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

[Sentinel]

Ken Dryden
Goes without saying... Habs won another cup with Dryden recording 0.920 over 56 RS games (with 10 shutouts). Dryden had his statistically best playoffs (0.932 and 1.56 GAA). No matter how great defense in front of Dryden was, that's a significant improvement. It was one of his better seasons while Tretiak's 1977 certainly wasn't.

Tony Esposito
His standard 1970s season... How much can one blame him for another Chicago's 1st round exit when he had 3 goals of support against the 1977 Islanders? Espo had actually higher SV% in those 2 losing playoff games than his '77 reg. season SV%. Both games were played in NY even though Hawks were originally scheduled as the home team. But Led Zeppelin concert was already booked at Chicago Stadium.

Billy Smith
Smith's 1977 is his statistically best season in 1970s before the Islanders dynasty took off. In fact now that I'm looking hockey-ref. page, his 0.916 is his highest reg. season SV% he ever had. Isles swept Chicago and Buffalo before they lost to Montreal in semifinals. Montreal lost just 2 games in entire playoffs, both of them against Islanders. Smith played most of Isles' playoff games and ended the playoffs with 0.910.

Rogie Vachon
All-Star goalie of the first Canada Cup. I don't even have to look for his SV%, the games are available online. All that that excellent Canadian team needed was goalie who won't allow any soft goal. Vachon was rock solid in those two final games against Czechoslovakia. Vachon was 2nd all-star goalie, finished 3rd in '77 Hart voting.

Glenn Resch
Resch had slightly better regular season than Smith. And although he didn't play too much in playoffs, he finished 3rd in AST voting. In 1977, Dryden, Vachon and Resch covered for like 95% of all-star vote which demonstrates which goalies were considered a tier above based on reg. season play.

Mike Palmateer
Not a big name but he looks really good especially when comparing him with Leafs' backups. Palmateer had 0.904 in 50 RS games, his backups 0.889 in 35 RS games. Playoff Palmateer 0.923 in 6 games, while Wayne Thomas 0.886 in 4 games.

These are the 6 names, all of whom NHL goalies. I didn't mention anyone from WHA and I didn't even start with Europe. Holeček had a down season, fine, I'd have him below Tretiak for 1977. What about the actual top Czechoslovak goalie for this season? Dzurilla put up some memorable performances in Canada Cup and in World Championship. Dzurilla absolutely outplayed Tretiak in the deciding CSSR-USSR game (4-3). Martinec scored on Tretiak in the 1st minute of the game, 10th minute and 2nd goal by Novák, 13th minute and 3rd goal by Holík. Czechs leave the 1st period winning 3-0, what happens next? Dejavú. 1st shot in 2nd period falls again behind Tretiak's back. That's 21st min. and CSSR is winning 4-0. Any other team would pull Tretiak down but Soviets just didn't have reliable backup...

Czechoslovaks won that game 4-3 eventually, but stumbled couple days later losing to Canada 2-8, serving Soviets the gold medal on a silver platter. USSR just needed to do what they almost never failed to do in the 1970s - defeat the Swedes. What happened? Sweden beat Soviets 3-1 in the tournament's last game.

USSR ended the championship with the 3rd place - worst placement in that decade.

European goalie, whom I picked in 1977, would actually be... Göran Högosta. I know.. no name goalie who achieved very little in his career.. But Högosta was outstanding throughout this season. 0.958 in 7 games (WHC), all-star and directoriate's best goalie of the championship. Högosta was Swedish best goalie for 3-year period (76-78) (according to Swedish league yearly all-stars). I think it's pretty likely that Sweden had at least one goaltending season in 1970s where their goalie overachieved. 1977 was that season.

If seriously think Dryden, Palmateer, and Resch were better than Tretiak in that (or any other season)...

 

[Michael Farkas]

Brimsek vs. Durnan.

Rated the league's best goaler in the years before the war took him from the Bruin cordage, Brimsek has come through again and so far this season he has taken that title away from Canadien's stellar Bill Durnan..."

Brimsek is again the top netminder in the National League and his play has been an inspiration in the Boston club's reign atop the league race. At present Frank is away ahead of the other five netminders...(20 GA in 11 GP)

...

Brimsek, one of the smartest goalies to come down the pike in many a year...

Brimsek helps to confirm my belief that the War years may well extend beyond the last bomb being dropped. Which I think most folks here now accept...

But Brimsek has come a long way in attaining his pre-war form. Said he, "It took me nearly two years to get back to my old form. When you spend two years aboard ship you soon lose your ice legs."

He stated that after he left the Bruins at the end of the 1942-43 season, he only had a chance to don the pads a few times during those two service years. "When I came back to Boston I had to play myself into condition. That's not so good, I should have stayed at home for a while to get into shape but I rejoined the club as soon as I got out."

...

Developments in the National Hockey League so far this season (47-48) seem to point to the fact that the end of an era has been reached - the era of "wartime" hockey during which everything at times seemed topsy-turvy and anything could happen."

...

...the return to brilliant form of Boston's Frankie Brimsek, and the outstanding play of such veterans as Apps, Blake, Lach, Hextall, O'Connor, Schmidt, and others of the pre-bellum period all point up this fact.

Many of those who starred during the wartime period of puckchasing are gone and forgotten now, while others are having only middling success. The players, like those named above, who were good before the war are still burning up the league even though they are rapidly reaching the stage where they will be tripping over their beards.

A lot of cross-generational talk about how "skaters have it easier now because..." it's not as tough, there isn't as much defense, whatever whatever. In this area here ("here" being the generation or two after liberalized passing), it is the complete opposite for goaltending. We're getting a mounting number of sources saying that it's "harder now, than it was back then"...

"It's a lot different alright. A goaler has a much harder time trying to stop'em today. When you have about 10 players all milling around in front of you, it's hard to tell where the puck is going to come from. That's how Charlie Rayner got it the other night. Some fellow let go from the blueline and he never saw it until it was too late."

...

Johnny Gottselig, Coach of Chicago Black Hawks, had some interesting observations on the matter (hockey from 15-20 years ago vs. the present day) the other day. A player with Chicago from 1928...to 1945...Gottselig has seen both styles of play and should be qualified to speak.

It's his contention that the hockey of a few years ago had it all over the present-day brand. Opening up the forward passing regulations, painting the red line at centre ice and other innovations have speeded up the game from a crowd viewpoint, but have taken away most of the science and neat passing attacks, he contends.

He further maintains - and this will draw the ire of modern fans - that the player of two decades ago could adapt himself to present-day play and star at it, but only a few of today's players would be able to hold their heads above in the older game. (Singling out Apps, Blake, and Richard as guys that could star in any era).

If there is one department of play in which the moderns can claim an edge, it is in goal, according to the veteran. The razzle-dazzle mad scramble of today's hockey tests a goalie's mettle as perhaps was never the case before the game was opened up. The netminders have to be good now or they would be buried under an avalanche of rubber. He rates Bill Durnan and Frankie Brimsek right with the best of all time.

Probably one of the later guys to get stuffed in net because of his skating...

What ever made the great Mr. Zero become a netminder you may ask. Well, he explains it this way. "I never was a good skater, so the next best thing in that case was to become a goaler."

Honestly, I didn't realize how long that article was going to be...but it could not have been more exactly in line with my beliefs if it tried haha

Every paragraph, I'd start typing it and go, "no way is all this in one article"

In short...
- The War years extended through 1948.
- Brimsek > Durnan on the way back from War?
- Brimsek is another player stuffed in net because of poor skating
- More claims of the game and skaters being better in the 1920's and 1930's EXCEPT goaltending. Which is what the film tells me as well.

 

[DN28]

"Subjective" is the key to success, in the right hands.

I completely missed that post yesterday because it got sandwiched in between a couple, but do you mind sharing a bit more about this process of yours? A link is fine if it's already been fleshed out. I don't necessarily need a whole treatise (though, I would read it), but just an idea on what the key points are to your process would be cool to see.

It's not something I could publish, really... It's not a hard science. I'm just looking at each season individually. Looking at stats and awards, taking goalies who had both the numbers and some voting going for them. Then I look at their playoffs and international play.

That gives me several tiers of best goalies in whatever season I've just explored. And I put the non-NHL Euros into those tiers. I'm keeping in mind the averages of how well the 1st / 2nd / 3rd best Euro goalie played in NHL between 1991-2024 (the average Vezina votes for Europeans over 30+year time span). How often a European goalie won the Vezina post-1991.. This all gives me a range where a 1st / 2nd / 3rd Euro goalie usually placed. So it's taking actual results of Europeans in a consolidated global NHL after 1991 and applying that to pre-1991 seasons.

How to evaluate an individual 70s-80s Euro goalie season, like Tretiak in 1977 or 1981 or 1973.. comes down to how signficant that goalie's season was. Comparatively to other goalies that season, comparatively to that goalie's previous seasons, comparatively to other skaters.. So was Tretiak a clear #1 goalie in a XXXX season? Was he a #2? Obviously you have seasons where can't make that judgment. Rather you see a tier of 2-3 Russian, Czech, Swedish goalies looking the same.

So it's very subjective, naturally.. But it also forces me to look for details which is fun (and brings attention to less known goalies who starred briefly for few seasons like Högosta, like Palmateer).

But to be bit more concrete.. Take 1983 as an example. Soviet media members voted Tretiak the nation's best player in 1983 (over all of Green Unit members in their prime), I'll take a note.. Then I'll look at those Izvestia votings, this time various European writers voting, and I see Tretiak 1st once more (against the top skaters of other nations). That's pretty good, making note to myself.. I'll see the stats for that year's World championship, I see 0.973. Nice, nice.. I see the all-star vote of that tournament, and see Tretiak cleared it too.

I recognize this as one of the best individual non-NHL goaltending seasons ever. If a goalie was on par with every other skater (not just netminders), that means a lot. So going to 1983 NHL goalies, I won't put Tretiak somewhere below the 1st tier, saying he was 4th or 7th.. No. I'm thinking one of the greatest goalie season outside NHL must be either 1st or 2nd at worst. That's how I treated Tretiak 1981-1984 seasons.

Palmateer?

He had an impressive rookie season. What more can I say?

Reading Eagle. April 12, 1977

"This season Thomas played behind Mike Palmateer, and he was on the bench when the Leafs took the ice in Monday's quarterfinal playoff opener against the Philadelphia Flyers in the Spectrum. Palmateer had become the darling of the fans at Maple Leaf Gardens."

Toledo Blade. April 19, 1977

"Ironically, Leach, one of the most powerful goal scorers in the league, burned Toronto goalie Mike Palmateer with two tantalizing short shots that almost crawled into the net. Otherwise, Palmateer, a rookie, was even more sensational than Stevenson as the Leafs' goalie stopped 37 other Flyers' shots. Several times he was almost knocked his net by the force of bullet-like Philadelphia drives."

Ellensburg Daily Record. February 1, 1977

"The Atlanta Flames beat Toronto, 73, Monday night and both sides agreed Maple Leafs' goalie Mike Palmateer was brilliant. Although seven shots got by him, he turned back 41 others. Toronto coach Red Kelly said Palmateer 'was one of the few playing well tonight. We were struggling.'"

The Montreal Gazette, January 29, 1977

"Palmateer has been a surprise find for the Maple Leafs after starting out this season in the minors. He has replaced Wayne Thomas as the club's No. 1 goaltender and has 17 victories against nine losses and three ties. 'He's played just great for us,' coach Red Kelly said. 'Look at his record and at the kind of teams he's played. He's beaten the Islanders twice and shut out Montreal (1-0). He's been in some tough spots and came out winning. He's a big reason the club got turn around.'"

 

[Professor What]

If Palmateer, why not Dunc Wilson? I think that putting Tretiak 7th in 1977 is pretty harsh. That said, there was a question of putting Dryden in front of Tretiak "in that or any year." That's not so far-fetched. I think we're coming to the consensus that Tretiak was better overall, but that doesn't mean that there couldn't have been individual years that Dryden was better. Those two were close, I believe.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Agreed that Palmateer had an impressive rookie season. Should he be considered better than Tretiak on that basis? It seems like a stretch.

Phil Myre and Dan Bouchard had solid seasons in 1976-77 as well. So did Gilles Meloche. So did John Davidson.

 

[nabby12]

Since we're talking about it... Hung up in my office is this very relevant piece of hockey history. When Charlie Gardiner was inducted posthumously into the HHOF as part of its 1945 inaugural class, his family received this beautiful placard. Enjoy it!

