seasons. I would argue that this was likely not a favourable save percentage environment, though. In 1958, Chicago missed the playoffs, but Hall was still named First Team All-Star goalie despite a below league-average save percentage, which definitely indicates that observers thought he had a tough job. The Hawks then barely squeaked into the playoffs by a 5 point margin in 1959 and 1960. They also had a very rate of PIM compared to league average, so unless they were fighting way more than average then that would have made it tougher for their goalie as well. There are some accounts of the Blackhawks that portray the team as being pretty run-and-gun, and I believe they are more from this period than the later stretch under Reay (who had pretty strong goaltending results during his career). I ended up putting down 1.04 (tougher than average); how you rate this period has a pretty big impact on how you view Hall's regular season career.
- Billy Reay has very good goalie stats over a very long career, and the Hawks were really good in the mid-'60s, so this indicates that Hall's numbers for those seasons were a bit team-aided. This might be a bit unfair to Hall, though, as the post-expansion league average bar would have been much easier to clear than the Original Six one.

Great post.

I just want to add my interpretation of Glenn Hall's coaching situation. I think the main difference between Rudy Pilous and Billy Reay on the 60s Hawks is that Pilous had better depth defensive players and used them better. For example, penalty killing specialists Earl Balfour and Bob Turner, and rock-solid veteran defensemen Jack Evans and Dollard St Laurent. And you can see the team scoring under Pilous was more balanced than under Reay.

Reay came in and gave more ice time to the top two lines and unleashed Pierre Pilote. Hull and Mikita started killing penalties. This worked well for much of the season but the Hawks fell off in March and lost in the playoffs every year, possibly because they overplayed their stars and didn't have the depth required for the playoffs. And their penalty kill was a weak point.

Then Reay really changed to a more defensive style around 1970, reining Hull and Mikita in. But Hall was gone by then.

I firmly believe Hall's defensive support in the playoffs was better under Pilous than under Reay. In the regular season? I don't know, if the numbers point to Reay maybe that's the way to go. But I do think Reay's approach changed to be more defensive after Hall left, so I think your numbers might be too low on Hall with Reay.

 

[seventieslord]

I'm 100% certain I'm voting Patrick Roy #1 this round. We already litigated Roy vs. Hasek here a decade ago, and I don't think the points in his favour and against Hasek have really changed since then.

21.4
14.2
14.0
13.5
9.2
7.3

... those are Roy's best GSAA in single playoffs.

14.0
11.7
11.0
2.1
1.4
1.3

...those are Hasek's best.

The goal is winning important hockey games and Stanley Cups, right? Roy not only actually did that, but his individual contributions towards that goal were clearly stronger. This is not a case of, "well, Hasek performed just as well but his team let him down..." - flat out, Roy was better in the playoffs, over a larger sample, with many more games played deeper in the playoffs. I don't know if there's another matter I feel that strongly about in this entire round. Roy is #1.

In fact, I'm becoming warmer and warmer to the idea that Hasek was a bit of a flake that you couldn't always count on. He was an exceptional talent and once upon a time I thought he was #1 all-time myself. But now I don't even have him #2. That honor goes to Jacques Plante. He's got a resume that is unassailable. Hasek's resume... well, you can assail it, a little. But Plante? He's got the individual achievements, the team achievements, the strong statistical performance throughout his career in both the regular season and playoffs, he was clearly an innovative mind and a technical master who had an immense influence on the position, and eye test guys really love what they see in him. He was truly the master.

Now, Hasek, don't feel bad, I only consider you-a scum compared to Patrick!

Yeah, you see how you-a scum.

I don't really see anyone unseating Hasek as my #3. I see a clear separation between him and the next-best of his generation, Brodeur, who got a way too easy ride this round, such a separation that I will need to fit one, probably two, original six guys in between them for emphasis. I mean really, how many times did we talk about New Jersey having the fewest PP opportunities against in the NHL more times than they didn't? Save percentage isn't everything, because shot quality is such a key factor, right? What kinds of shots are of the highest quality? Powerplay shots! And his save percentage was never really anything to write home about to start with...

Anyway, so there's Hall/Sawchuk, then Brodeur, then Tretiak, and then Dryden... I don't hate Dryden here, but I do think he has been shown to be less of a difference maker than these other guys.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Brodeur, who got a way too easy ride this round

To be fair, he's gotten 20 years of tougher-than-deserved rounds. It's about time that he doesn't get killed for something that basically every goalie is on the receiving end of at some point in their career haha

To folks at large, I'm going to try to get some video out tomorrow. I've had a lot of [stuff] going on recently that's taking longer than I thought...gotta keep the lights on though haha

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

I'm 100% certain I'm voting Patrick Roy #1 this round. We already litigated Roy vs. Hasek here a decade ago, and I don't think the points in his favour and against Hasek have really changed since then.

21.4
14.2
14.0
13.5
9.2
7.3

... those are Roy's best GSAA in single playoffs.

14.0
11.7
11.0
2.1
1.4
1.3

...those are Hasek's best.

The goal is winning important hockey games and Stanley Cups, right? Roy not only actually did that, but his individual contributions towards that goal were clearly stronger. This is not a case of, "well, Hasek performed just as well but his team let him down..." - flat out, Roy was better in the playoffs, over a larger sample, with many more games played deeper in the playoffs. I don't know if there's another matter I feel that strongly about in this entire round. Roy is #1.

In fact, I'm becoming warmer and warmer to the idea that Hasek was a bit of a flake that you couldn't always count on. He was an exceptional talent and once upon a time I thought he was #1 all-time myself. But now I don't even have him #2. That honor goes to Jacques Plante. He's got a resume that is unassailable. Hasek's resume... well, you can assail it, a little. But Plante? He's got the individual achievements, the team achievements, the strong statistical performance throughout his career in both the regular season and playoffs, he was clearly an innovative mind and a technical master who had an immense influence on the position, and eye test guys really love what they see in him. He was truly the master.

I'm sorry, but viewing Hasek as a flake while Plante is unassailable is the worst kind of anti-modern player bias.

All of these quotes are from Jacques Plante by Todd Denault:

"Frustration was mounting in all corners. Plante finally came forward with his sore knee and had it X-rayed, but doctors were unable to find anything amiss. This led some in the Canadiens organization to question whether there was indeed anything physically wrong with the underachieving Plante."

"Blake's patience with Plante was starting to wear noticeably thin. The team was floundering without Plante. Yet Blake found himself in an impossible situation: he couldn't rely on Plante when he needed him more than ever. Plante's endless stretch of injuries were worrisome in their frequency and distressing in their variety."

Frank Selke: "Plante will have to win his job back. I can't understand why a man is all right on a Friday, as Plante was, and then turns up sick on a Saturday. He's got to show me that he deserves to be in the nets for this club. He's got to show me that his attitude is right."

Plante: "It would be foolish to use me unless I'm perfectly all right and traveling with the club hasn't helped. If I had stayed home, I could have been treated. As things stand now, the injury hasn't improved."

Red Fisher: "Plante has been complaining about a hip and a groin injury, which more people associated with the front office and the club's medical department have been inclined to shrug off. It is their view that injuries are something of an obsession with the goaltender, and escape hatch, so to speak, for what has amounted to several unhappy experiences in the nets in recent games."

Selke: "We got rid of Plante because he couldn't depend on him anymore. Toe Blake couldn't have taken much more without punching him on the nose. He's the best goalie I've ever had and close to the best I've ever seen. But that doesn't say he can run the hockey club."

Selke: "Jacques Plante is an extrovert who can't put his personal interests aside for the benefit of the team. In the circumstances, no matter how brilliant a goaltender he may be, it was better than he left."

Fisher: 'Lookit,' hissed Blake, 'how would you like it, Sammy, to have a goalie who doesn't know when he's gonna play. How would you like to go from city to city and never be sure you'll have a goalie on the ice? As far as I'm concerned, I can't take it anymore.'

Frank Orr: "Blake thought he was a hypochondriac and that he dreamed up things. Blake was a very macho man, a man of his time, and expected all of his players to be the same. He would get mad when guys got hurt and he thought they were loitering when they didn't come back. He would rail on about Plante. The Canadiens back then wouldn't tolerate injuries. It was a pretty cruel system. If you got hurt a second time you were gone. When you slipped a little, that was it."

