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

[rmartin65]

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.

It's just outside of my research interests (hockey stops for me at 1909- I am the inverse @Michael Farkas ), so I am cautious about speaking too confidently on the matter.

But I have Vezina a pretty solid #1. I used to have Benedict next, but the pre-consolidation project and @ResilientBeast 's arguments have me also leaning towards Lehman. Then I think we have to look at Gardiner, Holmes, and Hainsworth. To clarify how I interpreted your question- I am talking about those who played the bulk of the 1910-1925 timeframe. I'm not talking about guys who played at a high level at either fringe of this timeframe (Riley Hern being an example of someone at one temporal end, Alec Connell at the other).

And, of course, I'd be remiss not to mention that guys like LeSueur and Moran also played a significant chunk of the 1910-1925 time frame. If we give the O6 goalies credits for defending their nets for so long, I don't see why we shouldn't for the early era guys as well, as both of them kept their spots for over a decade, despite talent gradually becoming more and more consolidated.

But to tie it back to players eligible this round- Vezina is high on my list this round. Benedict is not.

 

[overpass]

Not a lot of discussion on Belfour this week, and I realize he'll probably be back next week, but I just wanted to say I have him top 3 this week. I think he was very close to Roy and Brodeur in his prime, maybe as good. And he was very good for a long time too, if not as long as his greater contemporaries.

I didn't see much of Belfour for most of his career, except for the Finals. I thought he was done after his down 01-02, and didn't like the Leafs signing him. Then I got to watch him regularly in 02-03 and 03-04 and I changed my mind very quickly. He was excellent. I had thought Curtis Joseph was good, but Belfour was clearly a cut above. Very sound and in control, great shot stopping and rebound control, played the puck well.

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.

Yes, that's how I see it. Baseball history is more or less considered to start at 1876 with the National League. Which would be like hockey history starting in 1917. Yes the NHA was basically the same league, but baseball ignores the 1871-76 National Association which had some of the same teams as the NL.

The hockey Hall of Fame recognized an unusual number of early players compared to other North American HOFs. Likely because it was created less than 40 years after the start of pro hockey, and influential voters like James T Sutherland had been watching hockey back to the amateur era. No baseball HOF voters in 1937 had watched Cal McVey or Levi Meyerle in the 1870s NA, or Joe Start in 1860s Brooklyn.

I enjoy reading about pre-NHL hockey but it was clearly in an early stage of development.

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

I wanted to compile some of my thoughts on talent pools over time and era representation before the end of the week.

Era Bias

First, if anybody thinks that comments about the possible overrepresentation of old goalies right now is "era bias" or being unreasonably harsh on earlier eras, well, I guess you must think every top 100 list this forum has ever done was horrendously biased then too. After all, if you look at the top 25 skaters on the most recent top 100 list done by this forum, only three of the top 25 skaters were born before 1921, and only one of them was born before 1900.

In this round of 9 goalies, representing our #7-15 spots all-time, six of them were born before 1921, and two of them were born before 1900.

If our top 15 had the same proportions as the top 25 skaters, we'd have a maximum of two goalies born before 1921.

On the flip side, 11 out of the top 25 skaters were born after 1952. We have three already on the list, and one more eligible here, which means we're 2-3 behind the expected representation from the top skaters list.

Now, obviously those are somewhat arbitrary cutoffs. I picked the top 25, you can look at the top 20 or the top 50 or whatever and you'll get some variation in the percentages. And we definitely shouldn't be bound to quotas, we should expect to see some weird stuff happen with the kind of outliers we're talking about on an all-time list (things like having the top four share only two birth years between them).

However, I think the same overall point will remain with any given sample, which is that "we have to be fair to all eras" is not really a compelling defence here, because we're overrepresenting early eras goalies by 2-3x compared to skaters. That's probably not "fair" even if you think that goalies and skaters developed at the same rate. If you think that early goalie development was slower, well, I honestly think you're completely justified in massively breaking with the HOH "conventional wisdom" when it comes to the pre-1921 birth year goalies.

My Attempt At an Objective Measure of the Goalie Talent Pool Over Time

I tried to find what I could use as a reasonable proxy for the talent pool development, and I settled on the percentage of NHL games played that come from goalies born in Ontario or Quebec.