 

[Bear of Bad News]

That is awesome!

 

[overpass]

. I think by 1934 he had established himself as the easy best goalie in the world. I will note though, that in the 1934 Finals Cude receives as much praise as Gardiner, but that might be related to him having to face far more shots.

I'm a bit torn. He's spoken of in the highest regard, but the actual game to game praise isn't what I was expecting from the greatest of all time.

The 1933-34 Chicago team was built around new coach Tommy Gorman's defensive system. Gardiner played very well in the playoffs, but maybe more important was that the team in front of him was excellent defensively.

Vern Degeer of the Border Cities Star, a Windsor-based paper that covered the Wings, wrote detailed game reports as well as columns throughout the finals. After the series, Degeer mentioned Gardiner's "brilliant netminding," but gave the greatest part of the credit to Gorman's defensive system.

More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of. There's the case of the Chicago Black Hawks, newly crowned professional hockey champions, as an excellent answer to those experts who, early in the 1933-34 National League campaign, declared "Chicago Black Hawks have a system that consists of back-checking and a prayer, or even two prayers." The answer to Chicago's amazingly effective defensive tactics--and prayers--is possession of the Stanley Cup.

To Tommy Gorman, astute manager of the new hockey kings, belongs the lion's share of the credit for the climb of the Chicago Black Hawks to the Stanley Cup throne. This former Ottawa newspaperman remodelled the Chicago club with quick, dramatic strokes, and without benefit of heralded stars, evolved a defensive system that swept his ice machine to the top. His closely knit style of play offset admitted weaknesses on the attack, and took the Hawks all the way home. Probably Gorman's greatest stroke of business in his revamping of the Chicago club came when he traded Teddy Graham, 1932-33 captain of the Hawks to Montreal Maroons for Lionel Conacher. Playing probably the finest hockey in his colorful career, Conacher contributed more to the success of the Gormanites than any other player. He not only furnished a steadying influence for the Chicago defense but packed a scoring punch that enabled him to pile up 23 points during the season.

Gorman's Chicago Black Hawks will go down in Stanley Cup history as the "goal-less wonders" of modern times. Backed up by the brilliant netminding of Charlie Gardiner, they fashioned a defensive wall that was a constant challenge to teams that spoke in terms of goals. During the regular NHL campaign the Hawks collected only 88 goals in 48 games. THat was 11 less the poorest record of any other club on the circuit. Canadiens produced 99. Yet the Hawks had only 83 goals scored against them, a mark 15 under the next best, 98 against Detroit Red Wings.

Outside of Paul Thompson and Johnny Gottselig, the Hawks of this winter boasted of the poorest bunch of scoring forwards in major ranks. Thompson got 20 goals and Gottselig 16. Conacher, a defenseman, was next with 10.

 

[MXD]

While playing behind defensive teams would help a netminder, those defensive teams, if they aren't otherwise super elite (which the Chicago Blackhawks were certainly not), would tend to score less than the more offensive players, thus putting the goalie under bigger pressure/strain.

 

[overpass]

While playing behind defensive teams would help a netminder, those defensive teams, if they aren't otherwise super elite (which the Chicago Blackhawks were certainly not), would tend to score less than the more offensive players, thus putting the goalie under bigger pressure/strain.

True.

But there is also reason to believe that the Hawks were no longer goalless wonders in the playoffs. Tommy Gorman announced after the playoffs that his invention of forechecking was the reason for his team's victory. According to him, they had invented and implemented a forechecking system near the end of the regular season, where the forwards pressured the puck into the opponent's end and the defencemen moved up past the blueline.

Gorman was an old journalist and always a self-promoter, so I wouldn't buy everything he was selling. But in this case he brought the receipts. Chicago scored a goal in the first minute of play in three of their eight playoff games, and scored a goal three minutes into a fourth game. Pretty good for the goalless wonders! And they scored 19 goals in 8 playoff games, well above their regular season scoring average.

Border Cities Star, April 13 (Canadian Press report)

On April 13, 1934, Tommy Gorman gave an interview in which he explained that the Hawks' victory was due to a new innovation which he called "forechecking".

Forechecking, a new development in professional hockey, won the Stanley Cup and world championship for Chicago, Tommy Gorman, manager of the victorious Black Hawks, explained today. Before leaving for his Ottawa home, Gorman told about the system he believes will be generally used by National League teams next season.

The Hawks, he said, used a revolutionary idea for the last six weeks of the season and in downing Montreal Canadiens, Maroons and Detroit Red Wings in the playoffs. Perhaps it explains why the Hawks had more shots on goal than their foes and yet played near-perfect defensive hockey.

"True, our backchecking was great," said Gorman, "but it was our forechecking that downed all our rivals. About five weeks ago, just prior to playing the Rangers in New York, we conceived the idea of bottling up the opposing forwards--of not letting them out of their own zone.

"We studied and developed a system which consisted of the centre and wings going right down into their opponents' territory while our defensemen moved over our own blue line. Canadiens gave us more trouble than any of the other clubs because of the terrific speed of Morenz and the great stickhandling of Joliat and Gagnon.

"In Montreal, in the first game of our series against Maroons Johnny Gottselig scored the first goal for us in less than a minute when he dashed in and stole the puck off the goaltender's pads. We carried the play right to them and scored in 40 seconds.

"In the third period, when they expected us to lay back, having obtained a lead of one goal, we again gave Maroons the works and scored twice in less than two minutes. When Maroons returned here we tallied the opening goal in 35 seconds. Against Detroit we carried out the same system with equal success. We scored on them in 28 seconds in last Sunday's battle here and would have made it three straight if Chuck Gardiner had been himself.

"Jack Adams was the first of the opposing managers to see through our new system. He tried to beat it by having the defensemen trap the puck and then whip it over to their forwards at the blue line. In Sunday's game it looked as though Jack had us bewildered, but our forwards kept on going in and the Red Wings could never get organized.

"The forechecking of the Black Hawks in Tuesday's game won the championship. Weiland, Lewis, Aurie, and other Detroit forwards were completely baffled. Lewis became so disgusted on one occasion that he golfed the puck down the ice. Goodfellow (ed: played second line centre, right defence, and the first unit power play) could never get going as MacFayden followed in like a leech and kept poking the puck off his stick.

"It was necessary to change our attack every minute or so, but all three lines stood up wonderfully well. In each playoff series we steam-rollered our opponents and wore them down. Instead of backing out of the enemy zone, the Black Hawks kept charging in. The system worked much better than we expected.

"Here are examples of what our prowling forwards did in close. Thompson's winning goal in the first overtime game at Detroit was scored after Romnes had poked the puck off Teddy Graham's stick. In the instance of March's winning goal here, our defensemen moved up and refused to let Detroit get the puck out of their own territory.

"Conacher finally trapped it behind the Red Wings' net and then March held it against the boards. Both Coulter and Conacher moved up and when Romnes drew the puck from Weiland, he had three men to pass to. Goodfellow was off at the time and March was uncovered. Then followed his winning shot.

Gorman, who built the Hawks into a championship outfit in one season, said he expected every club in the N.H.L. would employ some variation of forechecking next season. "They would have to," he said, "just as they had to follow when Major McLaughlin, owner of the Hawks, introduced his three forward lines four years ago."

 

[overpass]

All that said, I don't mean to invalidate Benedict's 1926 or Gardiner's 1934 because their teams played well defensively. That's usually a requirement for a Cup winner.

Brimsek (39 Bruins)
Broda (49, 51 Leafs)
Dryden (76-78 Habs)
Balfour (99 Stars)

Also won Cups with all time great defensive teams in front of them.

 

[jigglysquishy]

Postseason All Star Teams - Brimsek, Broda, and Durnan

IMPORTANT NOTE - From 1935-1956, the 1st Team All Star was the goalie who led the league in GAA (among goalies who played at least 75% of the games) 100% of the time. The 2nd Team All Star was NOT always the goalie who was 2nd. Does this mean we should take 2nd Teams as seriously as 1st Teams for this era?

"3rd Team All Stars" are unofficial, but are based off the same pool of votes that determine 1st and 2nd Team. We have them for every season of the careers of these goalies.

Frank Brimsek
1st Team All Star (1939, 1942)
2nd Team All Star (1940, 1941, 1943, 1946, 1947, 1948)

Brimsek was top 2 in All Star voting every year for a decade starting in his rookie year (1939), except the 2 season he missed World War 2. He never finished 3rd in voting.

Turk Broda
1st Team All Star (1941, 1948)
2nd Team All Star (1942)
3rd Team All Star (1943, 1947, 1949, 1950)

Broda was a rookie in 1937, but not an All Star until 1941. He was top 3 in All Star voting every year for a decade except the 3 seasons he missed due to World War 2. (He only played 16 games in 1945-46, as a late return from the war).

Bill Durnan
1st Team All Star (1944, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1949, 1950)
3rd Team All Star (1948)

Durnan's career lasted only 7 seasons, but he was a 1st Team All Star all 6 times his team made the playoffs, and 3rd in voting the 1 season his team didn't. Two important caveats:

1) See above - the 1st Team AS seemed to automatically go to the leader in GAA so long as he played the full season.

2) His 1944 and 1945 All Star Teams were literally against AHL competition, and his 1946 All Star Team wasn't much better. Every other NHL starter from 1943 went off to war for 1944 and 1945 (including the only 3 to get All Star votes in 1943 - Johnny Mowers, Frank Brimsek, and Turk Broda), and Durnan was left to beat up on what was left. Durnan's 1946 All Star Team wasn't much better, as Brimsek (34 of 50 games) and Broda (16 of 50 games) arrived late from the war. Brimsek was a 2nd Teamer, despite only playing 68% of the games in an era where starters usually played 100%

Postseason All Star Teams for the Rest

Charlie Gardiner

Charlie Gardiner died after the 1933-34 season.

1930-31 1st Team - Roy Worters had the best GAA but was not a 1st or 2nd Team AS. Gardiner had the 2nd lowest GAA.
1931-32 1st Team - won the Vezina and had the lowest GAA
1932-33 2nd Team - was 3rd in GAA. 2nd in GAA (John Ross Roach) was the 1st Teamer in his career season.
1933-34 1st Team- won the Vezina for the lowest team GAA, but Wilf Cude (who missed games) had the lowest personal GAA

He also had 3 seasons before the official All-Star Teams and newspaper reports praise his play in both 1928-29 and 1929-30

Johnny Bower

1st Team All Star (1961) - over Glenn Hall and Gump Worsley
3rd Team All Star (1962) - behind Jacques Plante and Glenn Hall
3rd Team All Star (1964) - behind Glenn Hall and Charlie Hodge
3rd Team All Star (1965) - behind Roger Crozier and Charlie Hodge
3rd Team All Star (1968) - behind Gump Worsley and Ed Giacomin

Weakest regular season candidate so far?

Tony Esposito

1st Team All Star (1970) - over Ed Giacomin and Jacques Plante
3rd Team All Star (1971) - behind Ed Giacomin and Jacques Plante
1st Team All Star (1972) - ahead of Ken Dryden and Gerry Cheevers
2nd Team All Star (1973) - behind Ken Dryden, ahead of Gilles Villemure
2nd Team All Star (1974) - behind Bernie Parent, ahead of Gilles Gilbert
3rd Team All Star (1978) - behind Ken Dryden and Don Edwards
1st Team All Star (1980) - ahead of Don Edwards and Mike Liut

The only time Esposito finished ahead of Dryden was when Dryden was a rookie. Plante was 41 and 42 years old in 1970 and 71. Esposito got signiificant All-Star consideration, but the Ed Giacomin was the best goalie who was in his prime when Esposito beat him for an All-Star nod (if we assume Parent's prime was those 2 great years).


Ed Belfour

1st Team All Star (1991) - over Patrick Roy and Andy Moog
3rd Team All Star (1992) - behind Patrick Roy and Kirk MacLean
1st Team All Star (1993) - ahead of Tom Barrasso and Felix Potvin
2nd Team All Star (1995) - behind Dominik Hasek, ahead of Jim Carey
3rd Team All Star (1998) - behind Dominik Hasek and Martin Brodeur
3rd Team All Star (2003) - behind Martin Brodeur and Marty Turco

Belfour was 4th in All Star voting in both 2000 and 2004. I find his record quite impressive, when you consider the competition.