Dickie Moore: "Jacques' trade wasn't much of a surprise, because of his character. He was bigger than the team, and nobody's ever bigger than the team. Ultimately, it's a team game."

Emile Francis: "I could see in building that team up that the goaltending wasn't going to be good enough. Plante wasn't the type of a goalkeeper that you'd want to build a team around. Plante had been on a winning team and he sure as hell didn't want to be on a losing team. He was a loner, he didn't mingle with the players. He was never going to be the type of goalkeeper that the players were going to work their ass off for. As a former goaltender I could pick that up right away."

"Plante was set to play the final game of the year in Los Angeles. However, he begged off, claiming that he had a twinge in his knee. Bowman and his teammates believed that the knee was merely an excuse, as Plante knew that if he sat out his goals-against average would end the season below two. With Plante unable - or unwilling - to play, Glenn Hall stepped into the breach and played the Blues' final game of the 1968-69 season, a 2-1 victory."

Bowman: "He was always conscious of his goals-against average. That was the number that meant the most to him. People called it selfish, but for me a goalie who wants to keep his goals-against down is an asset and not a detriment. He was a very studious guy."

"In the days following his seventh Vezina win, Jacques Plante blasked in the praise and the accolades from the media and the fans, but in the St. Louis Blues dressing room one would be hard pressed to find a player less popular with his teammates. By sitting out, Plante had ensured that his goals-against average finished at 1.96, but he had paid a price for it."

Scotty Bowman: 'The players were upset with Plante, so they put all kinds of white tape around his luggage and painted a big red cross on it. Somebody wrote on the tape , 'Win #76 for Jacques.' He came down to the room about two minutes before the game was over and he was upset the players felt that way. That was on a Saturday. We went home the next day to start the playoffs on Wednesday. On Monday Plante came in and told me he wouldn't be able to play. By that time I had had it with him, I guess, so we went out of town to a hotel and I told him to stay in St. Louis. The day of the game we're getting off the bus at the Arena just as Jacques was pulling into the parking lot. Camille Henry, and I give him a lot of credit for this, came to me and said, 'I know how you feel. But he's not coming back, Scotty, unless we make a fuss over him, make him feel wanted. I know everybody's cheesed off with him, but I'm telling you I know what he's like. He'll coast right through the playoffs unless we appeal to his pride.' I thought that was a pretty good idea, so I talked to Plante and asked him how he felt. He had received special treatment that day for his knee at the clinic run by the football clinics. I tried to sympathize with him and that seemed to pep him up. He told me that he thought he could dress as a back-up that night but he still didn't think he could play."

"Much as he had in St. Louis with Glenn Hall, Plante consulted with his coach and Bruce Gamble, the backup goalie, about the playing schedule, trying to maximize the Leafs' chances for success. It was an arrangement that drew a fair share of criticism in hockey circles, as some felt that Plante was choosing his spots and avoiding many of the league's better teams in an effort to pad his own stats."

I'm posting all this not to run down Jacques Plante (who I also rate very highly), but to point out that team management is often overly demanding and far from always right about things, and also to show very clearly that Hasek seems to get uniquely picked on here for some of his eccentrities.

 

[BM67]

Montreal had the fewest PKs in the league during Roy's time there, and 70s top 100 list has Roy and 4 players that Roy won Cups with listed ahead of Brodeur, but Brodeur gets dinged for an easy ride?

 

[MadArcand]

I'm 100% certain I'm voting Patrick Roy #1 this round. We already litigated Roy vs. Hasek here a decade ago, and I don't think the points in his favour and against Hasek have really changed since then.

21.4
14.2
14.0
13.5
9.2
7.3

... those are Roy's best GSAA in single playoffs.

14.0
11.7
11.0
2.1
1.4
1.3

...those are Hasek's best.

The goal is winning important hockey games and Stanley Cups, right? Roy not only actually did that, but his individual contributions towards that goal were clearly stronger. This is not a case of, "well, Hasek performed just as well but his team let him down..." - flat out, Roy was better in the playoffs, over a larger sample, with many more games played deeper in the playoffs. I don't know if there's another matter I feel that strongly about in this entire round. Roy is #1.

Not a fan of this logic.

21.4 - Desjardins/Odelein/Brisebois/Daigneault on D, Carbonneau/Muller/Keane up front as notable defensive stalwarts. Meh D, solid defensive forwards.
14.2 - Chelios/Robinson/Svoboda/Ludwig on D, Gainey/Carbonneau/Skrudland/Keane/Walter up front. Ridiculously good team defensively.
14.0 - Robinson/Chelios/Ludwig/Green on D, Gainey/Carbonneau/Skrudland up front. Another defensively stacked team.
13.5 - Blake/Bourque/Foote/Klemm on D, Yelle/Reid/Podein up front. Stacked D, solid defensive forwards.
9.2 - Ozolinsh/Foote/Krupp/Lefebvre on D, Ricci/Yelle/Keane/Murray up front. That's a pretty good forward group and decent D.
7.3 - Ozolinsh/Foote/Lefebvre/Gusarov on D, Ricci/Yelle/Keane/Corbet up front. Still rather decent all around.


14.0 - Zhitnik/Woolley/Warrener/McKee on D, Peca/Juneau/Brown up front. Forwards look good, defense is mediocre to meh at best.
11.7 - Zhitnik/Woolley/Shannon/Smehlik on D, Peca/Brown up front. Thin at forward, pretty bad D.
11.0 - Bodger/Smehlik/Boucher/Muni on D, Wood/Hannan up front. Abomination.
2.1 - Lidstrom/Chelios/Schneider/Markov on D, Zetterberg/Datsyuk/Maltby/Draper/Cleary up front. Excellence.
1.4 - Zhitnik/Woolley/Patrick/Warrener on D, Gilmour/Brown up front. Very thin at forward, mediocre D.
1.3 - Lidstrom/Chelios/Duchesne/Olausson on D, Yzerman/Fedorov/Draper/Maltby/Datsyuk up front. Quite excellent.

That's a gross difference in defensive support right until Hasek got so old that Roy was already retired. Aside from the excellent '93, Roy was always on comparatively defensively stacked teams. If Brodeur gets dinged for playing on defensively great teams with defensive stalwarts, why doesn't the same apply to Roy?

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

If anyone wants to keep going after Hasek for the 1997 and 2006 playoffs, then fine. Keep that energy going when we come to Bill Durnan, or goalies who were injured in multiple playoff seasons (Bower, for example), but everybody can value whatever they want.

However, I can very easily deal with essentially all of the criticism of Hasek's regular season durability by pointing to one simple factor: Age.

Dominik Hasek became an NHL starting goalie at age 29. Goalie workloads tend to drop off significantly in their their early 30s.

For example, Glenn Hall is one of the most durable, high-workload goalies ever, right? You know how many times he played even 50 games after the age of 32? Only once. If Hall had become an NHL starting goalie at age 29, his consecutive games streak would have been a measly 152, rather than a legendary 502.

65+ Game Seasons in the NHL, by Age:

Goalie Age	65+ GP Seasons
21​	2​
22​	7​
23​	8​
24​	16​
25​	25​
26​	28​
27​	25​
28​	25​
29​	32​
30​	25​
31​	18​
32​	14​
33​	14​
34​	7​
35​	5​
36​	2​
37​	4​
38​	0​
39​	0​
40​	0​

The rates fall after age 30, and then drop off a cliff after age 33.

Let's focus more on Hasek. Here's how he ranks in minutes played by every goalie ever of the same age during his time as a starting goalie in the NHL:

Age 29: 57th
Age 30: 100th (shortened season, on pace for 9th)
Age 31: 38th
Age 32: 7th
Age 33: 6th
Age 34: 8th
Age 35: 46th
Age 36: 2nd
Age 37: 4th
Age 38: Did not play
Age 39: 21st
Age 40: Lockout
Age 41: 4th
Age 42: 1st
Age 43: 1st

In summary, Dominik Hasek was in the top 10 all-time in minutes played by age in 8 of his last 10 seasons. And this also shows how rare playing in the NHL at an advanced age is, given that a 14 GP season in 2003-04 just narrowly misses the top 20 all-time at age 39.

