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

[Dr John Carlson]

Procedure

• In this vote, you will be presented with 9 players based on their ranking in the Round 1 aggregate list
• Players will be listed in alphabetical order to avoid creating bias
• You will submit eight names in a ranked order, #1 through #9, without ties via PM to both @Dr John Carlson and @Professor What
• Use the same private message thread every week rather than starting a new PM
• Results of this vote will be posted after each voting cycle, but the individual ballots themselves will remain secret until the completion of this project
• The top 5 players will be added to the final list (unless a very large break exists at the spot between 4&5, or the break between 5&6 is minimal)
• Lists of players eligible for voting will grow as the project continues
• Voting threads will continue until we have added 60 names to the list, for a total of 12 voting threads

Eligible Voters

• Ballots from voters who have submitted an approved Round 1 ranking of 80 goaltenders (which was used to shape the aggregate list) will have their votes tabulated in the final ranking
• These voters are: @nabby12, @overpass, @frisco, @Professor What, @DN28, @jigglysquishy, @tony d, @rmartin65, @Vilica, @bobholly39, @The Pale King, @blogofmike, @Dr John Carlson, @MXD, @Michael Farkas, @ContrarianGoaltender, @VanIslander, @seventieslord, @Weztex

Guidelines

• Respect each other. No horseplay or sophistry!
• Please refrain from excessive use of the 'laughing' reaction to indicate disagreement
• Stay on topic and don't get caught up in talking about non-eligible players
• Participate, but retain an open mind throughout the discussion
• Do not speculate who cast any particular ballot. Do not make judgments about the mindset of whoever cast that particular ballot. All individual ballots will be revealed at the end of the project
• Anybody may participate in the discussion, whether they submitted a list or not

House Rules

• Any attempts to derail a discussion thread with disrespect to old-time hockey will be met with frontier justice
• Take a drink when someone mentions the number of hockey registrations in a given era
• Finish your drink when someone mentions that wins are a team stat

The actual voting period will open up on Friday, October 18th at midnight and continue through Sunday, October 20th at 11:59 PM Eastern time. I will release the results of the vote the morning of Monday, October 21s, at which point the next voting thread will begin.


Vote 2 Candidates

• Ed Belfour
• Clint Benedict
• Frank Brimsek
• Turk Broda
• Ken Dryden
• Bill Durnan
• Charlie Gardiner
• Vladislav Tretiak
• Georges Vezina

Click to read more...

 

[Dr John Carlson]

We're going old this round!

Lots of research has been done on Vezina/Benedict since the last project, so we should be able to hammer out a good positioning for them.

The 2012 edition of the project had a gap between Brimsek and Broda/Durnan. I think there ought to be a gap between the three, but not there - I'd have Broda separated below Brimsek/Durnan, and I think there are others who feel the same. I'll have lots on Durnan's amateur career which will come later in the week.

Ken Dryden was a very clear 8th last round. I wonder if one of the new guys could jump over him this round. Will be interesting to hear those arguments.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Coming in...

Tretiak
[gap]
Belfour
Brimsek
Dryden
Durnan
[gap]
The rest...

That's very unpopular and honestly, I didn't think that all of these names would come up now...so soon. But here we are...

I don't think the position itself evolves anywhere close to the same rate as the rest of the league and I don't think, effectively, anyone that played the position should get full or near-full freight (unless they played from like 1974 to 1986...screw those guys, they must have been bad, look at the numbers...sonk.)

I'll be back, unfortunately...

 

[MXD]

I understand how breaks work, but that seems early for Belfour. Like... Not numerically (that makes him at worst 15th, which is really only a bit higher than I had him going in, since we're still early in the project), but he does stick out like a sore thumb to me in that very specific group.

It's not ridiculous (we aren't discussing, I don't know, Mike Liut), it's just that, at first glance, he doesn't seems to belong in that group (at least, not with the top echelon of that group).

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

1. Dryden
2. Tretiak
3. Durnan
4. Gardiner
5. Brimsek
6. Belfour
7. Vezina
8. Broda
9. Benedict

Off the top of my head at the moment.

Want to see how it changes after the experts weigh in.

 

[jigglysquishy]

It's down to Tretiak and Vezina for first for me. But I'm open for others, particularly Gardiner and Brimsek. I view these four, and Dryden, as my clear top 5.

By contemporary opinion, Gardiner and Brimsek are kings. But they both have careers cut short.

Tretiak is close by contemporary opinion. He was arguably the best goalie in the world from the mid 70s to early 80s. I would have loved to have his European contemporary up so we can compare directly. He's probably going to be my number 1.

In the pre merger project I read enough to declare Vezina King. Being the best goalie ~1890-1930 is a pretty sizeable accomplishment. But Benedict is right there.

