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.