For the previous three seasons, he was 3rd in the league in minutes played from when Fuhr got hurt to the end of the season in 1993-94, he was on pace for 9th most ever by age 30 goalies in 1994-95 (probably not a fair extrapolation for a shortened season, but still no issues at all with his workload there), and then 58 GP in 1995-96, which was injury-impacted but still ended up 3-5 GP short of the typical Patrick Roy/Ed Belfour goalie season where a team is obviously saving their guy's energy for the playoffs.

We seriously think that's an unreliable goalie? If so, what does that make basically every other goalie age 34 or older not named Martin Brodeur?

This idea of Hasek as the guy who comes to the rink every night and flips a coin to decide if he plays or not is just a preposterous caricature based on no evidence whatsoever. Honestly, having read a lot about Plante over the last two weeks, I think Plante was way more flaky on a game-to-game, "Does he feel up to playing tonight?", coach-desperately-calling-on-the-backup-at-the-last-minute basis. Hasek simply took more time to return to the lineup after getting legitimately hurt. And it's a pretty rational assumption that the reason Hasek was hurt in the first place was due to the extremely high workload he was taking on, relative to his age.

As mentioned before, I think favouring a heavy goalie workload is honestly a pretty outdated concept, but if people are really into the whole "showing up every night" thing to the point where that becomes a significant factor in the greatest of all-time debate, then why in the world would you be high on Patrick Roy? The guy who never won a single game past the first round of the playoffs in a season where he played more than 63 times in the regular season, this is the guy? The goalie who cost his country the best netminder available in two best-on-best tournaments because he couldn't handle a heavy regular season workload, this is the guy we seriously think is putting Dominik Hasek to shame in that department?

 

[Michael Farkas]

Piggybacking - side-saddle maybe - off of that...notice how much "nerves" are a part of the old testaments on goalies? Hall puked. We're talking about Plante here. Sawchuk, McNeill, blah-de-blah, all down the line...guys full on quit because of "nerves" a lot. A lot a lot apparently. Do we read anything into that? Misdiagnosis of mental health issues? Stomach issues? Has anyone seen a pronounced issue with that with skaters from the same time?

I don't know where I'm going with this to be honest because it's so abstract, but is there any takeaways that anyone has made...? I try to read between the lines on a lot of stuff about the game, but I've never really done anything but take that kind of line at face value. It comes up a lot though, does it not?

 

[Dr John Carlson]

I've always assumed the nerves that older goalies faced were a combination of primitive or nonexistent equipment, together with knowing you'll be out a job if you either don't perform up to standards or become injured. Two factors that skaters didn't really have to worry about nearly as much.

 

[jigglysquishy]

One of the interesting lenses we've talked about it when a goalie loses a game. Basically, when they let in 4+ goals and make victory extremely difficult for their team.

Roy
1986: 2x 4+ goal games, 5x 3 goal games = 6x 3+ goal games
1993: 4x 4+ goal games, 5x 3 goal games = 9x 3+ goal games
1996: 5x 4+ goal games, 2x 3 goal games = 7x 3+ goal games
2001: 4x 4+ goal games, 4x 3 goal games = 7x 3+ goal games

Hasek
1999: 5 4+ goal games, 1x 3 goal games = 6x 3+ goal games
2002: 5x 4+ goal games, 4x 3 goal games = 9x 3+ goal games


Obviously scoring levels change and defensive support varies wildly. But if a goalie lets in 3 goals victory requires 4 goals i.e. very high goal support. If you let in 4, it requires 5 goals, a unreliably high amount of goal support.

It's more a metric of goalies making winning unlikely.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

I'm 100% certain I'm voting Patrick Roy #1 this round. We already litigated Roy vs. Hasek here a decade ago, and I don't think the points in his favour and against Hasek have really changed since then.


The goal is winning important hockey games and Stanley Cups, right? Roy not only actually did that, but his individual contributions towards that goal were clearly stronger. This is not a case of, "well, Hasek performed just as well but his team let him down..." - flat out, Roy was better in the playoffs, over a larger sample, with many more games played deeper in the playoffs. I don't know if there's another matter I feel that strongly about in this entire round. Roy is #1.

In fact, I'm becoming warmer and warmer to the idea that Hasek was a bit of a flake that you couldn't always count on. He was an exceptional talent and once upon a time I thought he was #1 all-time myself. But now I don't even have him #2. That honor goes to Jacques Plante. He's got a resume that is unassailable. Hasek's resume... well, you can assail it, a little. But Plante? He's got the individual achievements, the team achievements, the strong statistical performance throughout his career in both the regular season and playoffs, he was clearly an innovative mind and a technical master who had an immense influence on the position, and eye test guys really love what they see in him. He was truly the master.

Now, Hasek, don't feel bad, I only consider you-a scum compared to Patrick!

Yeah, you see how you-a scum.

I don't really see anyone unseating Hasek as my #3. I see a clear separation between him and the next-best of his generation, Brodeur, who got a way too easy ride this round, such a separation that I will need to fit one, probably two, original six guys in between them for emphasis. I mean really, how many times did we talk about New Jersey having the fewest PP opportunities against in the NHL more times than they didn't? Save percentage isn't everything, because shot quality is such a key factor, right? What kinds of shots are of the highest quality? Powerplay shots! And his save percentage was never really anything to write home about to start with...

Anyway, so there's Hall/Sawchuk, then Brodeur, then Tretiak, and then Dryden... I don't hate Dryden here, but I do think he has been shown to be less of a difference maker than these other guys.

If this is how you feel, then how do you justify putting Dryden at the bottom of this group?

 

[Michael Farkas]

Some more (playoff) data...

Goalie playoff data that I have compiled in good faith, but also manually...(I have made some adjustments to account for GP that weren't really relevant games played, so if you see me off in playoff GP compared to the legend, that's me removing a 20 minute relief appearance that wasn't relevant or some such)...

Giving up the first goal of the game:
Plante 41 in 110 GP (every 2.68 GP)
Hasek 49 in 114 GP (every 2.33 GP)
Roy 107 in 247 GP (every 2.31 GP)
Sawchuk 48 in 103 GP (every 2.15 GP)
Brodeur 96 in 204 GP (every 2.13 GP)
Dryden 55 in 112 GP (every 2.04 GP)
Hall 68 in 114 GP (every 1.68 GP)

Yearly tables

3rd period/OT lead management

"Surr. 3rd lead" means that goalie's team had a lead in the 3rd period and lost it.
"Surr. 3rd/OT tie" means that goalie's team was even with opponent in the 3rd period or OT and lost it.

Note: You can lose surrender a 3rd period lead AND a 3rd/OT tie in the same game. You can surrender them multiple times in a game, in fact. The per-game metric does not reflect the amount of leads or ties had, it is exactly what it says: per game.

Surrendered 3rd per lead:
Sawchuk 7 in 103 (every 14.71 GP)
Dryden 9 in 112 (every 12.44 GP)
Plante 10 in 110 (every 11 GP)
Brodeur 25 in 204 (every 8.16 GP)
Hall 15 in 114 (every 7.60 GP)
Hasek 16 in 114 (every 7.13 GP)
Roy 44 in 247 (every 5.61 GP)

Yearly tables

Surrendered 3rd period/OT tie:
Plante 15 in 110 (every 7.33 GP)
Sawchuk 22 in 103 (every 4.68 GP)
Dryden 24 in 112 (every 4.67 GP)
Roy 59 in 247 (every 4.19 GP)
Brodeur 53 in 204 (every 3.85 GP)
Hasek 34 in 114 (every 3.35 GP)
Hall 36 in 114 (every 3.17 GP)

Yearly tables

Managing momentum/game script/compounding problems...

Surrendering a goal within ~2 minutes of any other goal is deflating and cancels the emotion of your goal or really lets the game get off the rails for you...

Note: 2 minutes is not a solid number, because the difference between 2:00 and 2:07 is irrelevant, the shift length, amount of whistles, the time of the game, the overall score, and many other factors (road/home, etc.) factor into this...I made a judgment call on some of these. To my knowledge, it never, ever exceeds three minutes though. Full disclosure: There are times when I take a goal that happens 2:34 after another, but a time where I won't take one that's 2:10 after another based on my sense of the game script...this happens very rarely, but I want to say the words. In a near-future post, I will compile something called "Garbage Time Goals" - garbage goals are not tabulated in any other category, including this one. So giving up boom-boom, two quick ones at 18:24 and 19:01 of the 3rd period to make 8-1 then 8-2 is not relevant. Further, spanning a period does not count (i.e. a goal at 19:01 of the 1st and then 0:24 of the 2nd does not register here...that would take a greater game script read and more liberties than I thought I should be afforded).