Grouping similar time periods, we get these rough eras:

1918-1927: 96%
1928-1935: 87%
1936-1954: 40%
1955-1968: 60%
1969-1983: 83%
1984-1990: 62%
1991-2004: 49%
2006-2010: 38%
2011-2021: 23%
2022-2024: 13%

To me that seems to roughly track what we would probably subjectively intuit about the goalie talent pool. Almost exclusively ON/QC goalies early on (it would be a bit less if we included other pro leagues like the PCHA, but would still be overwhelming from ON/QC since even the two best Pacific Coast goalies in Lehman and Holmes were from Ontario). A very sharp influx of goalies from outside Central Canada starting in the mid-'30s (which does actually seem to support the @Michael Farkas theory of a goaltending improvement kicking in right around then). Settling in at a fairly consistent level over the Original Six, then spiking after expansion, to a level that is actually very close to the rate from 1928-1935. (Exactly how sure are we that Charlie Gardiner's NHL competition was much worse than Ken Dryden's? Seems to me both of them were pretty much facing competition almost exclusively from two provinces.)

From the mid-'80s to early '90s expansion, we're about back to Original Six levels, and then we see a drop through the Dead Puck Era, a further drop after 2005, and then since 2010-11 Central Canadian goalies have been a borderline endangered species (which I think pretty clearly reflects a drop in that talent pool compared to prior eras, especially Quebec).

The only thing that doesn't entirely track for me is that I would rate 1955-1968 as quite a bit stronger than 1936-1954, both in terms of elite talent and in depth of talent, but this metric doesn't actually support that view.

Depending on how deep we want to go, we could even add in some of the other pro leagues for the earlier eras where goalie spots were very limited. On the other hand, since we're focusing on outliers here in a Top 60 list, it's probably worth focusing on the very top of the talent pool anyway, and some of the post-expansion years might even benefit from a narrowing down of the sample (say, to goalies with 40+ GP only or something like that). I'm guessing the overall conclusions likely won't change that much either way, though.

This solidifies to me that my top 2 this round are going to be Tretiak and Brimsek. Then I'm particularly interested in Dryden vs. Gardiner, with Belfour also in the mix for the next spots.

 

[Michael Farkas]

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.

It was the best hockey reasonably available to Puchkov. Also, the West won their share of Stanley Cups...are we sure that Vezina was playing "at the highest level on Earth" and even if that's the case, I'm not positive that a diluted league should be given full freight, especially at this time.

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.

At this point, every goalie had great defense or else we wouldn't be talking about them.

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.

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.

If I compiled it all correctly - and it's very limited situations, just a couple minutes at the end of well-in-hand games for many, so it's a bit tainted...the composite EBUGs are 2.77 and .857 (the latter would be by far the worst in the league) over the course of 65 minutes over 6 games.

In all but one or two instances, these guys played goaltender in NHL-adjacent feeders...
Played ECHL
Started NCAA
Played Allan Cup level/Senior Hockey
Played HS/College - ECHL backup
WHL starters/USports
BCHL starter/USports

As opposed to the players we're talking about, who were coming in to tied regular seasons (1 of 24 or whatever, so very important) or Stanley Cup games. I get your point, but I think there's a very marked difference here in terms of situation, quality of emergency goalie, and performance.

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.

Well, as @ContrarianGoaltender noted, most of the league is from the same three towns haha (not exactly, but for all intents and purposes)...I mean, how many rinks were there really in 1905?

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.


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


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).

The mathematics thing doesn't apply in the same way that my Soviet example doesn't apply. Either they both do or they both don't. We can recognize guys as pioneers. They can be on the list of the greats. It's not about saying Pythagoras "sucked" just like no one is saying Vezina "sucked". But, effectively, you're saying that the Fields Medal should go to Pythagoras every year because otherwise we wouldn't have what we have today. Can't we recognize pioneers without it being at the expense of guys who really separated themselves in a more advanced position?

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.

Ok great. So maybe it's just a matter of perceived quality between the 1912 leagues vs. the 1962 league. I think there's probably a bigger gap there than you do and it's particularly large at the position we're talking about.

I know NFL isn't your game, but Sammy Baugh was probably more statistically dominant vs. his peers than any QB ever was or will be. But...there has to be some adjustment for what was going on then. It can't just be purely vs. peers.

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)?

I'm not saying subpar goalie. I'm saying it's probably just A goalie. And one that I don't need to consider a top 25 goalie of all time.

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

Exceptions don't actually prove rules. But Dick Duff does stick out on tape better than his numbers suggest, to be fair. So does Laprade.

Mike Vernon?

He is right next to Grant Fuhr on my list. 50th and 51st. One will come up too soon and one may not come up at all though.

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.

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.

Well, if relative league strength matters than we'd have no choice but to hold a player's era against them to that degree, right? How would they be separated?

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.

Ok, that's fair. Philosophically, I can't defend that. I think position evolution needs to be a key factor in this. Otherwise, we aren't actually taking the best goalies. I haven't seen your list, but I reckon goalie position evolution will show up in different ways in your list as well.