The case for Frank Brimsek:

Basically, in the late 30s, he was considered the best goalie in the world, better than Tiny Thompson who preceded him in Boston, and better than everyone who came since Charlie Gardiner. He went off to serve during World War 2, came back, and was considered just as good as Bill Durnan when he came back.

Basically, Brimsek likely peaked as high as Durnan but maintained that level for longer. And I think Brimsek was more of a difference-maker in the playoffs than Duran.

Detailed arguments from last round:

Brimsek was likely cheated out of 2-3 1st Team All Stars by the tradition that the 1st Team always went to the Vezina winner:

• In 1942-43, players, general managers, and opposing goaltenders all seemed to agree that Brimsek was the best goalie
• In 1947-48, Brimsek lost the 1st Team to Turk Broda, the Vezina winner, by a single point, but easily beat him in Hart voting (finishing 2nd while Broda got no votes).
• In 1940-41, Brimsek lost the 1st Team by a single point to Broda, the Vezina winner.
• It's highly suspicious that in Broda's long, Hall of Fame career, the only two times he was awarded the 1st Team were the two times he happened to lead the league in GAA

Details: http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=55392199&postcount=151

Brimsek likely deserved 4 1st Teams and 4 2nd Teams, with possibly a 5th 1st Team. And that's before you take into account that he lost 2 years in the middle of his prime to World War 2.

Brimsek was very good in the playoffs for most of his career

• The Bruins ended a 10 year Cupless Drought in Brimsek's rookie year and won 2 Cups in his first 3 seasons in the league before the team was destroyed by World War 2
• Brimsek played very well in 1946, his first playoffs after the war, but was let down by the Bruin Defense

Details: http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=55392313&postcount=152

Why Brimsek over Gardiner? Longevity. Why Brimsek over Vezina or Benedict? Better established as the best of his generation.

I also do think there is something to the statements by Jack Adams and Dick Irvin that goaltending improves over time, so the best goalie of the 40s maybe should be rated a bit higher than the best of the 20s. As a group, we seem to endorse that thinking as not a single member of our top 8 played in the NHL before 1950.

I do think Brimsek is the tops of the 40s trio. Prior to the big three O6 goalies, I think him, Gardiner, and Vezina have the most widespread support for best goalie of all time.

For me, there are five goalies who stand out on top, chronologically.

Vezina
Gardiner
Brimsek
Dryden
Tretiak

We haven't talked a lot about Dryden. He's the consensus best NHL goalie born between 1931 and 1965. It's a very wide time spread to hold that title. I think he should be a lock for everyone's top 4.

 

[MXD]

All that said, I don't mean to invalidate Benedict's 1926 or Gardiner's 1934 because their teams played well defensively. That's usually a requirement for a Cup winner.

Brimsek (39 Bruins)
Broda (49, 51 Leafs)
Dryden (76-78 Habs)
Balfour (99 Stars)

Also won Cups with all time great defensive teams in front of them.

The difference is, of those teams, the only one I wouldn't consider at least "Very Good" relative to the NHL are the '49 Leafs, and even then, they were quite good. The Dryden Habs were a dynasty and the Brimsek Bruins really, but really SHOULD have been a dynasty, but they dropped it in 1940, and then the War happened.

By the way, I don't think Brimsek deserves much flak for 1940, because he got very weak goal support, but in this round, where goalies tended to win they could (Dryden) and when they probably shouldn't have (Gardiner), I'm afraid this really doesn't help his case.

Meanwhile, the '34 Hawks were possibly not even making the playoffs if their netminder was anyone else than Gardiner. Basically, the Hawks were defensive by obligation. The others by choice.

 

[Dr John Carlson]

A question while I try and pound out the Bill Durnan post... what's the case for Benedict over Belfour? I'm not sure I see it... both played a long time, both had success for different teams, both got their Cup(s) under elite defensive teams. Benedict was probably the 2nd best of the pre-forward pass 10s/20s, Belfour was certainly the 4th best of the deep 90s... you have to take Belfour, right?

Just trying to get Eddie the Eagle involved here, I feel like he's been a lost a bit among the old guys. Belfour > Benedict, I'm pretty confident on. Belfour > Broda, the 3rd best of the 40s, a decade with very dubious goaltending depth IMO, I'm pretty confident on that. Who else?

I'm not even totally sold on Benedict's 'innovator' rep for dropping to the ice to make saves. I don't know if it was all that uncommon... in my George Hainsworth OHA research, he was doing it all the time in the 10s, as were his adversaries, and getting penalized frequently for it.

 

[rmartin65]

This is later than I wanted to get to this, but work had other plans for me today.

Growing up without a religious affiliation

The tip of the iceberg/clump of these goalies becoming available immediately after the big 6 (see, how easy it is to change? That's good, because it's probably really the Big 5 haha) flags for me that we might have trouble with this and any future project.

I think we're going to have a major anchoring bias or canon issue and we might not have enough conscientious objectors or time or interest or film or stats to challenge at the potentially correct pressure points.

We are in 100% agreement here; anchoring/canon are issues, and I think most of us are guilty of it. I know I am.

The Blume is off the rose, for me, on the "oldest" goalies

As many of you know, I've spent a ton of hours watching about 100 years of goalie film working my way backward through time as to not shock the system so bad. I intermixed instructional videos, read about coaching techniques, read about goalies talking about goalies, and reached out to older goalies/goalie coaches when I felt like there was a gap in my technical perspective of the situation.

I have an immense amount of respect for the time and effort you put into this.

You: So you hate history?

Not at all. I'm the lone #1 vote for Jacques Plante in the first round - and he turned pro in 1949.

Organized hockey existed for over 50 years before 1949.

This is also a super small sample size; there aren't exactly a lot of legitimate options to pick for that 1 spot.

I don't think you can show any more respect for the history of the game than by representing it with maximum possible accuracy.

Agreed

You: So you're just committing era bias? Which we hate! Don't we?!?!
*rabble rabble rabble*

Perhaps. But isn't it just as likely that you're committing era bias? It's not a one-way street. Maybe you're over-representing the era(s) in question and THAT'S historically inaccurate.

It is definitely possible that era bias is being committed in the opposite (or different) directions.

I think we are seeing era bias here, when I look at who is available. But I think we saw it last round, too- the greatest 4 goalies of all time (140-ish years) came from the same 2 birth years? What are the odds of that? If there is a statistician in the house, that is an honest question, I'd love to know the answer.

The previous goalie list had, what, 4 or 5 goalies from the entire baby boomer generation? One of which is mostly just Gretzky's goalie. There's well more goalies that played pre-consolidation than played during a certain span of my lifetime.

Who are the "80's goalies", to fit it into a box, on the previous list? Roy, Smith, Fuhr, Barrasso - who doesn't even belong, Vanbiesbrouck, and Liut sneaking in last? Including Smith (23rd) and Fuhr (25th) only three made the top 25.

Maybe hockey was a pathetic sport in the 80's? Well...6 of the top 20 centers played in the 80's. You got another 6 or so top 40 wingers from the 80's. 8 of the top 20 d-men. So, it's not that. Hockey seems good...maybe great.

So that means either...ERA BIAS *alarm sound* or the recognition that positions evolve at different rates within the context of the game. I don't live in binary world, so it's not a Y/N choice. I'm sure both have good claims.

I think there is a very good chance this board has an era bias against the 80s, yeah.

To be fair, though- pre-Consolidation covered 40-ish years, the 80s... 10. So there is definitely more history to pull from there.

It is a little convenient that the 80's guys have bad numbers vs. the rest of history and are not represented, whereas pre-forward pass goalies may be over-represented with the best numbers in history. That's maybe just a coincidence. But I'd give that a quick whiff before I chug it.

The really early guys had even higher numbers, which I think gets held against them.

So why are we moving to New Jersey?

1. Westchester is too expensive

The film work tells me that the position does ebb and flow. It doesn't evolve consistently or evenly or anything of the sort. That's the nature of sport. The most accessible and obvious thing I can point to here is - we see the highlights from 1975 to 1985 or whatever, right? And yeah, goalies don't make any saves in those usually. But come on, you can get a feel for what's going on. And now for those of you that partook in the Plante and Sawchuk videos that I made can see a MARKED difference between a dude playing in 1955 versus 1985...you want the former, generally.

But film work, especially when you go back and it's scarce, can get people's dander up. That's fair enough. You're not obliged to agree with any of this if you don't want. But as someone who has watched a lot of, hmmm...how to put this...bad hockey in his life, you can usually sort out what you're watching pretty quick if your palette is diverse enough. Like when I posted the Jarmo Myllys video a few weeks back. Yeah, it's a video of him giving up the most goals in a period ever or whatever. But come on...come on...even if that's the worst game of his life, right? Even if it is. Do you think his best game looks like something you'd want to invest in? And maybe this is just my mind's eye, but he's going to be bad no matter what. You can just tell in how he goes about his business. I don't need to watch 20 games of him to figure it out, ya know? It's not a mystery.

I considered bringing film into this now, but I don't know how to present it without re-creating the flipbook that I went through myself. It's unfair to these older goalies if I say, "Hey, look, this is what Gardiner played like...doesn't he look like a goof?" (I don't think that's even true) because there's no context. If you're watching Calgary/Chicago like I am right now, there's a huge difference between Mrazek and Wolf right there in terms of playing style...now I'm gonna show you something from 1928 and go, "yeah, see...this is no good"...? That doesn't make sense for either side.

But what can I say with some degree of confidence is that: if you put a pin in the game in 1967 and work backwards, there's a consistent pattern of technical regression and devolution in the goaltending position. I think the position grows considerably through the 1930's (among the top guys, the position seldom has much depth, the bottom O6 guys aren't worth a damn either). I don't want to name a bunch of names that aren't eligible...but Brimsek and Durnan seem to provide something that the generation before them did not. There's a couple guys in the 30's that are bringing something that almost no one else was. The guys before that..........I don't think too much of.

I think this is generally too harsh, and I don't understand why we are comparing the evolutionary curve of goalies to the evolutionary curve of forwards and skaters. The best goalies of their time was the best goalie of their time. Are we punishing them for not understanding the position as well as those following them? Should we punish, I don't know, Pythagoras or some other early mathematician because he never knew calculus? I'm not even a math guy, and I was doing calculus in high school. Am I a better mathematician than him? Am I a better mathematician than every single individual that walked the Earth prior to the 17th century by sheer virtue of the timing of my birth?

No, because things build on each other. What the early guys did, the guys who followed built on and improved on. It doesn't necessarily make them worse, just working with a worse set of information.

The guys that played before forward passing was liberalized, with little exception, appear to be closer to a low-movement, shot-blocking defenseman. A mostly-standing Anton Volchenkov, if you will.

If (and I'm not saying I agree) that was the role of the position as it was understood at the time, why shouldn't we accept that?

Is it possible that goalies in 1900 and 1910 were better than 1920? Sure. But why would I conclude that at the rate it was going? Plus, there's a war in there. Just doesn't seem very likely.

I think it is possible, honestly. Here is a news article from 11 December 1916 that basically says only 1 good goalie had been developed in the last 6 years.

Link

For the record, I do NOT find that to be the case with skaters or league quality as a whole. Skaters pop, even going back through the 1920's. And I left some comments to that effect in my notes, guys that surprised me because they jumped off the page (Neil Colville, for instance). I have more reason to believe that there were impact players in the 1920's and back through the 1910's and maybe even further back because they are relatively advanced. Offensive play is more advanced. Goaltending appears to be very, very rudimentary. Which doesn't mean it doesn't exist. But the level of difficulty for goaltenders seems historically low.

I struggle to believe that a sport which paid real money at the time wasn't ensuring that each position was filled by the best man possible.

2. Long Island is too social

You: Well, contemporary opinion says that guys had great games and stuff...

I'm sure they did. I mean, what else could they have known? It's the old line about transportation in the 1890's: People wouldn't ask for a car, they'd ask for faster horses.

The way I look at this example, is that it would be foolish to expect someone to choose something that they had never heard of or experienced. Like, man, the Romans were so dumb for making roads instead of aircraft fields.

But we do see some folks commenting about the quality of goaltending immediately around the time where the film shows it improving at the top end.

Contemporary reports talked about goalie quality... I'm not sure why you think they didn't.

A 1935 Ottawa Journal article refers to forwards having more protection than "the goaltender of the early days". Pictures of Percy LeSueur from 1910 seem to more or less verify that.

Yes, they wore less pads. Skaters didn't wear helmets, too.