Surrender a goal within 2 mins. of any other goal...(maybe this should be a per goal rate instead of per game? I'm providing the data, yous can interpret it)
Brodeur 37 in 204 (every 5.51 GP)
Hasek 21 in 114 (every 5.43 GP)
Roy 48 in 247 (every 5.15 GP)
Plante 29 in 110 (every 3.79 GP)
Hall 40 in 114 (every 2.85 GP)
Dryden 41 in 112 (every 2.73 GP)
Sawchuk 44 in 103 (every 2.34 GP)

Yearly tables

Garbage time goals.

Goals that have only an impact on statistics and, in the vast majority of cases, do not impact the game...goals that were scored against a team up or down 3 or more in the 3rd period and goals that were scored against a team up or down 5 or more goals at any time were rinsed out...

Garbage time goals (new playoff GAA with these goals, but not minutes removed by a lazy, lazy man)
Plante 30 (2.12 -> 1.85)
Brodeur 30 (2.02 -> 1.88)
Sawchuk 24 (2.53 -> 2.30)
Roy 23 (2.30 -> 2.21)
Hall 18 (2.79 -> 2.63)
Dryden 18 (2.41 -> 2.25)
Hasek 12 (2.02 -> 1.92)

 

[MXD]

How the actual f*** are guys like Ryan Walter playing 5 games out of 20, René Corbet and Pre-Prime Patrice Brisebois (!!!!!!!!!) raised as defensive difference makers?

 

[overpass]

If anyone wants to keep going after Hasek for the 1997 and 2006 playoffs, then fine. Keep that energy going when we come to Bill Durnan, or goalies who were injured in multiple playoff seasons (Bower, for example), but everybody can value whatever they want.

I take your point that Hasek had a crazy high workload for a 41 year old goalie in 2006, and it wasn't surprising that he got injured. As a Sens fan, it still hurts that the Senators had the best team in the league and were completely derailed by this goalie drama. But I realize in hindsight that it was crazy for the team to be so strong everywhere else and then start their 41 year old goalie in 42 of their first 56 games, with only an undistinguished rookie as a backup.

That said, Hasek's coach and teammates were upset not that he got injured, but that he looked like he could come back but refused to even try.

Quote from Bryan Murray, taken from Chris Stevenson's 2018 book "100 Things Senators Fans Should Know and Do before they Die".

Murray: When [Hasek] got hurt in the Olympics, we couldn’t understand why he didn’t come back and play, because he seemed to be able to do everything, stretch, until it came [to] game time. I watched him in the weight room, in the dressing room, do everything that a goaltender had to do and more and not play. That was really, really frustrating.

Murray: Ray [Emery] didn’t give up bad goals, but he didn’t make big saves...There will always be that question. When [Hasek] got hurt in the Olympics, was it so severe that he couldn’t come back? I never questioned a player in my life until Dominik. We just needed him to go in the net and stand there. He would have made a difference in the attitude. It was unfair to Ray Emery at that time. He was a second goaltender, a young guy who didn’t have stability. He had a compete level but not the stability in his game or life to allow him to lead a team to the Stanley Cup.

Daniel Alfredsson, Wade Redden, and Martin Havlat took Hasek out to lunch before Game 4 of the series, and begged him to give it a try. Hasek refused. He told his teammates that he could stand in net but they would lose 6-2, he wouldn't cheat them like that, and he walked away from the table. Per Hasek's own account on Off the Record that summer.

But yeah, other goalies have had their moments.

I don't know if Plante ever took a team down in the playoffs like this, but it certainly sounds like he would have done exactly what Hasek did if given the chance.

Sawchuk's 1953 playoff also caused a Cup favourite to lose. Although in that case it was the opposite of Hasek. Sawchuk was hurt and didn't want to play in the playoffs, but Glenn Hall's WHL team was still active in the playoffs, so the only alternative for the Wings was Dave Gatherum. Gatherum had just finished a season where his team finished last in the QSHL, and the Wings thought they were better off with Sawchuk playing hurt. He did play, and maybe he shouldn't have.

Piggybacking - side-saddle maybe - off of that...notice how much "nerves" are a part of the old testaments on goalies? Hall puked. We're talking about Plante here. Sawchuk, McNeill, blah-de-blah, all down the line...guys full on quit because of "nerves" a lot. A lot a lot apparently. Do we read anything into that? Misdiagnosis of mental health issues? Stomach issues? Has anyone seen a pronounced issue with that with skaters from the same time?

I don't know where I'm going with this to be honest because it's so abstract, but is there any takeaways that anyone has made...? I try to read between the lines on a lot of stuff about the game, but I've never really done anything but take that kind of line at face value. It comes up a lot though, does it not?

Yeah, nerves were a big story for goalies in the 1950s. Durnan, McNeill, and Sawchuk were the big stories. Frank Brimsek also quit after he was set off by seeing a red light on an emergency vehicle in the street. McNeill continued to play goalie in the minors, but said he had no interest in going back to the pressure of playing goalie in the NHL.

I think the increasing demands of the position made it particularly challenging in the 1950s. Goalies faced more and more players with hard shots, and screening the goalie became a regular tactic to the point that writers said most goals came on rebounds and screened shots. All while goalies still played with no masks, no backups, no specialist coaches, and basically no support. Some coaches were aggressively unsupportive toward their goaltenders, see Dick Irvin. I suspect masks and backup goalies helped take the pressure off in the 60s, and equipment and coaching continued to improve after that point.

Going back to the 30s, Wilf Cude's story was often mentioned when it came to the demands of the position. Cude's wife said something at dinner and he snapped and threw his steak against the wall. By the time the steak hit the floor, he had decided to retire. Even Tretiak knew this story, referencing in his book an old story about a goalie who threw a beefsteak against a wall.

 

[Michael Farkas]

I was wondering why he was called ol' Wilf "Steak Waster" Cude. Makes sense now. I can think of cheaper ways to announce you won't be having an income anymore...

 

[jigglysquishy]

Garbage time goals.

Goals that have only an impact on statistics and, in the vast majority of cases, do not impact the game...goals that were scored against a team up or down 3 or more in the 3rd period and goals that were scored against a team up or down 5 or more goals at any time were rinsed out...

Garbage time goals (new playoff GAA with these goals, but not minutes removed by a lazy, lazy man)
Plante 30 (2.12 -> 1.85)
Brodeur 30 (2.02 -> 1.88)
Sawchuk 24 (2.53 -> 2.30)
Roy 23 (2.30 -> 2.21)
Hall 18 (2.79 -> 2.63)
Dryden 18 (2.41 -> 2.25)
Hasek 12 (2.02 -> 1.92)

I'm struggling to read what this all actually means but this sticks out to me.

Plante and Dryden both spent their primes on defensively deep Habs dynasties. But Plante was giving up more garbage goals by a wide margin.

A GAA of 1.85 in that era in the playoffs in just eye popping. Especially next to Sawchuk and Hall.

Going through everything. From playoff stats to contemporary views to coaching impacts. I'm more and more convinced Hall is the clear cut third of the 3 O6 goalies.

My top 3 is set in Hasek-Roy-Plante

I waffle on Sawchuk/Brodeur next.

Hall vs Tretiak is very interesting and something I hope we can dig into next week.

 

[overpass]

I read the Montreal Gazette of February 28, 1986, the day after Jacques Plante passed away. Many had good things to say about Plante, including several who said he was the greatest goalie of all time (teammates Dickie Moore and Gilles Tremblay, referee Red Storey, Canadiens president Ronald Corey).

Multiple Canadiens mentioned Plante's ability to keep them in games early, especially on the road.

Dickie Moore - "If that was the best team of all time, Jacques was largely instrumental. I can remember going down to Boston (in the playoffs) and them blitzing him with shots in the first 10 minutes, and Jacques was like a wall against them. Then we'd finally get the puck, go down and score and the whole complexion of the game changed."

