Are you there era bias? It's me, Michael.
I've been a "regular" on the HoH board for well over a decade now. I've done the ATD and even a MLD. I've been a panelist on almost every project in that time. I write this with nothing but the most respect and altruistic intentions for the project.
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.
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.
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. I don't think you can show any more respect for the history of the game than by representing it with maximum possible accuracy.
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.
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.
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.
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. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The Hockey News - Mar 16 1949 said:
That Durnan’s feat is far greater than Connell’s goes without saying. If a goaler in the roaring 20’s was ever caught in an avalanche of rubber, as Durnan was during his last game in Boston, he would have hung up his skates forever. In those days they didn’t have to contend with four and five-man rushes, scrambles and screen shots as they do today. Although it is often boasted that goalers in the old days used to stop some 50 or 60 pucks per game, to this day nobody knows what constituted a shot on the net in those hectic games.
Frank Carlin, a pretty good hockey player in his day, and now the dean of amateur coaches in Canada, was talking about Durnan’s feat and comparing him with goalers of his day.
“I doubt very much that goalers of my time could stand up to the rubber that’s shot at goalees of today,” said Carlin, who now coaches the Montreal Royals. “In my day a defenseman never moved off his blueline to make rushes as they do today. All the goalers had to do was stand in their net and catch pucks and Durnan could do that anytime. No sir, a goaler today gets a lot more work than those oldies ever got.”
Pasadena Independent - Nov 10 1948 said:
"The old players weren't trained to play at such speed as we see today," says Frank Boucher. "The old goalies had a cinch compared with the boys in the nets now. The modern goalie spends more time on the back of his neck than he does on his skates."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.