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.


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

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?

You keep going too far down below where I'm at I think. "Sucked" and "no one cared" (and "50 years" which also seems pretty unfounded if we're talking about a goalie that started in 1910 or whatever). I'm not saying keep Vezina off the list. But it's getting more and more difficult to see this good of a case for pre-forward pass (directionally) goalies. We're still at top 10 of all time.

I guess the thing is...a game report says, "man, that was some good goaling by Fricky Sullivan" on January 17, 1912 and we take that and go, "see! He was awesome"

But we have guys that played on both sides, coached on both sides, goaltended on both sides going, "It wasn't so tough back then for goalies" (do we have anyone saying the opposite specifically? I haven't seen it. Only that skaters had it tougher, and only that goalies had it easier).

And we're sitting here making an all-time list and we're clearly not building it progressively because Dominik Hasek is #1. Hasek played against players still playing in the league tonight. So, we're clearly using full-scope, retrospection, whatever you want to call it to maximize our knowledge. Why do we have to close the scope so far down for the 1910 guys? Why do we have to put blinders on and go, "well, the game report said the game would have been a higher score without a goalie standing there." ...yeah, ya think?

I think we've gone and we're going too far to accommodate 1910 hockey goalies right now at this point in the process and we're doing so in a way that seems a tiny bit incongruent with the treatment that everyone else gets. And as such, these guys like Vezina keep creeping up to the top of these lists because someone else had him there yesterday.

(which does actually seem to support the @Michael Farkas theory of a goaltending improvement kicking in right around then)

I'm as surprised as you seem haha

 

[rmartin65]

I enjoy reading about pre-NHL hockey but it was clearly in an early stage of development.

Why does it being an early stage of development mean players don't get full credit for their actions/reputations?

I hate to keep hammering the same example, but we all think Pythagoras was a pretty great mathematician. But there are high schoolers- and not even the genius level kids, just regular 17-18 year olds- who are doing math that far outstrips the level of math that he was doing. Math was clearly in an early stage of development, but it doesn't/shouldn't lesson what Pythagoras did for math just like what the early players shouldn't be diminished because the game was still evolving.

Era Bias

First, if anybody thinks that comments about the possible overrepresentation of old goalies right now is "era bias" or being unreasonably harsh on earlier eras, well, I guess you must think every top 100 list this forum has ever done was horrendously biased then too. After all, if you look at the top 25 skaters on the most recent top 100 list done by this forum, only three of the top 25 skaters were born before 1921, and only one of them was born before 1900.

Unless I missed something, that isn't what is happening here. I am definitely uneasy with seeing similar groupings of years in both this round and last one.

Era bias is when people state that players before/after X date shouldn't be considered. If I said 80s goalies shouldn't be considered because they got lit up by the 80s scorers, that is an example of era bias. Challenging the amount of goalies available from a particular era in a given era? That's fair game, in my opinion.

However, I think the same overall point will remain with any given sample, which is that "we have to be fair to all eras" is not really a compelling defence here, because we're overrepresenting early eras goalies by 2-3x compared to skaters. That's probably not "fair" even if you think that goalies and skaters developed at the same rate. If you think that early goalie development was slower, well, I honestly think you're completely justified in massively breaking with the HOH "conventional wisdom" when it comes to the pre-1921 birth year goalies.

Being fair to all eras, to me, means giving consideration to all eras. I don't think there needs to be an even distribution of players from across the last 140+ years. But I do think there are goalies from across the spread of history that deserve/warrant consideration and discussion, and, yes, an eventual spot on this list.

My Attempt At an Objective Measure of the Goalie Talent Pool Over Time

View attachment 917943

I tried to find what I could use as a reasonable proxy for the talent pool development, and I settled on the percentage of NHL games played that come from goalies born in Ontario or Quebec.

Grouping similar time periods, we get these rough eras:

1918-1927: 96%
1928-1935: 87%
1936-1954: 40%
1955-1968: 60%
1969-1983: 83%
1984-1990: 62%
1991-2004: 49%
2006-2010: 38%
2011-2021: 23%
2022-2024: 13%

To me that seems to roughly track what we would probably subjectively intuit about the goalie talent pool. Almost exclusively ON/QC goalies early on (it would be a bit less if we included other pro leagues like the PCHA, but would still be overwhelming from ON/QC since even the two best Pacific Coast goalies in Lehman and Holmes were from Ontario). A very sharp influx of goalies from outside Central Canada starting in the mid-'30s (which does actually seem to support the @Michael Farkas theory of a goaltending improvement kicking in right around then). Settling in at a fairly consistent level over the Original Six, then spiking after expansion, to a level that is actually very close to the rate from 1928-1935. (Exactly how sure are we that Charlie Gardiner's NHL competition was much worse than Ken Dryden's? Seems to me both of them were pretty much facing competition almost exclusively from two provinces.)