Ken Reardon - "One thing I remember about Jacques was that even when we had those great teams we used to have a problem sometimes on the road getting off to a good start. But Jacques could hold everything out until things settled down. He was revolutionary."

Ralph Backstrom also said something similar, although he didn't mention road games in particular. "When the chips were down, he always kept us in the game until our offence got going."

So I compiled some statistics to see how Plante actually did in these situations. Looking at the playoffs, dynasty years only (1956-60).

Plante overall: 40-9, 1.85 GAA, 0.930 SV%, 27.0 SA/60
Plante at home: 25-2, 1.87 GAA, 0.929 SV%, 26.5 SA/60
Plante on the road: 15-7, 1.82 GAA, 0.931 SV%, 27.6 SA/60

Plante was remarkably good on the road during the dynasty years. Montreal was almost impossible to beat at home, scoring 4.30 goals per game. On the road they "only" scored 3.00 goals per game, so they were more vulnerable. And Plante had by far the best playoff road GAA and SV% in the league.

Plante's GAA by period in the playoffs was as follows:
Period 1: 1.78
Period 2: 1.84
Period 3: 1.96

Pretty close, but he was at his best early in the game.

I also tracked Plante's performance in allowing the first goal, and I tracked his GAA for the time before Montreal scored their first goal of the game.

In 49 playoff games, Plante allowed the first goal 15 times (34-15). Montreal played 817 minutes in the playoffs with 0 goals, so they scored their first goal an average of 17 minutes into the game, which is actually quite late considering their overall scoring level. In those 817 minutes, Plante allowed only 19 goals, for a GAA of 1.39!

Plante overall: 34-15 first goal, 817 TOI, 19 GA, 1.39 GAA before Montreal scored
Plante home: 21-6 first goal, 372 TOI, 6 GA, 0.97 GAA before Montreal scored
Plante road: 13-9 first goal, 445 TOI, 13 GA, 1.75 GAA before Montreal scored

So Plante was extremely good at preventing goals against while waiting for his teammates to score the first goal. His teammates remembered it decades later, and the stats back it up.

How do others in this round compare? I've compiled the same stats for Terry Sawchuk, Glenn Hall, and Ken Dryden. I think it would take too long for Roy, Hasek, and Brodeur.

Terry Sawchuk, 1951-1955 playoffs

Sawchuk overall: 28-15, 1.87 GAA, 0.929 SV%, 26.4 SA/60
Sawchuk at home: 16-7, 1.58 GAA, 0.936 SV%, 24.8 SA/60
Sawchuk on the road: 12-8, 2.23 GAA, 0.922 SV%, 28.5 SA/60

Sawchuk GAA by period
Period 1: 1.81
Period 2: 1.95
Period 3: 1.95

Sawchuk overall: 23-20 first goal, 878 TOI, 32 GA, 2.19 GAA before Detroit scored
Sawchuk home: 13-10 first goal, 445 TOI, 14 GA, 1.89 GAA before Detroit scored
Sawchuk road: 10-10 first goal, 433 TOI, 18 GA, 2.50 GAA before Detroit scored

While Sawchuk's overall statistics in his 5 year playoff peak were similar to Plante's, as was his first period GAA, he was not particularly strong when it came to not allowing the first goal, or at keeping his team in the game before they scored.

We can break down Sawchuk's performance in these situations more and see he was actually outstanding in his first two playoffs at preventing the first goal and keeping his team in the game while they had 0 goals. But then from 1953-1955 he was much worse.

Sawchuk 1951-1952: 11-3 first goal, 303 TOI, 3 GA, 0.59 GAA before Detroit scored
Sawchuk 1953-1955: 12-17 first goal, 574 TOI, 29 GA, 3.03 GAA before Detroit scored

Glenn Hall, 1961-1966 playoffs

I chose to exclude the Montreal dynasty years because Hall's team had no realistic chance to win in those years.

Hall overall: 28-28, 2.74 GAA, 0.916 SV%, 32.8 SA/60
Hall at home: 21-7, 2.09 GAA, 0.935 SV%, 32.0 SA/60
Hall on the road: 7-21, 3.42 GAA, 0.898 SV%, 33.6 SA/60

Hall and the Hawks had a huge difference in performance at home and on the road when it came to preventing goals. At home he matched peak Sawchuk and Plante, but he got lit up on the road.

I'll break down the following numbers by coach, because they are very different.

Hall GAA by period while playing for Rudy Pilous (1961-63)
Period 1: 2.10
Period 2: 2.40
Period 3: 3.80

Hall/Pilous overall: 18-12 first goal, 587 TOI, 17 GA, 1.74 GAA before Chicago scored
Hall/Pilous home: 11-4 first goal, 265 TOI, 5 GA, 1.13 GAA before Chicago scored
Hall/Pilous road: 7-8 first goal, 321 TOI, 12 GA, 2.24 GAA before Chicago scored

While playing for Rudy Pilous from 1961-1963, Glenn Hall was at his best early in the game, particularly when his team hadn't scored yet. He did struggle in third periods, allowing 2-4 goals in the third period of 8 of 15 road games.

Hall GAA by period while playing for Billy Reay (1964-66)
Period 1: 3.35
Period 2: 2.65
Period 3: 2.45

Hall/Reay overall: 7-19 first goal, 667 TOI, 39 GA, 3.51 GAA before Chicago scored
Hall/Reay home: 6-7 first goal, 275 TOI, 18 GA, 3.93 GAA before Chicago scored
Hall/Reay road: 1-12 first goal, 392 TOI, 21 GA, 3.21 GAA before Chicago scored

When Hall played for Billy Reay, his results were very different than when he played for Pilous. Hall and the Hawks usually allowed the first goal, and had a very poor goals against record in the minutes before they scored.

Ken Dryden, 1971-1979 playoffs

I'll break down Dryden into his 1971-1975 playoffs and his 1976-1979 playoffs, to allow for a fair comparison with Plante.

1971-1975
Dryden overall: 32-22, 2.86 GAA, 0.912 SV%, 32.5 SA/60
Dryden at home: 18-9, 2.77 GAA, 0.903 SV%, 28.4 SA/60
Dryden on the road: 14-13, 2.95 GAA, 0.919 SV%, 36.6 SA/60

Dryden GAA by period
Period 1: 3.72
Period 2: 2.56
Period 3: 2.11

Dryden overall: 22-32 first goal, 845 TOI, 49 GA, 3.48 GAA before Montreal scored
Dryden home: 12-15 first goal, 380 TOI, 27 GA, 4.27 GAA before Montreal scored
Dryden road: 10-17 first goal, 466 TOI, 22 GA, 2.83 GAA before Detroit scored

Dryden was actually quite bad early in playoff games before the dynasty. He was much better in the second and third periods.

1976-1979
Dryden overall: 48-10, 1.99 GAA, 0.919 SV%, 24.5 SA/60
Dryden at home: 28-3, 1.93 GAA, 0.916 SV%, 23.1 SA/60
Dryden on the road: 20-7, 2.05 GAA, 0.921 SV%, 26.1 SA/60

Dryden GAA by period
Period 1: 2.22
Period 2: 1.91
Period 3: 1.79

Dryden overall: 34-24 first goal, 915 TOI, 36 GA, 2.36 GAA before Montreal scored
Dryden home: 19-12 first goal, 499 TOI, 17 GA, 2.04 GAA before Montreal scored
Dryden road: 15-12 first goal, 416 TOI, 19 GA, 2.74 GAA before Detroit scored

Even in the dynasty years, Dryden was weaker in the first period and while his team had 0 goals, although not to the degree he was earlier in this career. Comparing dynasty goalie to dynasty goalie, Jacques Plante was clearly better early in games and at not allowing the first goal.

If you take one stat away from Ken Dryden, take this one. In 112 playoff games, he allowed the first goal in 56 of them, exactly 50%. While playing for a team that outscored opponents by over 50% in the playoffs.

Following up on the numbers I posted for Plante, Sawchuk, Hall, and Dryden about allowing the first goal/GAA before their team scored the first goal.

Here are the same numbers in playoff games for Patrick Roy, Dominik Hasek, and Martin Brodeur.