We have evidence that shot attempts were counted, as opposed to just shots on goal. Shots seem quite rare based on the film, which is mostly highlights of course. I want to do more work on this but someone hacked a big source of film from back then, unfortunately, and it isn't currently available.

The game (and the position) clearly evolved as time went on. But it seems unfair to judge players by what came later, since it isn't like they had a chance to experience it. Again, it would be like criticizing Pythagoras because he didn't know calculus.

It is fairly routinely stated that up to a certain point goaltenders were the guys that couldn't make it at the other positions because they weren't good enough skaters or stickhandlers. It seems like it was a dumping ground first before it became a specialized position.

I'm just not sold on that. You mean to tell me that for 50 years an entire position was just ignored? That nobody realized that having someone good at stopping pucks was important, that they could just stick whoever back there and it was fine?

And yes, I know there are anecdotes that say this, but it seems to me like a glib remark that just gets thrown around. Like Gretzky praising other players, if you will. I just found out that there is a whole HF thread about that here.

We have some rules about not being allowed to screen the goalie. We have the "trick" of Howie Morenz following up his shots on the goalie to score on the rebound (making it seem like that was maybe an advent in the mid 20's), it appears as if the average shot distance is also from further away, etc.

Goals being scored on rebounds and players driving the net was definitely around before Morenz. There are countless examples in the papers of players "boring in", and teams were criticized when they shot from outside the defenders.

Also, as far as contemporary opinion in the context of an all-time list like we're making here...the contemporary opinion seems to be low on goaltending.

The first 12 years of the HHOF's history - only two goalies were elected - both goalies who died while playing (Gardiner and Vezina). Which means, up through 1958, all the HHOF creators/makers/contributors/etc. found basically no one important enough to enshrine. That's pretty damning. We have over 50 years of Stanley Cup hockey at that point...two goalies. Maybe they knew that they were just the fat guy or the slow guy that they stuck back there. And having seen Gardiner for a flash, I'd say that he doesn't look like that. But guys around him do...

Goalies have always had a harder time getting into the Hall than skaters.

We'll never know for certain. Maybe they did think goalies were garbage. But maybe they had a positional bias. Maybe they thought goalies were worth it, they just valued other players more (like we see today). And maybe the HoF is just a flawed measuring system- Vernon made the Hall before Roenick. Dick Duff is in the Hall. Andreychuk, etc.

The weirdest, most inconsistent, and possibly the most team-dependent position in all of sports perhaps...this is the one that was steady through history?

The first NFL MVP was a center. For the last 30+ years, they're hardly ever first round picks in the draft. NFL has had the tight end position since the 40's. There are 0 tight ends in the HOF that played before 1961. Only 5 that had their prime in the 60's or 70's.

Meanwhile...Gronk, Kelce, Gates, Witten, are all going in...Gonzalez is already there. Those are all guys who played since 2000.

Even quarterbacks in the NFL...who is mentioned before Sammy Baugh (who started in the late 30's)? The NFL itself started in 1920, not even including other pro circuits.

I'm not saying that's right...but I'm just saying there's more wiggle room than "treat every era of this position more or less equally" that tracks away from bias and tracks towards plausible accuracy.

I don't know anything about football history, so... cool? I don't know much about baseball's history either, but a quick scan shows that they honored the greats who played 100+ years ago.

3. Connecticut is too inconvenient

It wasn't a specialized position for a while, but it had no choice but to become one when forward passing was fully liberalized. Notice the big shift after the game changed in 2005 and we fell off goalie-wise until everyone could figure out what to do? Well...

In the non-liberalized passing NHL, skaters that filled in for goalies had these results:

10 players - 357 minutes - 4.37 GAA

(the worst of that is Mummery giving up 20 goals in 192 minutes, which is exactly in line with the starting goalie on the team, they were awful). Without him, it's a 2.18. Granted, very small sample size...but also very biased towards being shorthanded. So you'd expect a really, really bad result. But it's not...no matter how you slice it.

(I just realized I don't have Lester Patrick's 35 minutes in the playoffs in there either in 1928 - that would drop that number even further overall)

This composite goalie, in an impossible situation, is still better than a handful of goalies in this time frame. It's "only" a goal per game worse than Vezina even.

From 1929-30 to 1940 just before the War years...with loosey goosey passing.

12 players - 194 minutes - 8.97 GAA

That GAA is 250% worse than the worst goalie of any legitimate time played. Every real goalie keeps it under 4. The non-goalies are sitting at 9. That feels a little more in line with what you'd "expect", right?

What would it look like if a skater hopped in net during a penalty kill today? Or in 1987 even? Probably not pretty. It can't be close. Something is wrong if it's close.

All right, I have more to say, but I'm running out of steam here.

All this says to me is that the game and needs of the position evolved, and that we should be judging players by the game they had the chance to play. Should we start ripping on Gardiner and Vezina because they never beat the Soviet Union? Or we can look at the mathematician example again.

So, let me say that I'm not fully against all goalies before forward-passing. I do have Gardiner pretty high on my original list (low 20s) because he does show some signs of technical scalability. Very tight, efficient. I don't think he belongs now, but I could maybe be convinced.

Clint Benedict, I'm much less sure about it. So are a lot of folks with the power of modest retrospect. Guys that could see the position evolve in the 30's, 40's, 50's...right now, we're talking about the 7th best goalie of all time...I'd like to be more sure than a guy known for "accidentally falling". But at the same time, if there's a straight story, I'll award some advent points. I'm not even against that either.

We don't necessarily need to have this whole thing out here, but I see we're already teetering towards some of these names and I think it's a critical discussion point to keep on the front lines.

I'm not a big fan of Benedict, for what it is worth. And I am actually souring (a little) on Gardiner.

Anyway, I know talent evaluation is your thing here. And you are definitely consistent in how you go about this. I just think that you are basically creating a draft board instead of looking at careers in a holistic sense, which I, personally, think is the goal here.

Can someone post the cliff notes from this novel?

There are a lot of well-reasoned comments in there; you are doing yourself a disservice by not reading it. I may not agree with it, but it is definitely a positive contribution to this project.

Plante #1...Gardiner in the low 20s...Benedict not worthy of this round's discussion...keep it up and you're going to talk your way out of having voting privileges here.

He's absolutely not going to lose voting privileges over this. He's put in more hours than probably anyone else for this project, and is remarkably consistent and transparent in detailing what he is doing, what he has done, and why.

Also...touch grass man. Holy smokes.

No need for this. We are all here to talk hockey. I, for one, appreciate the fact that @Michael Farkas went into such detail.

 

[jigglysquishy]

I'm not a big fan of Benedict, for what it is worth. And I am actually souring (a little) on Gardiner.

I'm curious where you sit on the 1910-1925 cohort. I've been open that all the reading I've done has solidified Vezina at 1. I'm starting to lean towards Lehman at 2.

The Vezina praise in his career is really really high.

 

[nabby12]

A question while I try and pound out the Bill Durnan post... what's the case for Benedict over Belfour? I'm not sure I see it... both played a long time, both had success for different teams, both got their Cup(s) under elite defensive teams. Benedict was probably the 2nd best of the pre-forward pass 10s/20s, Belfour was certainly the 4th best of the deep 90s... you have to take Belfour, right?

Just trying to get Eddie the Eagle involved here, I feel like he's been a lost a bit among the old guys. Belfour > Benedict, I'm pretty confident on. Belfour > Broda, the 3rd best of the 40s, a decade with very dubious goaltending depth IMO, I'm pretty confident on that. Who else?

I'm not even totally sold on Benedict's 'innovator' rep for dropping to the ice to make saves. I don't know if it was all that uncommon... in my George Hainsworth OHA research, he was doing it all the time in the 10s, as were his adversaries, and getting penalized frequently for it.

So what's the case for Belfour over Benedict/Broda? I'd start with that instead of trying to flip it around.

Benedict and Broda both have substantially better resumes than Belfour.

He's absolutely not going to lose voting privileges over this. He's put in more hours than probably anyone else for this project, and is remarkably consistent and transparent in detailing what he is doing, what he has done, and why.

I guess you missed it, but Farkas sent me over $100 yesterday to keep his voting privileges. So we're all square.

 

[overpass]

I do think Brimsek is the tops of the 40s trio. Prior to the big three O6 goalies, I think him, Gardiner, and Vezina have the most widespread support for best goalie of all time.

For me, there are five goalies who stand out on top, chronologically.

Vezina
Gardiner
Brimsek
Dryden
Tretiak

We haven't talked a lot about Dryden. He's the consensus best NHL goalie born between 1931 and 1965. It's a very wide time spread to hold that title. I think he should be a lock for everyone's top 4.

Bill Durnan is very much in the mix for me. I think he was more widely considered the best of his era and of all time than Brimsek.

Durnan led goaltenders in voting for a 1958 poll of 70 media members by Sport magazine for an all-time starting six. Others receiving votes were Frank Brimsek, Terry Sawchuk, Chuck Gardiner, Turk Broda, Roy Worters, George Hainsworth. Vote totals weren't given but clearly opinions were more divided on the goalie position than on others.

Separately, players who rated Durnan as best included Lynn Patrick, Sylvio Mantha, Fern Flaman, Maurice Richard, and Ted Kennedy.

1958 Sport Magazine polled 70 writers for an all-time hockey team

In 1958, Sport Magazine polled 70 sports writers and commentators from across the United States and Canada to choose an all-time, all-star NHL hockey team, providing a snapshot of the general opinion on the all-time greats. I haven't seen the article itself that Sport published. It was in their...

forums.hfboards.com

 

[Dr John Carlson]

Bill Durnan's Amateur Career

Bill Durnan was one of the last great professional players to have spent a significant portion of his career playing senior amateur hockey in Canada. He began in his home city of Toronto, moved up north to Kirkland Lake, then finished in Montreal, where he'd go on to be recruited by the Canadiens to man the goalposts for the remainder of his career, to great success.

One of the big holes in Durnan's resume is his lack of longevity. Is that fair? We aren't talking about somebody like Ken Dryden or Charlie Gardiner, who have nothing outside of their NHL careers, for two very different reasons. Bill Durnan does have relevant hockey outside of his NHL careers - almost an entire decade's worth.

How much stock should we put into senior hockey of the time? The Allan Cup was not always the footnote it's become in modern times - games of the time could rival NHL tilts in attendance, with some of Durnan's highest stakes games filling the Montreal Forum, or Maple Leaf Gardens, to capacity. From my reading, the Manitoba senior teams of the 1910s, and the Toronto senior teams of the 1920s were the strongest Allan Cup contenders of them all, seeing Hall of Famers on every roster. I think they could've done well had they played in the NHA/NHL instead. By Durnan's time, the gap between the NHL and Allan Cup hockey had grown, but we still saw great players come through - Hall of Famers like Edgar Laprade and Buddy O'Connor featured prominently in Durnan's senior career in Montreal. These were real games, with real stakes, versus real opponents. They do matter when assessing a player's career. The question is - how much do they matter?

That's what I hope to cover in this post. When did Bill Durnan become NHL-caliber? Was he in high demand from NHL circles? What kind of teams did he have success under? All of these can give insight and clues that provide context to his NHL career, which is undoubtedly the meat of his resume.

Grab a coffee and settle in, this could be a long one. Let's dive right in...

---

Playing Style

I'm not sure how to fit this into the rest of the post so I'll just get it out there early. I was very interested in any passages that gave meaningful descriptions of how he played goal. Him being ambidextrous is well-known, we even have good film of his unique 'two glove' equipment setup. But we can pick up snippets here and there of more. Here's what I thought was useful, up until 1943:

Durnan left little to be desired with his work in goal and it was a treat to watch him pick them out of the air. Incidentally, he stopped the majority of his shots with his hands.

Young Bill Durnan, who spears blue-line shots like a first basemen takes a throw from the other side of the infield, fumbled one tonight...

One of the most polished goaltenders in junior hockey, Durnan had thrilled a mighty crowd of more than 14,000 with his brilliancy for 55 minutes. The youngster, who learned to play hockey and baseball in North Toronto, had caught a dozen with his flashing right hand, throwing the puck into corners and smothering rebounds like a Hainsworth.

Durnan was a genuinely dominant softball pitcher in his day... I found a few clippings that called him one of the best in the country. Many of the great early goalies were notable baseball/softball players, and it's easy to deduce that it helped develop eye-hand coordination.

It was Durnan who held them up last night. This big boy who seems destined to make pro ranks some day never gets rattled under fire and the nonchalant manner in which he picks the flying pucks out of the air must be disconcerting to opposing sharpshooters.