From the mid-'80s to early '90s expansion, we're about back to Original Six levels, and then we see a drop through the Dead Puck Era, a further drop after 2005, and then since 2010-11 Central Canadian goalies have been a borderline endangered species (which I think pretty clearly reflects a drop in that talent pool compared to prior eras, especially Quebec).

The only thing that doesn't entirely track for me is that I would rate 1955-1968 as quite a bit stronger than 1936-1954, both in terms of elite talent and in depth of talent, but this metric doesn't actually support that view.

Depending on how deep we want to go, we could even add in some of the other pro leagues for the earlier eras where goalie spots were very limited. On the other hand, since we're focusing on outliers here in a Top 60 list, it's probably worth focusing on the very top of the talent pool anyway, and some of the post-expansion years might even benefit from a narrowing down of the sample (say, to goalies with 40+ GP only or something like that). I'm guessing the overall conclusions likely won't change that much either way, though.

I think this is a great way to look at talent pool sizes over time, but I don't think it is evidence for why we should discount eras. The best players in early hockey came from the same couple areas, because high-level hockey was only played in the same couple areas. It makes sense to me that there was less competition.

Should we have an equal amount of goalies from each decade represented on this list? Absolutely not. Big fish in a little pool are not as impressive as the big fish in a big pool. But are the big fish in the little pool at the same level as the medium-sized fish in the big pool? As the medium sized fish in the medium pool? Those are the conversations that I think we should be having.

Otherwise we can just take the top N strength eras, create top N lists for those eras, and just math it out from there to decide what our list looks like.

This solidifies to me that my top 2 this round are going to be Tretiak and Brimsek. Then I'm particularly interested in Dryden vs. Gardiner, with Belfour also in the mix for the next spots.

Our lists for this round look pretty similar.

 

[jigglysquishy]

Brimsek in the playoffs

1939 Finals

Boston defeats Toronto 2-1
Shots: Boston 15 Toronto 17
Bruins 1 Leafs 0

The St. Petersberg Independent - April 7, 1939

By unfolding an almost air-tight defense in front of Goalie Frankie (The Frigid) Brismek, plus a pair of back-checking forwards who haunted the All-Stars.

Toronto beats Boston 3-2 in OT.
Shots: Not recorded
Bruins 1 Leafs 1

Saskatoon Star-Phoenix - April 10, 1939

Broda Shines. Goalie "Turk" Broda co-starred with Romnes in the win that sent he team back to Toronto ice all even for the third and fourth contests. After coming from behind to tie the count at two-all, the Bruins bore down on Broda's net repeatedly.

The Vancouver Sun - April 10, 1939

Goalie Turk Broda threw back the charging Bruins at the net time after time, particularly in the extra minutes.

Boston beats Toronto 3-1
Shots: Not recorded
Bruins 2 Leafs 1

Neither goalie is given relevant comments


Boston wins 2-0. Roy Conacher given high praise. Eddie Shore given high praise defensively.
Shots: Not recorded
Bruins 3 Leafs 1

Saskatoon Star-Phoenix - April 14, 1939

The Leafs had been knocking rapidly at the Bruin goal, but after that the Bruins had merely to lie back and check tenaciously against a team that lacked scoring punch.
That high scoring threesome [Apps, Drillon, Davidson] seldom got a shot on goal as Frankie (Zero) Brimsek recorded his first shutout of the finals.
The Leafs rolled repeatedly against a brick-wall defence with the Boston wingmen clinging to them constantly. Broda kicked away shot after shot as the Bruins broke in on him, until Conacher sped down again.

The Vancouver Sun - April 14, 1939

Frankie Brimseld had few really dangerous shots to block.

Boston wins 3 -1. Shore given high praise. Roy Conacher and Bill Cowley praised too.
Shots: Not recorded
Bruins 4 Leafs 1

The Montreal Gazette - April 17, 1939

It was the old Eddie Shore, the veteran blue-line bumper, who bolstered up the youngsters when the going was hard and led charge after charge any time the Bruines were down.
"We want Shore" the people chanted when the defenceman went to the dressing-room before the Cup was presented.
Shore seemed to be everywhere during that onslaught, falling to help Brimsek and whacking the Leafs about.

The Dubuque Telegraph-Herald - April 17, 1939

The Leafs cut loose with everything at the start of the third, but the Bruins' "all-star" defense of Eddie Shore and Dity Clapper tightened in front of Brimsek.