Hasek- I've excluded the Chicago playoff games when he was mostly playing partial games, and also excluded the 2007 playoffs when he was super old and wasn't particularly good before the first goal.
Roy - I've included everything, he was great from start to finish
Brodeur - I've excluded his one game in 1992, and then divided his numbers between the games he played for Jacques Lemaire.

Goalie	Playoffs	First goal for	First goal against	GAA	TOI	GA	All other GAA
Patrick Roy	Career	141​	105​	2.05​	5054​	173​	2.43​
Dominik Hasek	1994-2002	55​	35​	1.79​	1842​	55​	2.10​
Martin Brodeur	Jacques Lemaire	35​	23​	1.50​	1316​	33​	2.00​
Martin Brodeur	All others	75​	71​	2.26​	3264​	123​	1.94​

Patrick Roy allowed the first goal in only 43% of playoff games. His GAA in the minutes before his team scored was consistently lower than his overall playoff GAA. In fact, if you break it down by coach, his GAA in these situation was lower for every single coach except for Tony Granato (7 PO games in 2003). Over his playoff career, his GAA of 2.05 in those minutes was 85% of his GAA in other playoff minutes (2.43).

Dominik Hasek allowed the first goal in only 39% of his playoff starts from 1994-2002. His GAA in the minutes before his team scored was, like Roy's, consistently lower than his playoff GAA in other situations. Also 85% (1.79 vs 2.10). Again, excluding 2007 when he was really old.

Martin Brodeur performed very differently in these situations in his Jacques Lemaire playoff games and his overall playoff games. This shows how coaching can affect the results of the same player, and also emphasizes that the support Brodeur received in his Lemaire years was really quite different than the rest of his career. Even for Pat Burns in the playoffs he was only 12-17 when it came to allowing the first goal.

For Lemaire, Brodeur allowed the first goal only 40% of the time, and had a 1.50 GAA (!) before his team scored, compared to a 2.00 GAA in the rest of his playoff minutes. For all his other coaches, he allowed the first goal in 49% of playoff games, and had a 2.26 GAA in those minutes before his team scored, compared to 1.94 in the rest of his playoff minutes.

Brodeur's teams also tended to score the first goal a little more quickly than Hasek and Roy's teams, although he didn't play in the high scoring 80s like Roy did. The Brodeur/Lemaire teams were actually very good at scoring early, despite their defensive style.

Brodeur (overall) - NJD median first goal was 15.4 minutes into the game
Brodeur (Lemaire) - NJD median first goal was 13.7 minutes into the game
Brodeur (other coaches) - NJD median first goal was 16.4 minutes into the game
Hasek (1994-2002) - median first goal was 16.5 minutes into the game
Roy (career) - median first goal was 16.3 minutes into the game

So Brodeur's playoff career (non-Lemaire) was very similar to Hasek and Roy in terms of early goal support, but notably worse at giving up the first goal. With Lemaire, NJD had outstanding defensive and offensive performance early on, scoring the first goal earlier than usual and allowing very few goals before doing so.

I remember Hasek getting a lot of early goal support in the 1999 playoffs, and Buffalo did indeed score in the first 5.5 minutes of 8 of 10 games in the first two rounds. But he got very little goal support against Toronto and Dallas in the final two rounds, so it basically evened out.

Maybe it's worth emphasizing again how different Brodeur's early playoff numbers were with Lemaire vs without Lemaire, taking it as a demonstration of the impact coaching can have, and considering the other candidates in this light. And I have to say Roy in particular was consistently excellent throughout his playoff career in high leverage situations under several different coaches, defensive and offensive. As was Hasek's in his prime, although for a shorter time and with fewer data points.

 

[overpass]

@Sanf had some posts in this thread on how the increasing pressure on NHL goalies started in the late 20s.

Book Feature - Dear Red Light (written by Wilf Cude, presented by Ty Dilello)

Hello everyone! This week I'll be presenting my late friend Wilfred Cude's book he wrote about his father, former Montreal Canadiens netminder of the 1930s, Wilf Cude. The book's description is as follows: Wilf Cude (1906-1968): gifted NHL goaltender, dedicated hockey coach, conscientious...

forums.hfboards.com

 

[Michael Farkas]

I'm struggling to read what this all actually means but this sticks out to me.

One thing that's mildly interesting to me is that Hasek has few garbage time goals and it had little impact on his GAA. He also fares the worst with 3rd period tie/lead management (this also shows up in Canada Cup '87 where he surrendered a 3rd period tie, he gives at least one of these up in the '88 Olympics, he loses a tie game with seconds left in the '91 Canada Cup to Finland, his only loss in the '98 Olympics was with a 1-0 3rd period, he gave up two goals in ten seconds in the 3rd to lose to Russia).

Glenn Hall is the other guy that fares poorly by this look. Two guys with excellent regular season success, questionable playoffs, and also were two most "gimmicky" goalies for their time. I don't like using that word here because I don't mean it like that. But as I've said before, sometimes the different guys are like a knuckle ball pitcher and you just don't bother trying to figure it out that hard in the regular season...but in the postseason or what have you, when it really matters, you really have to.

Hasek and Hall, statistically, couldn't be counted on to lock it down versus this field. Does that double dip with their relative un-success W-L wise in playoff series? Quite possibly. But we also are somewhat willing to double-dip 1-AS/Vezinas/GAA...at this point, with this level of talent (minus Dryden, I think), it's a question of who can sink you first. Who can steal it for you second because I believe every goalie here is plenty capable of stealing me a series.

Now, if one goalie has some advantage in theft here...it probably is Hasek. Which is probably enough to keep some distance between him and Hall in the lower portion of the slate.

I think Plante is a top 3 lock for me right now. Maybe it's 2. I don't see Hasek getting into my top 3. I just can't trust him quite as much to make me a save when I need it most.

Dryden is 8 for me here. I think Hall is 7, unless someone has some dirt on Tretiak that would make me consider swapping him with Hall.................or somehow, Dryden. Did the Soviet Domestic League have him defending a tipped over garbage can while everyone else dealt with a 4 x 6?

 

[seventieslord]

I'm sorry, but viewing Hasek as a flake while Plante is unassailable is the worst kind of anti-modern player bias.

All of these quotes are from Jacques Plante by Todd Denault:

"Frustration was mounting in all corners. Plante finally came forward with his sore knee and had it X-rayed, but doctors were unable to find anything amiss. This led some in the Canadiens organization to question whether there was indeed anything physically wrong with the underachieving Plante."

"Blake's patience with Plante was starting to wear noticeably thin. The team was floundering without Plante. Yet Blake found himself in an impossible situation: he couldn't rely on Plante when he needed him more than ever. Plante's endless stretch of injuries were worrisome in their frequency and distressing in their variety."

Frank Selke: "Plante will have to win his job back. I can't understand why a man is all right on a Friday, as Plante was, and then turns up sick on a Saturday. He's got to show me that he deserves to be in the nets for this club. He's got to show me that his attitude is right."

Plante: "It would be foolish to use me unless I'm perfectly all right and traveling with the club hasn't helped. If I had stayed home, I could have been treated. As things stand now, the injury hasn't improved."

Red Fisher: "Plante has been complaining about a hip and a groin injury, which more people associated with the front office and the club's medical department have been inclined to shrug off. It is their view that injuries are something of an obsession with the goaltender, and escape hatch, so to speak, for what has amounted to several unhappy experiences in the nets in recent games."

Selke: "We got rid of Plante because he couldn't depend on him anymore. Toe Blake couldn't have taken much more without punching him on the nose. He's the best goalie I've ever had and close to the best I've ever seen. But that doesn't say he can run the hockey club."

Selke: "Jacques Plante is an extrovert who can't put his personal interests aside for the benefit of the team. In the circumstances, no matter how brilliant a goaltender he may be, it was better than he left."

Fisher: 'Lookit,' hissed Blake, 'how would you like it, Sammy, to have a goalie who doesn't know when he's gonna play. How would you like to go from city to city and never be sure you'll have a goalie on the ice? As far as I'm concerned, I can't take it anymore.'

Frank Orr: "Blake thought he was a hypochondriac and that he dreamed up things. Blake was a very macho man, a man of his time, and expected all of his players to be the same. He would get mad when guys got hurt and he thought they were loitering when they didn't come back. He would rail on about Plante. The Canadiens back then wouldn't tolerate injuries. It was a pretty cruel system. If you got hurt a second time you were gone. When you slipped a little, that was it."