Big Bill Durnan and [fellow Kirkland Lake goaler] Lyle Porter have been sharing the goal-tending duties. They are strictly a pair of opposites. Porter is short and of the 'Jumping Jake' Forbes type. Durnan, built along the lines of a policeman, moves in a manner that reminds one of Lorne Chabot.

A 1939 Brantford Expositor article mentioned Lorne Chabot as a goaltender who tended to "move around in the goal area".

Durnan plays the goal like a first baseman, catching everything two feet of the ice in his huge gauntlets. He has a great pair of hands, as they say... They have a sterling sentinel in Durnan.

Durnan, blessed with the quickest pair of hands for an amateur goaler that this city has seen in a long while, had his work more than cut out for him...

Durnan is rated one of the top goalers in Canada and has the best pair of hands in amateur hockey... that comes from long years of playing softball... he's rated the best softball pitcher in Ontario, and they've got some good ones up there.

The Royals were strengthened in the most vital spots after bowing to Kirkland Lake last spring and their most valuable addition is Bill Durnan. The former Blue Devil net guardian is known for his refusal to become ruffled under fire and he offers a test for Senators here tomorrow night.

Of Durnan, [Dick] Irvin says, 'He is big, has style and perhaps possesses the 'pro complex' to a greater extend than any of the others [in the Quebec Senior League].

Kirkland Lake Bill seldom gets rattled. One might go farther and say he never gets ruffled. They may beat him for an easy counter or two now and then but his outward appearance leaves the impression that the matter has been instantly forgotten.

While on the subject of goalkeepers, nobody seems to have reported that Bill Durnan, of the Royals, is the only ambidextrous netminder in existence... Watch Bill tomorrow afternoon against Ottawa Senators at the Forum... He is constantly shifting his big stick from one side to the other...

[Montreal Royals manager Gus] Ogilvie had confidence in Durnan from the start, even when they said Bill wasn't so good on the low shots. Ottawa couldn't beat him there, and there is nothing coming high that Bill can't put away with a pair of hands that many shortstop would like to have... It's fine to have a man behind you like Durnan, and this has been written before and will be written again.

Interesting that low shots, likely meaning ones that he couldn't snatch with his gloves, are mentioned as a weakness... were they, or did they only seem like it because of how good he was with his hands? Difficult to say, but later in the season there's a stronger indication that it may have been a genuine issue:

Durnan was beaten on some shots along the ice, but he was playing against a team that knows his every weakness.

Bill Durnan, [Montreal Royals coach Frank] Carlin's cool custodian, does even his falling in the approved fashion. The length of him, with the big pads sticking up, is solidly in the goalmouth.

Durnan is Mr. Cool himself... You don't get the erstwhile Kirkland Lake goaler off his feet very often... He takes everything in stride although there must have been plenty of nights this past winter when he was a trifle more than ruffled... But [fellow senior goalie Bill] Dickie drops to the ice at every opportunity...

[Montreal Army winger Gordie Bruce] figures it's pretty hard to drive them past Durnan from far out. 'Bill plays them well with his stick in clearings,' says Gordie.

Only a super performance by Bill Durnan would have stopped the Army. Sometimes Bill isn't so good when they get the first goal past him, as was the case last night.

Canadiens shouldn't be disappointed with Bill Durnan. For one thing he concedes nothing to any goalie in the matter of style. He's the cool type, with as smart a pair of hands as you'll find in any league.

It's a lot, so let's recap... Bill Durnan was dynamite on shots he could pick out of the air with his two gloves, a skill he was able to utilize by adjusting his stick positioning from hand to hand. A 'cool' goalie, which typically meant a goalie who preferred to stay on his feet rather than to drop and flop, Durnan's size allowed him to cover a lot of goal without resorting to great acrobatics like some of his smaller senior counterparts. You could beat him from getting him to move laterally, which would take his hands out of the equation.

---

Sudbury/Toronto - 1932-1936

Bill Durnan was considered a top goaltending prospect from an early age, playing junior hockey first in Toronto, then a year in Sudbury, before coming back to start his senior career in Toronto again.

For the net-minding position the [Sudbury Wolf Cubs] have their eyes on none other than Bill Durnan, 16-year-old star goalkeeper of last year's North Toronto juniors. Bill is rated as the most sensational lad to don the big pads around Toronto in years and it will be a big blow to several clubs if he should take the northern trip.

You can tie the tinware to any crack about Durnan. Durnan is just about the best looking junior goalkeeper which has appeared in Toronto this year – and we have seen plenty.

[Durnan] is billed as the next goalkeeper of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

I don't put too much stock in his early Toronto years, beyond establishing that he was thought of as a serious NHL prospect. He spent most of his time in the Toronto Mercantile League, a slightly lesser level than OHA senior hockey, which he occasionally filled in with.

Things came to a halt in 1935, with a serious knee injury early in the season that wrote him off in most people's eyes. There's not much on how and when the injury took place - one article years after the fact said it came from a "friendly beach wrestling joust" - but by year's end it was noted that Durnan was packing up and heading north:

Big Bill Durnan will depart for Kirkland Lake when the softball season is over. The husky eastender will try a comeback with the Kirkland Lake N.O.H.A. Entry. Before he injured his knee Durnan was one of the most promising young goalies around these parts and his many friends will be pulling for him to make the grade up north...

Durnan, who starred for Sudbury a few seasons back and who was considered one of the greatest prospects in the game, will do his goal tending for Kirkland Lake...

By the end of the 35-36 season, 20 year old Durnan's status as a prospect was tainted, his knee was hurt, and little more can be gleaned from the sources.

---

Kirkland Lake - 1936-1940

Northern Ontario was where "Kirkland Bill" earned his stripes. Durnan came to town as a castaway, assumed to have had his professional hockey career ruined by his knee injury, though his reputation from a strong junior season in Sudbury years ago still carried weight.

It's very difficult to find much useful information from the Northern Ontario league of this time. Not many sources, and games had very brief, barren reports, so for these first two seasons I'll just add my own recaps plus a few passages:

In 36-37, he started off as the backup for the Blue Devils before taking over as starter later in the season, and was reported as having a pleasantly surprising season. Kirkland Lake finished 1st in their division, but lost in the league final, and thus missed out on competing in the Allan Cup playoffs. A postseason article stated that Bruins scout Lionel Hitchman extended an invitation for Durnan to attend Boston's training camp in Hershey the following season. It's not clear whether he attended or not, but I'm assuming not.

37-38 was a similar tale, though Durnan was the starter for the entire season. Kirkland Lake won their division and again lost in the league finals. Wikipedia labels these as Allan Cup playoff games, but they weren't, they were just Northern Ontario playoff games.

At this point, Bill is about to turn 22, and I don't see any reason to think he'd be an NHL-caliber goalie at this point. So, nothing doing yet.

1938-39 has a bit more information, as they actually made it to the Allan Cup playoffs. They faced the Toronto Goodyears, a strong team that featured future NHLers like Don Metz and 'Hankus' Goldup. The Blue Devils, powered by a skilled offence and a rushing group of defensemen in front of an improving Durnan, were unable to adjust to playing real competition after totally crushing the Northern Ontario league, and they were swept. Big Bill gives up a bad goal to lose Game 1 in overtime, and in Game 3 is benched in favour of backup Lyle Porter. For me, still not NHL-caliber at 23 years old.

Now we come to 39-40, his big Allan Cup year. This was the first year where his team could beat real competition, so let's take a look at the strengths of this Kirkland Lake team to see how they did it, and how instrumental Bill Durnan was in their success.

There's going to be a lot of unfamiliar names mentioned here, but the focus is meant to be on the perceived strengths/weaknesses of the team, not the names.

Looking back over the series and studying every game, one realizes that [centre Dick Kowcinak] is the heart of this [unintelligible] puck machine.

Last night the Lake Shore centremen continually beat the Goodies' mid-ice players to the puck, the wings outskated and outchecked the Tiremen's railers, while the defencemen were more alert defensively and far more aggressive and effective on the attack.

On the other hand the Blue Devils' big drawback is that they have lacked tough competition all year... They've got to win their games in the first 30 minutes or so because they fade after that... Their defence didn't seem as strong as it was cracked up to be, with [Mel] Snowden looking the pick of the crop and [Doug] Boston a disappointment.. But the forwards can skate, and they back-check relentlessly.

Tommy Gorman is authority for the statement that no less than four of the Royals are excellent pro prospects, who could quite likely leap from amateur ranks to the big time and stay there. Basil O'Meara reports that the four Gorman thinks that highly of are Johnny Atcheson, Russ McConnell, Bert Janke and Buddy O'Connor.

The Blue Devils have a few fellows, however, who can match anything that Royals can dress and send in against them. Mel Snowden, Dick Kowcinak, Hal Cooper, Jo-Jo Graboski and Johnny McCreedy will trade speed and stick-handling with any players that fans here who followed the Quebec Senior League saw in Royal uniforms. Some of their mates aren't quite up to their standards of hockey class, but the team as a whole is impressive.

Durnan not mentioned when the article basically lists half the team as being strong. I'm guessing they were only looking at skaters when putting those names together...

The Blue Devils showed a nicely balanced team – fast forwards, stalwart defencemen and a cool steady goalkeeper.

Blue Devils pack tremendous scoring punch in a set of fast-skating, accurate-shooting forwards that might carry them through to the Allan Cup. Billy Durnan is giving them all-star goalkeeping and while the defence appears at times to be pretty slow back of the blue-line they seem to get by.

It was a case of two forward lines playing against three sets of clever and resourceful attacking forces. Kirkland Lake had too much class up front, too much poise and cover up on defence and Bill Durnan didn't have a chance to prove he's the mainstay they say he is.

Professional hockey scouts are not too enthusiastic about the Lake Shore Blue Devils, claiming they are too small... all agree, however, that the northerners, win, lose or draw, really turn on the heat and are box office...

So we're looking at a team with three forward lines, all of whom were strong skaters and willing backcheckers, helping out an inconsistent yet physical defense that was probably a bit too slow, and then Durnan. I won't post any snippets of games from these guys, but from my reading, centreman Dick Kowcinak was their best player and MVP, his winger Johnny McCreedy was probably number two, and then I'd go with Durnan third. It was a very good senior team with skaters too small to make it in the pros, but Durnan was plenty big, and received his fair share of praise:

Fully 11,00 saw for themselves last night. They saw a team that was robust and fast, alert and smart, backed by a goal sentinel with ice water in his veins.

The man was Bill Durnan.

...

Durnan was a delight to watch, if you didn't care who won.

Kowcinak and his teammates, with their stickhandling wizardry and speed, and Durnan with his great goaltending brought about the biggest upset years in routing the Royals so handily.

The Western rearguard is overshadowed by the Blue Devils' sturdy, hard-hitting defence, and there isn't any comparison between the goalminders. Bill Durnan, in the Northern nets, is a very real star...

Now we come to Bill Durnan, the human icicle, who guards the Lake Shore goal. When Bill left Toronto four seasons back he was rated as all washed up. But he hit the comeback trail and proved that he still had the stuff which made him a standout junior with Sudbury by being one of the main cogs in Kirkland Lake's title charge. Well done, Willie, you were great and deserve a place in the hockey spotlight.

And, to answer one of my questions in the introduction to this post, we start seeing rumblings of interest from NHL clubs:

But the Canadiens don't stick close to home entirely. They are said to have Bill Durnan, of Kirkland Lake's Allan Cup finalists, on their list in case Claude Bourque and Wilf Cude don't maintain the goaltending job.

Hockey gossip here has it that at least six members of the Kirkland Lake Blue Devils will be invited to 'try out' with National Hockey League clubs next fall.

Lake Shore players said to be in demand are Bill Durnan, Mel Snowden, Doug Boston and Johnny McCreedy. They haven't been offered contracts, but it is believed that some of them will before return to Kirkland Lake.

... though Bruins manager Art Ross was less enthusiastic on the team as a whole:

After watching the initial Allan Cup duel, Ross coldly said there isn't a player on either club that interests him.

Durnan moves east for Montreal that summer, and his Northern Ontario chapter is closed. To conclude this section, I'd say that 1940 is the earliest year I would argue Bill Durnan could've played as a solid NHL goalie, and that's backed up by him garnering interest from pro circles, five years after he was last pegged as the future in nets for Toronto.