1941 Finals
Boston defeats Detroit 3-1
Shots: Not Recorded
Bruins 1 Red Wings 0

The Calgary Herald - April 7, 1941

Detroit only managed eight shots on Franki Brismek in the Boston goal during those first 40 minutes.

Boston beats Detroit 2-1
Bruins 2 Red Wings 0

The Calgary Herald - April 9, 1941

"How did we miss that one?" came the echo from the Detroit side, where the players felt they had outplayed the Bruins decisively throughout most of the night, stopping their power plays at the blue line and keeping Boston's goalie Frank Brimsek busy kicking away their shots.

Boston beats Detroit 4-2
Bruins 3 Red Wings 0

The Leader-Post - April 11, 1941

The aid of some sensational saves by Goalie Frank Brimsek.
The Wings, on the short end of the score for the first time in the game, put on a terrific burst of speed and sent shot after shot at Brimsek.
Mowers, whose lapse allowed the Bruins to move ahead, made only one save in the first period, while Brimsek was forced to make a dozen.

The Windsor Daily - April 11, 1941

Goalie Frank Brimsek came to the rescue in a torrid first period last night at Detroit Olympia.
For one period last night - the first- the Red Wings, who haven't beaten the Bruins in the last 12 meetings, looked as if they might snap the jinx. From start to finish of those hectic 20 minutes they poured hot rubber at Goalie Brimsek. But Brimsek was just as hot as the rubber.
For the remainder of the period, in which the Wings continued to fashion the pace, but couldn't beat the nimble-limbed and equally nimble-witted Brimsek.
The Wings tried hard but accomplished little in the face of the check and double check tactics of the visitors and the brilliant puck-fending of Brimsek.

Boston wins 3-1
Bruins 4 Red Wings 0

The Windsor Daily Star - April 13, 1941

In goal they have the greatest puck-fender of the game today in Frankie Brimsek.
Brimsek in goal was phenomenal. More than any other individual member of the Bruins he was responsible for the defeat of the Red Wings. There wasn't a single game in the series in which he didn't make a half dozen sensational saves - saves of the kind which Detroit players will tell you there isn't another goalie in the league can make.
Brimsek is one of the those rare goalies who has perfect co-ordination of hand and eye. The way he can pluck pucks out of the air is almost unbelievable. You can see him do it once and figure he is lucky, but when he repeats the act a dozen times in a period you know that it is not luck but uncanny skill.

The New London Evening Day - April 14, 1941

As goes Brimsek so goes the Bruins was the watchword and Little Frank came through. Watching the whole series - from Toronto through Detroit - there is only one logical hero and that is Brimsek.

1943 Finals

Red Wings win 6-2
Bruins 0 Red Wings 1

The Calgary Herald - April 2, 1943

Brimsek made 37 saves and Mowers 25.
Brimsek was helpless

Detroit wins 4-3
Bruins 0 Red Wings 2

The Meridan Record - April 5, 1943

Brimsek has had some good nights in this ice rink, but since this crucial series opened the Wings have flashed the red light over his head eleven times.
The man who you once knew as "Mr. Zero" was not idle at any time. Jack Adams' offensive-minded red shirts peppered him with 31 shots that he handled safely, while the Wings' Johnny Mowers was called upon to make only 19 saves.

The Nashua Telegraph - April 5, 1943

Jack Adams: Brimsek is the best goalie of all time

Detroit blanks Boston 4-0
Shots: Boston 27 Detroit 31
Bruins 0 Red Wings 3

The Calgary Herald - April 8, 1943

The Red Wings put on a terrific push against Brimsek, Frankie kicked out three steaming close-ups in rapid-fire order.
[Les Douglas] regained the loose puck and sped down to beat the defenceless Brimsek.
As was the case all night, [Grosso] had little trouble filtering to the Boston defence to the crease

Detroit shuts out Boston 2-0
Bruins 0 Red Wings 4

No relevant comments, though Mowers is spoken of well.


1946 Finals

Montreal beats Boston 4-3 in OT
Shots: Montreal 47 Boston 28
Bruins 0 Canadiens 1

The Montreal Gazette - April 1, 1946

Both Bill Durnan and Frankie (Mr. Zero) Brimsek, the greatest pair of netminders in hockey today, met the championship test by playing the grandest hockey of their careers.
Canadiens fed the Bruins speed, speed, and more speed. Sometimes they made the big Bostonians look as though they were standing still and had a wide edge in the play, but Brimsek was the fellow they couldn't beat.

Montreal wins 3-2 in OT
Shots: Montreal 46 Boston 39
Bruins 0 Canadiens 2

The Calgary Herald - April 3, 1946

The game featured wide-open and thrilling hockey, brilliant passing plays, and particularly spectacular goal-tending by Brimsek and Bill Durnan of Canadiens.