Dickie Moore: "Jacques' trade wasn't much of a surprise, because of his character. He was bigger than the team, and nobody's ever bigger than the team. Ultimately, it's a team game."

Emile Francis: "I could see in building that team up that the goaltending wasn't going to be good enough. Plante wasn't the type of a goalkeeper that you'd want to build a team around. Plante had been on a winning team and he sure as hell didn't want to be on a losing team. He was a loner, he didn't mingle with the players. He was never going to be the type of goalkeeper that the players were going to work their ass off for. As a former goaltender I could pick that up right away."

"Plante was set to play the final game of the year in Los Angeles. However, he begged off, claiming that he had a twinge in his knee. Bowman and his teammates believed that the knee was merely an excuse, as Plante knew that if he sat out his goals-against average would end the season below two. With Plante unable - or unwilling - to play, Glenn Hall stepped into the breach and played the Blues' final game of the 1968-69 season, a 2-1 victory."

Bowman: "He was always conscious of his goals-against average. That was the number that meant the most to him. People called it selfish, but for me a goalie who wants to keep his goals-against down is an asset and not a detriment. He was a very studious guy."

"In the days following his seventh Vezina win, Jacques Plante blasked in the praise and the accolades from the media and the fans, but in the St. Louis Blues dressing room one would be hard pressed to find a player less popular with his teammates. By sitting out, Plante had ensured that his goals-against average finished at 1.96, but he had paid a price for it."

Scotty Bowman: 'The players were upset with Plante, so they put all kinds of white tape around his luggage and painted a big red cross on it. Somebody wrote on the tape , 'Win #76 for Jacques.' He came down to the room about two minutes before the game was over and he was upset the players felt that way. That was on a Saturday. We went home the next day to start the playoffs on Wednesday. On Monday Plante came in and told me he wouldn't be able to play. By that time I had had it with him, I guess, so we went out of town to a hotel and I told him to stay in St. Louis. The day of the game we're getting off the bus at the Arena just as Jacques was pulling into the parking lot. Camille Henry, and I give him a lot of credit for this, came to me and said, 'I know how you feel. But he's not coming back, Scotty, unless we make a fuss over him, make him feel wanted. I know everybody's cheesed off with him, but I'm telling you I know what he's like. He'll coast right through the playoffs unless we appeal to his pride.' I thought that was a pretty good idea, so I talked to Plante and asked him how he felt. He had received special treatment that day for his knee at the clinic run by the football clinics. I tried to sympathize with him and that seemed to pep him up. He told me that he thought he could dress as a back-up that night but he still didn't think he could play."

"Much as he had in St. Louis with Glenn Hall, Plante consulted with his coach and Bruce Gamble, the backup goalie, about the playing schedule, trying to maximize the Leafs' chances for success. It was an arrangement that drew a fair share of criticism in hockey circles, as some felt that Plante was choosing his spots and avoiding many of the league's better teams in an effort to pad his own stats."

I'm posting all this not to run down Jacques Plante (who I also rate very highly), but to point out that team management is often overly demanding and far from always right about things, and also to show very clearly that Hasek seems to get uniquely picked on here for some of his eccentrities.

Yes, fair point on Plante. It seems that day-to-day, he could be extremely flaky. But was there ever a perception that he wasn't there for the team and let them down in the biggest moments, when they needed him the most? I guess the anecdotes and stats from 1970-71 suggest that was one case. But other than that?

The only Habs goalies to play any playoff minutes between 52-53 and 62-63 are Gerry McNeil, who played a few games in each of the first two seasons, as Plante was still in the process of wrestling the starting job away from him. And Charlie Hodge got into four games (in which he played a total of 83 minutes) the year after. I do not know the circumstances of why. Besides that, Plante played every single Montreal Canadiens playoff minute over 11 seasons.

Then his next appearance is in '69, where he is sharing the crease with the illustrious Glenn Hall, yet, they go with him for almost every playoff game, and he performs very well. Then there's 1970, which I concede, and I don't know any insider info about 71, 72 and 73, when he was 43-45 and his teams' playoffs were very short.

Overall, it seems like a pretty reliable record at important times, and yes, extremely wishy-washy day to day. Hasek's much publicised issues often came up during playoffs, and as overpass has covered, it caused a lot of discontent with a team relying on him to advance.

Montreal had the fewest PKs in the league during Roy's time there, and 70s top 100 list has Roy and 4 players that Roy won Cups with listed ahead of Brodeur, but Brodeur gets dinged for an easy ride?

Yes, Roy had an advantage there. From 1985-86 through 1994-95, Montreal had PP opportunities against at a rate of just 86% of the league average. Roy took that advantage and rode it to four sv% titles and a 2nd place finish.

The Devils from 1993-94 through 2013-14 had PP opportunities against at a rate of just 82% of the league average (a greater advantage over double the period of time - statistically, this is a staggering difference), and with that advantage placed 3rd, 3rd, 4th and 5th in the NHL in save percentage.

Not a fan of this logic.

21.4 - Desjardins/Odelein/Brisebois/Daigneault on D, Carbonneau/Muller/Keane up front as notable defensive stalwarts. Meh D, solid defensive forwards.
14.2 - Chelios/Robinson/Svoboda/Ludwig on D, Gainey/Carbonneau/Skrudland/Keane/Walter up front. Ridiculously good team defensively.
14.0 - Robinson/Chelios/Ludwig/Green on D, Gainey/Carbonneau/Skrudland up front. Another defensively stacked team.
13.5 - Blake/Bourque/Foote/Klemm on D, Yelle/Reid/Podein up front. Stacked D, solid defensive forwards.
9.2 - Ozolinsh/Foote/Krupp/Lefebvre on D, Ricci/Yelle/Keane/Murray up front. That's a pretty good forward group and decent D.
7.3 - Ozolinsh/Foote/Lefebvre/Gusarov on D, Ricci/Yelle/Keane/Corbet up front. Still rather decent all around.


14.0 - Zhitnik/Woolley/Warrener/McKee on D, Peca/Juneau/Brown up front. Forwards look good, defense is mediocre to meh at best.
11.7 - Zhitnik/Woolley/Shannon/Smehlik on D, Peca/Brown up front. Thin at forward, pretty bad D.
11.0 - Bodger/Smehlik/Boucher/Muni on D, Wood/Hannan up front. Abomination.
2.1 - Lidstrom/Chelios/Schneider/Markov on D, Zetterberg/Datsyuk/Maltby/Draper/Cleary up front. Excellence.
1.4 - Zhitnik/Woolley/Patrick/Warrener on D, Gilmour/Brown up front. Very thin at forward, mediocre D.
1.3 - Lidstrom/Chelios/Duchesne/Olausson on D, Yzerman/Fedorov/Draper/Maltby/Datsyuk up front. Quite excellent.

That's a gross difference in defensive support right until Hasek got so old that Roy was already retired. Aside from the excellent '93, Roy was always on comparatively defensively stacked teams. If Brodeur gets dinged for playing on defensively great teams with defensive stalwarts, why doesn't the same apply to Roy?

It's a generalization to say that Roy's teams were defensive powerhouses and Hasek's were weak sisters. There were times that this was true and times that it wasn't. It's also been said that Hasek's Buffalo squads were tailored to meet his needs as far as seeing shots and letting him handle the first one. Crease clearing butchers like Warrener, McKee, and Boughner seemed to be more useful in Buffalo than anywhere else. They also had Zhitnik and Smehlik for most of this time, underrated physical players. These aren't all-stars, these aren't guys that are gonna make anyone's top-anything list, but there was a certain mix that they had in Buffalo that seemed to mesh well and create a good situation for Hasek. He got all the credit when they went anywhere, and that's fair, and warranted.

Ultimately though, this is all name dropping, when actual results are important too. The number of shots surrendered by their teams is one way to gauge how good they were at limiting offensive chances against. Surprisingly, Hasek's career average shots against per 60 in the playoffs actually came out to 24.9 when Roy's is 26.3. That's probably not something you expected, hey?