---

Montreal Royals - 1940-1943

We wrap things up in Montreal, the city he'd go on to earn his fame in. Bill remains an amateur and joins up with the Montreal Royals of the Quebec Senior Hockey League, who he defeated in the Allan Cup semifinals a year prior.

The Canadiens essentially treated the QSHL like a feeder system, especially during wartime, and often looked at plucking goalies they liked to replace their inconsistent netminders at the NHL level. We will see lots of talk of that in 1941, which was an even stronger season for him than 1940:

'Bill' Durnan, goalkeeper for last year's champion Kirkland Lake Club, came down to [Canadiens' training camp] yesterday and was in the nets for a while. He made a good impression. Durnan will be with the Royals in the Quebec Senior Hockey Association this season. He will likely remain here for the balance of the training season.

Although Bert Gardiner is reported to have played a strong game in Toronto, the Habitants are on the lookout for another 'spare' goaler... They say that Wilf Cude's bread-and-butter job will keep him so tied down here, that he would not be available for any emergency appearances except at home, so the club is anxious to obtain another 'insurance policy' for [Bert] Gardiner... They have had both Jimmy Franks and Mike Karakas (the ex-Hawk goaler who was with them for a while last season), recommended in the past week, but turned thumbs down on them... Canadiens don't want to disturb the Q.S.H.L. set-up by signing [Concordia goalie] Lionel Bouvrette, [Senior Canadiens goalie] Paul Bibeault or Bill Durnan.

In fact, in 1941, Durnan was playing well enough that he very well may have been plucked from the QSHL a few years early, but the Canadiens didn't want to put a damper on the Royals' Allan Cup run:

Coach Dick Irvin, of Canadiens, has his eyes on three senior amateur goalkeepers hereabouts and is mulling over the possibility of signing one of them before the NHL season ends. The man he'd really like to get is Bill Durnan, of Royals, but Irvin would be reluctant to mar the [Royals'] prospects of going places in the amateur playdowns by taking Durnan away.

...If Royals should be knocked out by Ottawa, it wouldn't be a great surprise if Durnan is offered a Habitant contract. The other amateur goalies Irvin has in mind are Paul Bibeault and Conny Dion, but Durnan is the one he prefers above all.

Dick Irvin will probably journey to Ottawa to look over the Senior Group play-off games. There is no chance of Bill Durnan even considering a National League offer until the Royals have wound up their season. Paul Bibeault would appear to be the most likely candidate as an understudy for Bert Gardiner.

Paul Bibeault did wind up being signed by the Canadiens a few days later, instead of Durnan.

Most people think Durnan would be a Jim-dandy in the NHL...

'We will lose several to Canadiens this season... They would also like to get Durnan, but Bill has a good job and is getting along rather nicely without pro hockey. I think he will remain with us,' stated [Royals manager Gus Ogilvie]...

Canadiens are almost sure to sign Johnny Acheson and Bert Janke, of Royals, next fall – if they'll accept contracts – and there's a chance the Habitants may also take up Goaler Bill Durnan..

...The bulk of the pressure was on Bill Durnan, and the Royals' netminder stood up under it with a spectacular exhibition that made him appear to be a pretty good bet for Canadiens to lay their hopes on next season, if they can induce him to sign...

Bill Durnan is another goalie the Flying Frenchmen would like to sign on the dotted line. Bill can be had if the right kind of money is laid on the line. At least that is what the big Toronto boy said on his last visit to this city.

It looks like Durnan was ready to star in the NHL by 1941, but either wasn't willing to sign due to money demands, or wasn't able to be signed because of his Royals making a playoff push.

Speaking of the Royals, let's do what we did with the Blue Devils and look at their strengths and weaknesses - again with the disclaimer about unfamiliar names:

Royals like the NHL Canadiens are none too well staffed back of the line. They could do with two good defenders. They have neat forwards and right now the brainiest, best-looking line in the group is the O'Connor, Heffernan, Morin trio. But they have to do so much back checking, fill in so many spaces for the spinning defencemen that they may be wearing that peaked look before their usual time, which is about the end of February...

Buddy O'Connor was their number one centre, and their best player. He'd go on to be a Hart winner in the NHL later in the decade, and a Hall of Famer. More to come on him whenever we do the centres project...

The Royals are habitually a better team in the second-half running. They have only two scoring lines, however, this time.

[Royals coach] Frank Carlin has a raft of high scoring forwards and a good goalie in Bill Durnan. His defence has been a worry.

Royals are a team that will come on, the sort of hockey club that will be tough when the playoff stage is reached. They've got four husky defence men, and if they aren't any powerful puck carriers they make a pretty fair job of protecting their end of the rink and no one is going to be too 'mean' to their smaller forwards. Their front lines are fast, they check back smartly, and few opposing forwards can get set into any attacking pattern against them.

Royals, it must be conceded, lack the balance that a true championship team requires. Their strength lies up front, and when their forwards are 'hot' and are skating there are few clubs that can touch them in this department. Bill Durnan is a good goalkeeper, but the Royals are trying to get by with only two regular defencemen. They have held up well so far in the playoffs, but when the forwards let down in their skating, fail to carry their share of the attack and do not back-check, then Royals' defensive weakness becomes apparent.

[Royals] get good goaltending from Bill Durnan who should be up in the big time come next season. Their one weakness is on the defence and that might be the flaw in the Allan Cup hopes of the Montrealers.

Royals missed out on their Allan Cup bid in the past two years primarily because of defensive weakness. They turned that weakness into strength this season by carrying only two defencemen in the playoffs to make way for an extra forward line.

The move was made possible by the addition of Bill Durnan, goalie of the Allan Cup Kirkland Lake Blue Devils last season. With the brilliant Durnan taking up most of the defensive slack, the Montrealers have spelled their two defencemen by playing five forwards at intervals.

Lots of good stuff here for Durnan fans... the team was so confident in him that they were willing to just scrap their two defensemen and play five forwards in front of him at times? Yikes. It looks like a replay of the previous year's Kirkland Lake team, with the strength of the team up front, Durnan strong in goal, and a weak defense, only this time the defense is even slower and weaker, and the forwards were more overworked as a result.

Despite all of this, Durnan was lauded for his play:

Active with hands, feet, pads and stick large Bill Durnan earned the zero. He is showing himself a goalkeeper of class now... Durnan never lost sight of the puck.

Bill Durnan, who comes here Saturday with Royals, is rated one of senior hockey's top goalies now... he was strictly on a comeback when he came to Kirkland Lake in 1936-37 as the Allan Cup build-up started. His place since then has confounded his critics. He deserves top rating.

At play-off time Royals are liable to beat any team. Carlin legged them up in smart style. He has the type of goal-keeping to go with this year that has been lacking for a couple of seasons. Durnan has been a tremendous factor in all play-off games to date.

Those who saw Durnan play his greatest game on Saturday, came away convinced that here is a man who will crash in like [Calder runner-up Johnny] Mowers if he cares to take the big jump.

Bill Durnan turned in another star performance in the winners' goal... it looks as if Toronto's Bill is NHL bound.

The Royals wound up losing in the Allan Cup semifinals to the Sydney Millionaires, who'd managed to wrangle a number of Blue Devils to play for them, such as Kowcinak, McCreedy, and Mel Snowdon. It was said that Durnan, having played many more games this season than in any prior year, combined with his day job working him long hours, had worn out by season's end.

Helping my task is that the QSHL handed out an MVP award, known as the Ken Stewart Cup, which was voted on by 17 local sports writers, and high-scoring winger Albert Lemay of the Ottawa team won. Plus:

Each sports writer cast seven votes, selecting the most valuable player from each team on a graduating scale...

Six goalkeepers, including both Ottawa netminders, were mentioned. Paul Bibeault topped them all with 23 points while Lionel Bouvrette had 22. Bill Durnan drew 11; Louis St. Denis four; Trevor Higginbottom, three; and Andy Goldie, one.

Bibeault would be signed later in the season to play for the Habs. Bouvrette was probably the best goalie in the league over the time period I looked at, frequently being the goalie all others were compared to, and grabbing an MVP of his own later on. So, Durnan finished third behind them.

The Montreal Star came up with an all-star team, too:

Lionel Bouvrette is generally accepted as the best goalkeeper in the Quebec Senior Hockey League... He is unlucky to a minor degree in being anchor man with the weak Concordias...

We asked the coaches, managers, league officials, even fans before coming up the 'All Stars' of the waning 1940-41 season...

There was a wide diversity of opinion on the second man. Many liked Bill Durnan, others like Trevor Higginbottom, Louis St. Denis, Paul Bibeault. St. Denis had the best record, so he went into the place.

Seems rather dubious here, almost as though Durnan was the favoured option for the second team but they defaulted to Louis St. Denis based on team record.

There might be a sympathy vote [on the QSHL all-star team] with Lionel Bouvrette. If it's to be for a goalie playing behind a shaky defence we'd say Bill Durnan. On the other hand Bouvrette was not playing behind much of anything.

All in all, I'm going to say Bill Durnan was either the best or the second best goalie in the QSHL this season. He went on a deep playoff run, carrying a very bad defense as far as he could take them, and was frequently mentioned as being NHL-caliber, or in demand by the Canadiens. Dick Irvin was singled out as having real interest in him, even above other goalies like Bouvrette. He was certainly NHL-ready by now, and possibly could've been a star.

The next two seasons, unfortunately, feature much less material to work with, as the Royals went back and became non-factors in the QSHL, mostly due to their top line, the 'Razzle Dazzle' trio led by O'Connor, all jumping ship to the Habs, in addition to much of their depth simply moving on from the team. Noted team-jumper Dick Kowcinak came in once again and replaced O'Connor as the star centreman, but it was for naught.

A few tidbits from 41-42, a season in which Durnan received just a sliver of MVP support (4th among all QSHL goalies)... looks like Durnan 'survived' another close call with the NHL in February, when the Black Hawks needed a quick replacement for Sam LoPresti, a spot that ended up going to a 'diving type' goalie named Bill Dickie:

First, they tried to enlist the services of Legs Fraser, of the amateur Canadiens, and then of Bill Durnan, of the Royals. But they were refused point-blank – by the pro Canadiens, because the local NHL sponsors both those QSHL clubs and had a say in that phase of the negotiations...

As a matter of fact, Chicago also attempted to land Lionel Bouvrette, of Quebec, it is reported and Roger Bessette, of Shawinigan Falls, but were refused for the clubs' own reasons.

This is not to say that [Montreal Pats goalie] Bill Dickie was the last man approached by any means. [Black Hawks coach] Paul Thompson had cast out lines in every direction in the emergency and met no luck at all, until the Pats consented.

And it looks like Durnan was a 'Black Ace' for the Habs near the end of the season:

In regard to Durnan, Canadiens plan to keep him in readiness in case of any emergency arising in which they would need a spare goaler, through injury to Paul Bibeault, the regular netminder. Durnan will practise regularly with the Habitants, and if Canadiens make the playoff grade, Durnan may accompany them on the road, although he won't be signed unless the necessity arises.

Ending on 42-43, the Royals sink further into mediocrity. Due to the amount of NHLers enlisting in the war effort, former pros like Neil Colville were allowed to join the QSHL this season. The Royals decided not to recruit any such professionals, and as a result lagged behind. Durnan was voted 2nd team all-star by the league's coaches, but I actually found the article with each coach's voting ballot and the ballots don't add up - it should've been Bouvrette as 2nd team all-star rather than Durnan. Weird.

We still get a few final teasings of Durnan's impending NHL career:

It was reliably reported yesterday, thought executives of the NHL Canadiens would not corroborate it, that the team has offered contracts to three members of the QSHL Royals – Johnny Mahaffy, Bobby Lee and Bill Durnan.

Dick Irvin is sweet on Bill Durnan, and Bill might get a shot in goal for the pro Canucks in a game or two now that the Royals have Renaud back...

The season ends, the summer goes by, and Bill Durnan is invited to Habs training camp. He beats out the green Gerry McNeil, who performs extremely well, probably just as well as Durnan, but is considered too young and too small to be thrown to the wolves right away. He also beats out Bert Gardiner, who at one point gets the trains mixed up and accidentally travels to the wrong city for camp. The experienced (and big) Durnan wins the job, and the rest is history.

---

Conclusion

Let's answer the three questions I outlined in the introduction:

When did Bill Durnan become NHL-caliber? I would say 1940 at the earliest, but certainly by 1941. Therefore, as an example, when we do easy comparisons between him and Brimsek or Broda, we should account for this when considering their respective longevities, rather than just saying Durnan showed up 1943 and that was that.