Montreal wins 4-2
Shots: Montreal 35 Boston 30
Bruins 0 Canadiens 3

The Montreal Gazette - April 5, 1946

Mark this - Bill Durnan was definitely superior to Brimsek tonight.

Boston rebounds 3-2 in OT
Shots: Not Recorded
Bruins 1 Canadiens 3

The Montreal Gazette - April 8, 1946

The Habs continued to press and Brimsek made a number of great saves at the expense of Elmer Lach, Toe Blake, and Billy Reay.

Montreal wins 6-3
Bruins 1 Canadiens 4

The Montreal Gazette - April 10, 1946

Frankie Brimsek stopped four shots in rapid succession.

The Leader-Post - April 10, 1946

Both Bill Durnan in the Montreal nets and Frankie Brimsek, Boston custodian, again turned up with standout performances and the Boston loss cast no reflections on Brimsek's puck-stopping abilities as time and time again he kicked out sure goals.

Saskatoon Star-Phoenix - April 10, 1946

Brimsek deserved no part of the Boston defeat, which was mainly due to a weak defence that left him time and time again without protection.
Montreal's Bill Durnan and Boston's Frankie Brimsek, who staged a terrific goaltending duel throughout the entire series, again turned in outstanding exhibitions of puck stopping.

Brimsek's praise is really high in 1941, 1943, and 1946. I think it's fair to point out that Eddie Shore gets the bulk of the defensive praise in 1939, but after that Boston doesn't have a great blue line and Brimsek's performances are routinely singled out. I'll point to something like game 5 in 1946, where despite a Cup loss he is praised. Durnan and Broda get praise in the relevant series, but Brimsek is definitely talked about most favourably. There is lots of evidence of Brimsek bailing the team out in 43 and 46.

In 1941 he would have been the clear Conn Smythe winner.

I think I'm shaping up to a Tretiak-Vezina-Brimsek top 3.

 

[Michael Farkas]

I hate to keep hammering the same example, but we all think Pythagoras was a pretty great mathematician. But there are high schoolers- and not even the genius level kids, just regular 17-18 year olds- who are doing math that far outstrips the level of math that he was doing. Math was clearly in an early stage of development, but it doesn't/shouldn't lesson what Pythagoras did for math just like what the early players shouldn't be diminished because the game was still evolving.

Ok, let me try it from this angle, since we keep going back to it...

Pythagoras gets credit for thinking of it, right? He invented/advented/theorized whatever. And now a zillion years later, some folks can do that math. Does that make them better? No.

I don't find the situations to be analogous because I don't think Vezina or LeSueur or Moran or whoever invented the goaltending that we're using today. So, I don't feel compelled to fall all over myself to make sure he's anointed.

 

[rmartin65]

It was the best hockey reasonably available to Puchkov. Also, the West won their share of Stanley Cups...are we sure that Vezina was playing "at the highest level on Earth" and even if that's the case, I'm not positive that a diluted league should be given full freight, especially at this time.

Puchkov/Soviets- just because they couldn't access the better leagues doesn't mean they didn't exist. Soviet hockey at that point in time was inferior to hockey that existed in NA at the very same moment in time. With the early goalies, they were literally* playing at the highest level on Earth.

*I had to star it because you make a good point about the split-league meaning perhaps Vezina wasn't actually playing the best available. That's a fair point. I do think that Vezina had the highest reputation among all the goalies playing during this time-period.

That said, we seem to be giving O6 goalies credit for AHL/Senior level play, so maybe this is a similar situation.

If I compiled it all correctly - and it's very limited situations, just a couple minutes at the end of well-in-hand games for many, so it's a bit tainted...the composite EBUGs are 2.77 and .857 (the latter would be by far the worst in the league) over the course of 65 minutes over 6 games.

In all but one or two instances, these guys played goaltender in NHL-adjacent feeders...
Played ECHL
Started NCAA
Played Allan Cup level/Senior Hockey
Played HS/College - ECHL backup
WHL starters/USports
BCHL starter/USports

Sure, but often years removed from actually playing in those leagues. Ayres hadn't played high-level (if we want to call Senior Hockey in the 21st century that) for about 5 years, and had ton quite poorly that season. Foster was 13 years removed from college, and wasn't particularly great there either. Those guys weren't even average players in their leagues.

As opposed to the players we're talking about, who were coming in to tied regular seasons (1 of 24 or whatever, so very important) or Stanley Cup games. I get your point, but I think there's a very marked difference here in terms of situation, quality of emergency goalie, and performance.