And of course, we are currently just talking about Roy's best six playoffs against the only six times Hasek had a statistically positive impact on his team. When we go past those, Roy's got seven more positive playoff appearances. Can those all be explained by powerhouse, all-star defenses? Especially when over the long haul he was actually facing about 5.5% fewer shots per 60 than Hasek?

 

[jigglysquishy]

Game 6 of the 1999 Finals is on youtube in full. The entire 1999 finals is on there too.

I want to give it a watch it full before I vote but I'm chasing a toddler around. I have Hasek at 1 right now but I do want a full playoff pressure game fresh in my memory before I do.

 

[seventieslord]

One of the interesting lenses we've talked about it when a goalie loses a game. Basically, when they let in 4+ goals and make victory extremely difficult for their team.

Roy
1986: 2x 4+ goal games, 5x 3 goal games = 6x 3+ goal games
1993: 4x 4+ goal games, 5x 3 goal games = 9x 3+ goal games
1996: 5x 4+ goal games, 2x 3 goal games = 7x 3+ goal games
2001: 4x 4+ goal games, 4x 3 goal games = 7x 3+ goal games

Hasek
1999: 5 4+ goal games, 1x 3 goal games = 6x 3+ goal games
2002: 5x 4+ goal games, 4x 3 goal games = 9x 3+ goal games


Obviously scoring levels change and defensive support varies wildly. But if a goalie lets in 3 goals victory requires 4 goals i.e. very high goal support. If you let in 4, it requires 5 goals, a unreliably high amount of goal support.

It's more a metric of goalies making winning unlikely.

Looks like you were including all instances of the goalie going to the final. Roy's 1999 should be included too - 7 times in 19 games. In the end, the percentages are nearly equal: 34% of the time for Roy, 36% of the time for Hasek. So I'm not sure that these move the needle much in either direction.

If it does, it is in favour of Roy. Roy just maintained that over many more games (in this sample and overall), and of course, in 86-89-93-93, three goals meant a different thing than it meant in 1999-2001-2002, meaning these results generally underrate Roy.

Of course, we don't know anything else about these games. Were they home or road? Was their team badly outplayed and they got shellshocked? Did they face 7 powerplays? Were they good goals or bad? We should be careful not to generalize too much based on nothing more than a number of goals against in a game.

If this is how you feel, then how do you justify putting Dryden at the bottom of this group?

What can I say man, it's a tough group. It's not cognitive dissonance to love Ken Drydan and also think there are 7 better goalies in history.

Some more (playoff) data...

Goalie playoff data that I have compiled in good faith, but also manually...(I have made some adjustments to account for GP that weren't really relevant games played, so if you see me off in playoff GP compared to the legend, that's me removing a 20 minute relief appearance that wasn't relevant or some such)...

Giving up the first goal of the game:
Plante 41 in 110 GP (every 2.68 GP)
Hasek 49 in 114 GP (every 2.33 GP)
Roy 107 in 247 GP (every 2.31 GP)
Sawchuk 48 in 103 GP (every 2.15 GP)
Brodeur 96 in 204 GP (every 2.13 GP)
Dryden 55 in 112 GP (every 2.04 GP)
Hall 68 in 114 GP (every 1.68 GP)

Yearly tables

3rd period/OT lead management

"Surr. 3rd lead" means that goalie's team had a lead in the 3rd period and lost it.
"Surr. 3rd/OT tie" means that goalie's team was even with opponent in the 3rd period or OT and lost it.

Note: You can lose surrender a 3rd period lead AND a 3rd/OT tie in the same game. You can surrender them multiple times in a game, in fact. The per-game metric does not reflect the amount of leads or ties had, it is exactly what it says: per game.

Surrendered 3rd per lead:
Sawchuk 7 in 103 (every 14.71 GP)
Dryden 9 in 112 (every 12.44 GP)
Plante 10 in 110 (every 11 GP)
Brodeur 25 in 204 (every 8.16 GP)
Hall 15 in 114 (every 7.60 GP)
Hasek 16 in 114 (every 7.13 GP)
Roy 44 in 247 (every 5.61 GP)

Yearly tables

Surrendered 3rd period/OT tie:
Plante 15 in 110 (every 7.33 GP)
Sawchuk 22 in 103 (every 4.68 GP)
Dryden 24 in 112 (every 4.67 GP)
Roy 59 in 247 (every 4.19 GP)
Brodeur 53 in 204 (every 3.85 GP)
Hasek 34 in 114 (every 3.35 GP)
Hall 36 in 114 (every 3.17 GP)

Yearly tables

Managing momentum/game script/compounding problems...

Surrendering a goal within ~2 minutes of any other goal is deflating and cancels the emotion of your goal or really lets the game get off the rails for you...

Note: 2 minutes is not a solid number, because the difference between 2:00 and 2:07 is irrelevant, the shift length, amount of whistles, the time of the game, the overall score, and many other factors (road/home, etc.) factor into this...I made a judgment call on some of these. To my knowledge, it never, ever exceeds three minutes though. Full disclosure: There are times when I take a goal that happens 2:34 after another, but a time where I won't take one that's 2:10 after another based on my sense of the game script...this happens very rarely, but I want to say the words. In a near-future post, I will compile something called "Garbage Time Goals" - garbage goals are not tabulated in any other category, including this one. So giving up boom-boom, two quick ones at 18:24 and 19:01 of the 3rd period to make 8-1 then 8-2 is not relevant. Further, spanning a period does not count (i.e. a goal at 19:01 of the 1st and then 0:24 of the 2nd does not register here...that would take a greater game script read and more liberties than I thought I should be afforded).

Surrender a goal within 2 mins. of any other goal...(maybe this should be a per goal rate instead of per game? I'm providing the data, yous can interpret it)
Brodeur 37 in 204 (every 5.51 GP)
Hasek 21 in 114 (every 5.43 GP)
Roy 48 in 247 (every 5.15 GP)
Plante 29 in 110 (every 3.79 GP)
Hall 40 in 114 (every 2.85 GP)
Dryden 41 in 112 (every 2.73 GP)
Sawchuk 44 in 103 (every 2.34 GP)

Yearly tables

Garbage time goals.

Goals that have only an impact on statistics and, in the vast majority of cases, do not impact the game...goals that were scored against a team up or down 3 or more in the 3rd period and goals that were scored against a team up or down 5 or more goals at any time were rinsed out...

Garbage time goals (new playoff GAA with these goals, but not minutes removed by a lazy, lazy man)
Plante 30 (2.12 -> 1.85)
Brodeur 30 (2.02 -> 1.88)
Sawchuk 24 (2.53 -> 2.30)
Roy 23 (2.30 -> 2.21)
Hall 18 (2.79 -> 2.63)
Dryden 18 (2.41 -> 2.25)
Hasek 12 (2.02 -> 1.92)

About lead management: It's a good thing to consider, but it matters a lot just how often a team had the lead. Per-game is almost meaningless here. If we don't know how often they blew the lead versus how often they actually had one, then there's nothing meaningful we can take from this data.

About garbage time goals... I think this is really important. Stuff that happens when a game's out of reach just really doesn't matter to the actual goal of winning hockey games and stanley cups. I'm in favour of removing all garbage time from a player's totals and seeing what we have left. However, similarly, without knowing how much garbage time was played, we can't make any meaningful conclusions here. In addition, these adjusted goals against averages are with the goals removed, but not the garbage time removed. And those amounts could be very different from player to player.

Also, an annual reminder for everyone that GAA can be calculated as such:

(1-sv%) X SA/60

so it's nothing but a derivative of a statistic that Mike says is garbage, multiplied by shots against per 60, a stat that a goalie generally has little to no control over. GAA is a step backwards from sv%, not a step forward.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Also this guy...

 

[Michael Farkas]

Also, an annual reminder for everyone that GAA can be calculated as such:

(1-sv%) X SA/60

Usually I say that "you can make numbers look however you want", but this takes it a step forward (backward?) haha

If only regulation time was measured in shots against, this might be interesting...

I mean, we got CG ripping off guys that played over X games. We're reformatting GAA to be a function of shots instead of goals over time. Both of those are pretty offensive haha - yet, we have some data about how many high quality shots against happen per game, ya know, on average...but no one even thinks about capping saves at a certain number and going "ah, after 30 (or whatever) it's likely to be an easy save"...

There's always a line at the buffet haha