Was he in high demand from NHL circles? If circumstances within the QSHL had been different, specifically if his team had been knocked out of the playoffs just a bit earlier, Bill Durnan would've been a Canadien in early 1941, without question. Before that, likely not. Without that leg injury in 1935, we're asking an entirely different question here, one that I tried speculating on in another thread.

What kind of teams did he have success under? The Blue Devils of 1940 won an Allan Cup on the backs of their speedy two-way forwards, which helped make his job easier, though his defense was noted for its sluggishness. The Royals of 1941 made a deep Allan Cup run off of a similar formula, only with an even slower and weaker defense. In senior hockey at least, Bill Durnan did not need a strong defense in order to win games. For me, that eases concerns about how much of a product of the stacked mid-40s Habs he was. I think he was legitimately great on his own.

All that said, there's some room for doubt. He was not a dominant force in the QSHL of the early 40s, not even being the clearcut best goalie in that league. MVP and all-star voters were more than fine with voting for goalies who played on crappy teams, which the Royals of 1942 and 1943 qualify as, yet his all-star record in these two seasons was nothing special. And it was possible to be a dominant force in this league, as we saw just a few years later in young Gerry McNeil, who won three QSHL MVPs as well as an Allan Cup of his own.

I did all of this research about two months ago, and as someone who's very willing to give lots of credit to years spent in amateur hockey, I came into it thinking I'd be more blown away than I ended up being. I'm certain he belongs above Turk Broda, and fairly confident he belongs below Frank Brimsek. After this Durnan research, I think I've settled on there being some more separation between him and Mr. Zero. But if anyone has anything else to add on this, I'm all ears.

 

[Michael Farkas]

With respect, I'm just going to try to condense this down and really focus in on the project at hand - as time is fleeting for this round. I do appreciate your replies and your contributions to this project, of course, as well. As we've discussed privately, all of this conversation is done for the good of maximum possible accuracy of this project.

(Paraphrasing myself to give context to the quoted: I think the technique of goaltending regressed through this time and the position lacked specialization.)

I think this is generally too harsh, and I don't understand why we are comparing the evolutionary curve of goalies to the evolutionary curve of forwards and skaters. The best goalies of their time was the best goalie of their time. Are we punishing them for not understanding the position as well as those following them? Should we punish, I don't know, Pythagoras or some other early mathematician because he never knew calculus? I'm not even a math guy, and I was doing calculus in high school. Am I a better mathematician than him? Am I a better mathematician than every single individual that walked the Earth prior to the 17th century by sheer virtue of the timing of my birth?

"Punish" has a strong connotation to it because it implies that there's good and bad. "Good" from your position is that this era is not only represented, but pushed to the very upper-most reaches of the list. Whether Vezina or whoever lands at 7 or 10 or 17 or whatever, that's a big, big number. It's a number that may be approximately similar to other lists here and other lists in the wild. For you, "bad" is that he's down in the 30's or 40's or whatever.

I started my list from absolute scratch as best as I could (in the same way, as you noted later, as I'd start a draft list...naturally, I've been hearing about and seeing Jack Hughes or whoever since he was 15 years old, so there's some knowledge there (unfortunately, sometimes) but generally speaking, I don't let in any outside noise to the best of my ability).

So from that perspective, "good" from my position is that Vezina is placed in and around similar players to his type and then I scale him backwards based on perceived league/competition quality. It's as inexact of a science as any. And for me, "bad" or "punished" = not on the list at all. Which is not something I wish to uphold. Do I think - if pressed - could I make a case for that? Maybe...but I don't want to do that, it's not the spirit of the project.

So "punish" is relative from a starting position - from a "good". I don't believe that there is a starting position for any of these players. So I don't believe in punishment. Now, I don't mean to pick on that word. I don't mean this to be a wordplay nonsense post. But if we apply this "Are we punishing them for not understanding the position as well...?" then why doesn't it apply all over?

We won't know till the end....but I get the sense that, say, Nikolai Puchkov is not going to make our list. Why? He did the best he could with a fledgling pro circuit. Played against some pretty questionable competition in the early Soviet League and early international competition...but he hung in there as the competition improved, and he was regularly playing guys that were at least IIHF HOFers towards the end - though, Soviets generally don't have the longest shelf life, or else this effect may be magnified.

Vezina is in the fledgling NHA, which is really the NHL, where dudes like Skene Ronan dominated league scoring. Vezina was the guy. Then as competition improved at the league turned into the NHL, he hung in there. And then at the end of his career, sort of had a return to form.

We recognize the Soviet Union as a hockey super power by the 1960's. I'm not saying these things are equivalent but 1911 NHA vs. 1961 Soviet Union. What's the difference?

Because if we put Vezina 7th, 9th, 11th whatever all time because he did the best he could with what he was working with...that means he's pretty close to, say, Glenn Hall. Glenn Hall was routinely voted the top goalie of the O6 NHL. A six-team super league, for all intents and purposes.

So a fun thought exercise for a moment...

1963 NHL is a quality of what? 9ish? On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the best that we can reasonably imagine sustainably.
1911 or 1915 or whatever year NHA is a quality of what number?
1961 Soviet Union/International is what number?

I don't exactly know this answer. But it's sure as sugar not gonna be above like a 5, right? In either case.

So we have a big league quality issue...we're still in a split league situation back then. Then, we have questions about the position itself...it seems able to be played successfully by just anyone. Lester Patrick, long retired, non-goalie...steps in and wins the Cup or whatever all the way up in 1928. It doesn't seem special.

Paul Maurice putting on the pads in game 7 last year? Probably doesn't go so well. But yet we see a number of skaters just jumping in and shutting down power plays during this time. If it's not generally special to them, why is it special to me?

If I took the subway down to MSG and played every Thursday and ended up with an NHL stat line of 11+5=16 in 29 GP - wouldn't we call into question how legitimate of a league this is? A composite goalie in exclusively or near-exclusively shorthanded situations is finishing at a reasonable place among actual goalies in the league table.

Last season, the average goalie save pct. (GAA wasn't obviously available) while shorthanded was .861. (among goalies who faced more than 25 shots while shorthanded). That number would place them dead last in the league overall. And that's AMONG OTHER GOALIES!

We have guys that are put in a hugely disadvantageous position, with no goaltending experience, and they'd still finish in a reasonable spot. In the NHL, not even that much worse than Georges Vezina's all-situation goaltending over a span of years.

That's really concerning and it's a trend that breaks right along the same line as the film indicates that the position was starting to separate itself and evolve. When other goalies trace their lineage back to other goalies more frequently. etc.

Alexei Guryshev and Veniamin Alexandrov are two of the most accomplished Soviet scorers of all time. Their numbers held up as top 5 all the way through the collapse of the nation. Where are they on the Top 50 non-NHL Europeans list? Not and 29th, respectively. Why? They were by far the best (with Bobrov) of their era...

No, because things build on each other. What the early guys did, the guys who followed built on and improved on. It doesn't necessarily make them worse, just working with a worse set of information.


If (and I'm not saying I agree) that was the role of the position as it was understood at the time, why shouldn't we accept that?

I think I addressed why we shouldn't accept the Anton Volchenkov theory above. I think the better question, though, is why would we? We don't take Joe Malone's 44 in 20 at face value - even though that was the best of the era. At some point or another, we cross the line from respecting all of hockey history to needing to suspend disbelief that 1912 split-league hockey should be rated right along side O6 hockey. And again, I'm not saying throw Vezina out the window. I want Vezina on the list. I have Vezina on my list. But...having a goalie or goalies at any time where they could be replaced by skaters with no experience and not miss a beat...at this point in the list is a little too romantic for my tastes. It's too romantic for a growing number of sources in the game at the time too. Saying goalies had it much easier during this time as compared to the following generation, but the line is that skaters had it harder.

I think it is possible, honestly. Here is a news article from 11 December 1916 that basically says only 1 good goalie had been developed in the last 6 years.

Link

I struggle to believe that a sport which paid real money at the time wasn't ensuring that each position was filled by the best man possible.

It may well have been filled by the best man possible. But that man, in this case, doesn't seem appreciably better than anyone else in the locker room. That would change shortly thereafter.

The game (and the position) clearly evolved as time went on. But it seems unfair to judge players by what came later, since it isn't like they had a chance to experience it. Again, it would be like criticizing Pythagoras because he didn't know calculus.

We can respect the context in which these players performed while recognizing just how far the position has advanced since then. Guys are literally saying that the slowest, fattest, dumbest guy is going in the net because he couldn't play other positions. Today, goalies are among the fastest and most athletic players and best skaters on the ice. Treating the top of both of those classes as equal seems questionable to me.

It's like the consolation bracket "winner" getting to play the legit league champion in fantasy hockey in some ways.

Again, I'll give Vezina points for being the best of his era. I'll give Vezina advent points. But we have top 10 spots in the history of hockey available. Those are some heavy advent points if they're going to him. I can't wait to see what we'd give Tony Esposito and Jean-Sebastien Giguere for cheating haha

I'm just not sold on that. You mean to tell me that for 50 years an entire position was just ignored? That nobody realized that having someone good at stopping pucks was important, that they could just stick whoever back there and it was fine?

And yes, I know there are anecdotes that say this, but it seems to me like a glib remark that just gets thrown around. Like Gretzky praising other players, if you will. I just found out that there is a whole HF thread about that here.

The anecdotes are continuing to grow as we research this project. And they're coming through in "So, give me your thoughts on past vs. modern" and "So, give me your thoughts about who the best guys of all time are" discussions. Players, coaches, managers, fellow goalies...it's getting a little tough to ignore at this point. And the film and stats, at least directionally, point in that direction too. This isn't just one old drunk sounding off. It's coming in from all over now. Too much to ignore as glib. These are thoughtful and detailed answers.

50 years is a heavy number. Hod Stuart started making like $15 a week in the WPHL like 10 years before Vezina started playing in the NHA. Going back to wooden-puck 9 on 9 hockey or whatever is a bit much for the spirit of things. My alma mater lays claim to the "first college football game" and as "the birthplace of college football" and that sounds good and all...but the game was 25 v 25 and the teams had to kick the ball through the other team's goal. No passing or carrying was allowed. No matter how good one of those guys kicked, he's never ever making my list of best college football players ever haha

Just because we have a record of something doesn't make it eligible for greatness, so to speak. I think the WHA is a glorified minor league...I'm not gonna be convinced that cow-pie bandy is when the meter starts haha

Goals being scored on rebounds and players driving the net was definitely around before Morenz. There are countless examples in the papers of players "boring in", and teams were criticized when they shot from outside the defenders.

Goalies have always had a harder time getting into the Hall than skaters.

We keep saying that, but maybe the HHOF is just being cognizant. After weak periods of goaltending, the HHOF doesn't enshrine many of them.

From 1990 to 2010, only 3 were inducted. So, that's your 70's and 80's goaltending generally. But from 2010 and on...9 in 14 years.

Similarly, from 1970 to 1989 - 15 in 20 classes. But all time before that, just 14 to account for, as you call it, almost 100 years of organized hockey. But legitimately, it's probably about 20 years less than that. Still...as far as contemporary opinion goes - which we like - seems like maybe goaltending gets its due when it's due. And sure, independently, this isn't much. But it fits in line with the other breadcrumbs for my taste.

We'll never know for certain. Maybe they did think goalies were garbage. But maybe they had a positional bias. Maybe they thought goalies were worth it, they just valued other players more (like we see today). And maybe the HoF is just a flawed measuring system- Vernon made the Hall before Roenick. Dick Duff is in the Hall. Andreychuk, etc.


I don't know anything about football history, so... cool? I don't know much about baseball's history either, but a quick scan shows that they honored the greats who played 100+ years ago.

Baseball had basically the same pro league that it has today before the first recognized hockey was played. No players that played before that pro league have been inducted to my knowledge. Essentially, it would be like if the HHOF only took players from the NHA and forward.

All this says to me is that the game and needs of the position evolved, and that we should be judging players by the game they had the chance to play. Should we start ripping on Gardiner and Vezina because they never beat the Soviet Union? Or we can look at the mathematician example again.

I'm not a big fan of Benedict, for what it is worth. And I am actually souring (a little) on Gardiner.

Anyway, I know talent evaluation is your thing here. And you are definitely consistent in how you go about this. I just think that you are basically creating a draft board instead of looking at careers in a holistic sense, which I, personally, think is the goal here.