As you have made a good case for, the goalie position was less developed. It was undoubtedly easier for skaters back then to fill in than it would be today. I mean, a long long time again, goalies even served their own penalties and skaters had to fill in. That was the way the game and the position was played back then, and I think we should be contextualizing each player within the environment they played in.

Well, as @ContrarianGoaltender noted, most of the league is from the same three towns haha (not exactly, but for all intents and purposes)...I mean, how many rinks were there really in 1905?

No clue. But that doesn't mean that kids had an easy time watching the stars of the time.

The mathematics thing doesn't apply in the same way that my Soviet example doesn't apply. Either they both do or they both don't. We can recognize guys as pioneers. They can be on the list of the greats. It's not about saying Pythagoras "sucked" just like no one is saying Vezina "sucked". But, effectively, you're saying that the Fields Medal should go to Pythagoras every year because otherwise we wouldn't have what we have today. Can't we recognize pioneers without it being at the expense of guys who really separated themselves in a more advanced position?

Pythagoras can't win the Fields medal because he, as far as I understand it, is/was over 40 and because people don't get awarded for the same discoveries. I imagine he would have won a couple if the medal existed back then, haha, but I fear we are veering pretty far away from the thread.

I think it is an appropriate example because we are talking about how we need to accept the environment in which early mathematicians/goalies/players played in. Things evolve, and we should understand that. Pythagoras was a better mathematician than I am despite my knowing calculus (ok, having taken a couple calc classes), just like I think Vezina was a better goalie than Belfour despite Belfour being more advanced as a goaltender. Pythagoras was greater relative to his peers in math than I am (which is tough for me to admit), just like I think Vezina was greater relative to his peers than Belfour was.

Ok great. So maybe it's just a matter of perceived quality between the 1912 leagues vs. the 1962 league. I think there's probably a bigger gap there than you do and it's particularly large at the position we're talking about.

I think there is a large gap in quality. I just think we should be evaluating players' legacies relative to their contemporaries in addition to looking at era/league strength. Because otherwise we can just grab the top 60 goalies from the last 50 years and call it a day.

I know NFL isn't your game, but Sammy Baugh was probably more statistically dominant vs. his peers than any QB ever was or will be. But...there has to be some adjustment for what was going on then. It can't just be purely vs. peers.

Sounds like Baugh should be more in the public consciousness. And I know I am pushing a lot for looking at players vs their peers, but that doesn't mean we should throw league/era strength into account; the final picture should look at both, and if we simply ignore the early guys because early goalies didn't look like goalies, then we aren't doing that.

I'm not saying subpar goalie. I'm saying it's probably just A goalie. And one that I don't need to consider a top 25 goalie of all time.

The fact that you aren't open to any goalies before X date is why I am interested in this discussion, not because I particularly care where you put Vezina, Gardiner, Moran, or any individual goalie.

Exceptions don't actually prove rules. But Dick Duff does stick out on tape better than his numbers suggest, to be fair. So does Laprade.

I'm just trying to nail down when we should consider the Hall of Fame's actions to be righteous and when they are bad.

I don't have an issue with Laprade being there, either.

He is right next to Grant Fuhr on my list. 50th and 51st. One will come up too soon and one may not come up at all though.

I believe Gretzky called Fuhr the best goalie in NHL history.

Well, if relative league strength matters than we'd have no choice but to hold a player's era against them to that degree, right? How would they be separated?

We should definitely take league strength into account. We shouldn't just ignore players because their league was weaker.

Ok, that's fair. Philosophically, I can't defend that. I think position evolution needs to be a key factor in this. Otherwise, we aren't actually taking the best goalies. I haven't seen your list, but I reckon goalie position evolution will show up in different ways in your list as well.

Maybe. I'm not terribly happy with how my list turned out, I was in a rush due to some private life events (which is largely my own fault, because we had plenty of time to get them in and I put it off longer than I should have). I am trying to be more diligent and thoughtful as we progress through the round 2 voting.

You keep going too far down below where I'm at I think. "Sucked" and "no one cared" (and "50 years" which also seems pretty unfounded if we're talking about a goalie that started in 1910 or whatever). I'm not saying keep Vezina off the list. But it's getting more and more difficult to see this good of a case for pre-forward pass (directionally) goalies. We're still at top 10 of all time.

Like I said, it doesn't bother me at all if you or anyone else doesn't have Vezina in the top 10. I just want players looked at within the context of their environments, not ignored because the goalie position was still developing, people weren't driving cars yet, etc.