Dryden is dropping, but how far can we let him go? Canon has him the best NHL goalie born between 1931 and 1965. That's a very long territory to be the best. But he also missed half a career.

I've got Belfour last but I'd love to hear arguments otherwise.

Goalies are hard to rank in any condition, but especially so without tape.
Vezina vs. Benedict, GAA finishes (only counting starting goalies)

Season	Vezina finish	Benedict finish
1910-11	1st	-
1911-12	1st	-
1912-13	2nd	*, technically finished first, but only played 10 of the 20 games. LeSueur still the Senators starting goalie
1913-14	2nd	-, only played 7 games, but tied with Vezina in GAA
1914-15	2nd	1st (first year as starter)
1915-16	2nd	1st
1916-17	2nd	1st
1917-18	1st	3rd
1918-19	2nd	1st
1919-20	3rd	1st
1920-21	3rd	1st
1921-22	2nd	1st
1922-23	2nd	1st
1923-24	1st	2nd
1924-25	1st	3rd
1925-26	-	3rd
1926-27	-	1st

Benedict leading the league in GAA a record 9 times, Vezina with 5.

However, Benedict played behind Nighbor from 1915-16 until retirement. So, how do we consider his stats in the context of playing behind the greatest defensive forward of the era? He did lead the league in 1914-15 before Nighbor arrived, but still had Gerard and Ross in front of him. He also had Cleghorn for a couple years. He consistently played behind an elite defensive team.

Vezina never had that level of support. Though I will point out that of the 3 best NHA/L offensive threats of the era, Vezina generally did not have to play against Lalonde and Malone. While Benedict did not have to play against Nighbor and Denneny. Vezina did have Cleghorn during his late career renaissance.

I think these goalies stand as the clear two kings of pre-merger hockey. Benedict certainly has the statistical edge, but does so behind the best defensive team of the era.

Quoting my post from the pre merger project. GAA is a heavily team influenced stat.

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

Coming in...

Tretiak
[gap]
Belfour
Brimsek
Dryden
Durnan
[gap]
The rest...

That's very unpopular and honestly, I didn't think that all of these names would come up now...so soon. But here we are...

I don't think the position itself evolves anywhere close to the same rate as the rest of the league and I don't think, effectively, anyone that played the position should get full or near-full freight (unless they played from like 1974 to 1986...screw those guys, they must have been bad, look at the numbers...sonk.)

I'll be back, unfortunately...

I'm really interested to hear those arguments. My top 20 was considerably more heavy on post-2000 goalies than the options we've seen so far, and I still feel like I probably didn't go far enough in that direction, so I'm completely open to being convinced that we're overrating the older generations. That said, Charlie Gardiner and Frank Brimsek were born 11 years apart and would have almost definitely played in the same league together if not for tragedy. I'd need to be convinced that goaltending took a quantum leap in the mid-1930s for me to end up with significant separation between the two of them.

Since this is the old goalies round and I have pretty limited data to analyze, my main interest for this group is on talent pool development over time, as well as non-NHL seasons, since we're very much in the era where you can easily be a top-3 goalie in the world and not even be playing in the NHL.

 

[rmartin65]

I hate seeing players from the same era come in waves like this.

I don't think the position itself evolves anywhere close to the same rate as the rest of the league and I don't think, effectively, anyone that played the position should get full or near-full freight (unless they played from like 1974 to 1986...screw those guys, they must have been bad, look at the numbers...sonk.)

Era bias FTW

 

[Professor What]

Tretiak is my #1 in this round. I'm not sure that I see that changing. He gained a bit of ground on Brodeur and Hall for me in the last round of voting, so things would have to turn very sour for him not to get my top vote. Honestly, if he had played longer and stayed at his normal level of play, he might have worked his way a little higher for me.

Dryden would have been my solid #2 (competing with Tretiak for #1) when we started, and he still may be, but I feel like we went from a top 8 to a top 7 as the last round of discussion progressed. I could see a Brimsek or a Vezina challenging him for that second place vote in this round if the discussion proceeds well for them.

After that, I'm not really sure how to order Benedict and Gardiner. I feel like Gardiner was probably the bigger talent, but of course, there's the tragic cutting short of his life and career. He simply didn't have the chance to accomplish as much as Benedict did, so there's two ways of looking at the comparison.

Durnan is a hard one for me. I think the peak is there, and I'm not sure he really fell off while he was playing, but there's so little time in the NHL. In a way, I don't find his case too dissimilar from Dryden's. I feel like he, Broda, and Belfour are probably "competing" for the bottom of my ballot. I hate to say that, because I really like all of them. I think we're still in an area where the candidates are all very strong.

 

[nabby12]

Gonna be hard to shake me off Charlie Gardiner at 1 in this vote.

I also wrote the book (literally) on Brimsek so he's going to very high up there as well. Benedict and Broda also deserve their due here.

This should be an interesting discussion and vote.