I do recognize that "looking at careers in a holistic sense" is a goal here. I respect that and won't throw my crayons across the floor when the vote doesn't go my way in every single round for the next several weeks. But I'd like to return to the "League quality on a scale of 1 to 10" exercise. Because that holistic career idea shouldn't ignore the correlation coefficient along with it, right? No one gives two [thoughts] about Tony Hand's 50,000 points or whatever he had because he was doing it against guys that had their skates tied together. We're already making these adjustments.

We made those adjustments in the defensemen list...there's like 3 d-men that were not insane producers born before 1900 on the Top 60 defensemen list (Gerard, Ching Johnson, and Pulford at 60)...none of them were inside the top 30. We already know it's easier to destroy than it is to create. We aren't alone in valuing that. Take it a step further...maybe blocking stuff without liberalized passing and/or 6v6 hockey wasn't as hard. Maybe, for a while, it was just two layers of goalies (or two layers of d-men) standing there eating rushes. I don't feel compelled to give all that too much undue value. Some, because it happened...but right now? I'm a long way from that.

 

[MXD]

A question while I try and pound out the Bill Durnan post... what's the case for Benedict over Belfour?

Consistency. To me, this is what completely torpedoes Belfour for this round.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Bill Durnan's Amateur Career

As someone that didn't know very much about this at all, this was an outstanding contribution. Thanks for putting it together for us.

It's kinda funny (well, besides the 5 forwards thing because "what the ****, we're not playing defense anyway" haha), you were hoping to be blown away by Durnan's non-NHL career, but it seems like he only looks NHL caliber after the War begins...meanwhile, I went in kinda thinking he's gonna suck on tape and that he was just propped up by Montreal/War years...and I ended up being pleasantly surprised.

Worse than Brimsek though, I agree.

 

[jigglysquishy]

Durnan's non-NHL career, but it seems like he only looks NHL caliber after the War begins.

This is a big concern I have.

43-44 is really weakened by the war. Brimsek is gone to the war. Broda is gone. Mowers is gone. He comes in and succeed massively, but in a league where literally half the starters are gone. This isn't a case like Bower where he's locked behind a HHOFer like Rayner or Worsley. He isn't stealing the job from Bibeault.

47-48 is getting back to normal. He only plays two more seasons after that.

It's a really limited sample where 80% of the good is against minor leaguers. On the other hand 49 and 50 are fantastic years against a full NHL with Brimsek and Broda and Lumley and Rayner. And it's not like his stats take a relative dip when all the stars come back.

 

[Michael Farkas]

This is probably out there, but FWIW...

1947-48 fan vote - [Player Pts (1st-2nd-3rd place votes)]
1. Lumley 7947 (1086-768-207)
2. Broda 5706 (639-684-459)
3. Durnan 5414 (534-576-1026)
4. Brimsek 3162 (294-360-612)

How the coaches voted...

Frank Boucher, New York​

First Choice Second Choice Third Choice

G. Brimsek, Bost. Lumley, Det. Broda, Tor.

Charlie Conacher, Chicago​

G. Broda, Tor. Brimsek, Bost. Lumley, Det.

Dit Clapper, Boston​

G. Durnan, Can. Broda, Tor. Lumley, Det.

Happy Day, Toronto​

G. Brimsek, Bost. Durnan, Can. Lumley, Det.

Dick Irvin, Montreal​

G. Broda, Tor. Brimsek, Bost. Lumley, Det.

Tommy Ivan, Detroit​

G. Broda, Tor. Brimsek, Bost. Durnan, Can.

Couldn't immediately find ballots for the next couple years for coaches.

 

[rmartin65]

We won't know till the end....but I get the sense that, say, Nikolai Puchkov is not going to make our list. Why? He did the best he could with a fledgling pro circuit. Played against some pretty questionable competition in the early Soviet League and early international competition...but he hung in there as the competition improved, and he was regularly playing guys that were at least IIHF HOFers towards the end - though, Soviets generally don't have the longest shelf life, or else this effect may be magnified.

Vezina is in the fledgling NHA, which is really the NHL, where dudes like Skene Ronan dominated league scoring. Vezina was the guy. Then as competition improved at the league turned into the NHL, he hung in there. And then at the end of his career, sort of had a return to form.

We recognize the Soviet Union as a hockey super power by the 1960's. I'm not saying these things are equivalent but 1911 NHA vs. 1961 Soviet Union. What's the difference?

Because if we put Vezina 7th, 9th, 11th whatever all time because he did the best he could with what he was working with...that means he's pretty close to, say, Glenn Hall. Glenn Hall was routinely voted the top goalie of the O6 NHL. A six-team super league, for all intents and purposes.

So a fun thought exercise for a moment...

1963 NHL is a quality of what? 9ish? On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the best that we can reasonably imagine sustainably.
1911 or 1915 or whatever year NHA is a quality of what number?
1961 Soviet Union/International is what number?

I don't exactly know this answer. But it's sure as sugar not gonna be above like a 5, right? In either case.

The Soviet Union/Puchkov example is a poor one (IMO, of course) because they weren't the only hockey around. Puchkov wasn't playing at the highest level in the world (whether that was his fault or not), so I don't see why we should give him serious consideration here. The early NA guys were playing at the highest level on Earth. Hockey just wasn't developed yet.

So we have a big league quality issue...we're still in a split league situation back then. Then, we have questions about the position itself...it seems able to be played successfully by just anyone. Lester Patrick, long retired, non-goalie...steps in and wins the Cup or whatever all the way up in 1928. It doesn't seem special.

Patrick played half a game and had his team play a defensive game (if I am remembering the story correctly) to mitigate the work he had to do.

Also, Patrick was 44, not 57 like Paul Maurice. Not a huge difference, but we at least see 44 years olds in the NHL occasionally. 57... not so much.

If I took the subway down to MSG and played every Thursday and ended up with an NHL stat line of 11+5=16 in 29 GP - wouldn't we call into question how legitimate of a league this is? A composite goalie in exclusively or near-exclusively shorthanded situations is finishing at a reasonable place among actual goalies in the league table.

Last season, the average goalie save pct. (GAA wasn't obviously available) while shorthanded was .861. (among goalies who faced more than 25 shots while shorthanded). That number would place them dead last in the league overall. And that's AMONG OTHER GOALIES!

I mean... we have Dave Ayres doing his thing against the Maple Leafs in 2020. A guy who, according to his Wiki page had last played high-level hockey in the ACH in 2014-2015, where he went an outstanding 0-8 with a 77.7% save percentage (worse than in the game he played for Carolina).

Scott Foster stopped 7/7 shots in 2018. According to his Wiki, he last played at a high level in 2005-2006 (1 game in the CCHA, where he let in 3 goals in 20 minutes).

We don't (hopefully) say Vasilevskiy or Price should be bumped way down because these guys did alright.

That's really concerning and it's a trend that breaks right along the same line as the film indicates that the position was starting to separate itself and evolve. When other goalies trace their lineage back to other goalies more frequently. etc.

How are guys supposed to trace their lineage back to guys who they had no opportunity to see? With no TV, it was probably pretty hard for kids to watch enough of their favorite goalie to learn what he was doing right/wrong.

One of the most interesting quotes from this week was the discussion about how Brimsek didn't actually base his game on Vezina (it was Vezina, right?), it was just a coincidence that they looked similar.

Alexei Guryshev and Veniamin Alexandrov are two of the most accomplished Soviet scorers of all time. Their numbers held up as top 5 all the way through the collapse of the nation. Where are they on the Top 50 non-NHL Europeans list? Not and 29th, respectively. Why? They were by far the best (with Bobrov) of their era...

As I mentioned- they weren't playing the highest level of hockey available.

I think I addressed why we shouldn't accept the Anton Volchenkov theory above. I think the better question, though, is why would we? We don't take Joe Malone's 44 in 20 at face value - even though that was the best of the era.

We should because it was the best hockey available at the time and these players were the best at their positions as they were understood.

Otherwise we have the weird argument that the early mathematicians sucked because they didn't do calculus or the Romans were dumb because they didn't have airplanes (or even motorized cars, the losers).

At some point or another, we cross the line from respecting all of hockey history to needing to suspend disbelief that 1912 split-league hockey should be rated right along side O6 hockey.

I don't think people are saying 1912 was as good as O6 hockey. I think people are saying that Vezina's praise relative to his peers is comparable to what Hall received (to use the same names), and that his reputation among his peers is at a comparable level.

Honestly, Vezina probably stood out more relative to his peers than Hall did. But because his era was weaker he is rightfully ranked lower.

50 years is a heavy number. Hod Stuart started making like $15 a week in the WPHL like 10 years before Vezina started playing in the NHA. Going back to wooden-puck 9 on 9 hockey or whatever is a bit much for the spirit of things.

1887 had 7/7 hockey. 1886 had 7/7 hockey. 1885 had 7/7 hockey.

Russell Bowie was offered $325 to play 1 (possibly 2, if they won) game in this same time period (1907, off the top of my head). A very quick search only shows me a Canadian inflation calculator going back to 1915 where that 325 is equal to almost 8,400 in today's currency. For one game. That's an awful lot of money for a sport that didn't matter. And if clubs were paying that kind of money for one player for one game, are we confident that they would really be ok with a sub-par goalie in net (and, yes, they did have nets at that time)?

We keep saying that, but maybe the HHOF is just being cognizant.

So... Dick Duff, Dave Andreychuk, those guys are good HoFers for you?

From 1990 to 2010, only 3 were inducted. So, that's your 70's and 80's goaltending generally. But from 2010 and on...9 in 14 years.

Mike Vernon?

Baseball had basically the same pro league that it has today before the first recognized hockey was played. No players that played before that pro league have been inducted to my knowledge. Essentially, it would be like if the HHOF only took players from the NHA and forward.

So did the NHL? There is an easy-to-trace line from the AHAC to the CAHL to the ECAHA to the NHA to the NHL. Most of the re-naming was just to keep certain teams/organizations out, not because of any wide-scale changes.

I do recognize that "looking at careers in a holistic sense" is a goal here. I respect that and won't throw my crayons across the floor when the vote doesn't go my way in every single round for the next several weeks. But I'd like to return to the "League quality on a scale of 1 to 10" exercise. Because that holistic career idea shouldn't ignore the correlation coefficient along with it, right? No one gives two [thoughts] about Tony Hand's 50,000 points or whatever he had because he was doing it against guys that had their skates tied together. We're already making these adjustments.

Tony Hand wasn't playing against the best the game had to offer at the time he was playing.

Yeah, hockey was weaker in the pre-consolidation era. But it was the best hockey the world had to offer at that point and the best the world had seen to that point.

Nobody (hopefully) is going to say that Bowie should be the best player of all time because his points/game crushes even Gretzky's. Relative league strength does matter. But it makes no sense to me to hold a player's era against them.

Vezina, Gardiner, etc were playing the best talent in the world and were considered the best goalies of their time. That matters. I don't care that the position was evolving. I don't even know if I care if (which I still don't think is necessarily true) goalies were the worst players on the ice and only there because someone needed to be. I care that they were the best at that position.

In a top 100 players of all time (position agnostic) list, that's when I would definitely care about how goalies stacked up against skaters. But right now we are looking goalie to goalie.

We made those adjustments in the defensemen list...there's like 3 d-men that were not insane producers born before 1900 on the Top 60 defensemen list (Gerard, Ching Johnson, and Pulford at 60)...none of them were inside the top 30.

And I hope this gets looked at when we get to that project.

We already know it's easier to destroy than it is to create. We aren't alone in valuing that. Take it a step further...maybe blocking stuff without liberalized passing and/or 6v6 hockey wasn't as hard. Maybe, for a while, it was just two layers of goalies (or two layers of d-men) standing there eating rushes. I don't feel compelled to give all that too much undue value. Some, because it happened...but right now? I'm a long way from that.

If being a goalie was so easy, then why did we see seasons like Malone's 44 in 20? Or Bowie's seasons, MacDougall's, etc. Yes, the seasons immediately preceding the introduction of forward passing were low scoring, but that wasn't the case for all of pre-consolidation hockey.

And, again, this was a sport people cared about. People spent money on it. Newspapers devoted pages of coverage to it. And we think that for 50 years nobody cared about one of the positions? There are tons of game reports that talk about how the score would have been worse if not for the great play of the goalie. That is a strange thing to read consistently if nobody cared about the position. Or were people really so dumb that they could see a goalie keeping the score down and still not think the position was valuable?