I guess the thing is...a game report says, "man, that was some good goaling by Fricky Sullivan" on January 17, 1912 and we take that and go, "see! He was awesome"

Now you are the one who is going too far down. I'm not pointing to one game report and making the claim that a player deserves a spot on this list. I have well over 2200 game reports (EDIT- not individual games, to be clear, but 2200 reports. I try to get reports from multiple sources for the same game to try to get a more complete picture of what is happening) ranging from the early 1880s to 1909, and I am trying to share what the general contemporary discourse was around individual goalies and the goalie position in general.

I don't appreciate you trying to paint my assertions as being so flimsily supported.

Why do we have to close the scope so far down for the 1910 guys? Why do we have to put blinders on and go, "well, the game report said the game would have been a higher score without a goalie standing there." ...yeah, ya think?

We are scoping down so far because some people are just trying to hand-wave them out of consideration because they played a long time ago.

The game reports stating hat the play of the goalies being deciding factors in the games is important because it shows that the goalie position had an impact that was recognized by observers. It defends the legitimacy of the position at that time, which I feel like you are challenging. It wasn't to get everyone to clap their hands and praise Fred Chittick because he had a good game.

I think we've gone and we're going too far to accommodate 1910 hockey goalies right now at this point in the process and we're doing so in a way that seems a tiny bit incongruent with the treatment that everyone else gets. And as such, these guys like Vezina keep creeping up to the top of these lists because someone else had him there yesterday.

I don't want all these 1910 guys in right now. I don't. I merely don't think we should be ignoring them because they played a long time ago and we can't watch them play.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Less convincing than my previous clues on this, but more winking at the position evolving in a big way...

Plante’s revolutionary methods of tending goal have created quite a sensation around the NHL the past few years. At one time goalers were almost “stationary” in their net until Plante came into the league and started roving from his goal to aid his harassed defenders.

...

Jacques is noted as an un-usally swift skater for a goalie. He is one of the most agile “padded men” to come into the NHL in years. Last season in a puck-carrying competition between members of the Canadiens, Tom Johnson and Henri Richard each circled the ice in 16 seconds flat.

Plante, wearing his full goaling regalia, which weighs between 35 and 40 pounds, covered the same distance in 19 seconds.

Conversely, a guy like LeSueur turned pro as a winger and was failing. Some goalie caught the vapors that night, he hopped in net and became the Xth best goalie of all time? Meh...probably not.

 

[rmartin65]

Ok, let me try it from this angle, since we keep going back to it...

I had started my post before I saw your response-

Pythagoras gets credit for thinking of it, right? He invented/advented/theorized whatever. And now a zillion years later, some folks can do that math. Does that make them better? No.

He gets credit for his ability. So no, I am not better than Pythagoras just because I had the advantage of being born so many years later.

I don't find the situations to be analogous because I don't think Vezina or LeSueur or Moran or whoever invented the goaltending that we're using today. So, I don't feel compelled to fall all over myself to make sure he's anointed.

They didn't invent it, but I don't think it was invented- it evolved, and I think they helped it to evolve. There isn't this moment where we are like "yep, that's a goalie, here is our starting point". Players and coaches almost certainly noted what the best guys were doing and tried to improve on it.

Just like how later mathematicians built on the work of earlier guys, I think later goalies built on what the earlier guys did. And just like I don't think later mathematicians were necessarily better mathematicians just because they could do more, I don't think later goalies were necessarily better because they played the position closer to how we understand it today.

 

[rmartin65]

Conversely, a guy like LeSueur turned pro as a winger and was failing. Some goalie caught the vapors that night, he hopped in net and became the Xth best goalie of all time? Meh...probably not.

Hey, I've got LeSueur below everyone available this round, and for who knows how many rounds later. He's not even the best goalie of his time, in my opinion.

And if being a goalie was so easy, I am shocked that more teams didn't just put failing wingers there. LeSueur helped his team win (the level of praise he received when he played for Ottawa HC in comparison to the previous Ottawa HC goalies is pretty remarkable), and stayed at the highest level of play until the mid 1910s. Certainly with all the money that was around the game at that point, someone would have realized that having that skillset in goal was all that was needed.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Puchkov/Soviets- just because they couldn't access the better leagues doesn't mean they didn't exist. Soviet hockey at that point in time was inferior to hockey that existed in NA at the very same moment in time. With the early goalies, they were literally* playing at the highest level on Earth.

*I had to star it because you make a good point about the split-league meaning perhaps Vezina wasn't actually playing the best available. That's a fair point. I do think that Vezina had the highest reputation among all the goalies playing during this time-period.

That said, we seem to be giving O6 goalies credit for AHL/Senior level play, so maybe this is a similar situation.

Last line: Not me. Not after I saw the fall off between the top guys and fill-in/bottom guys from the 1930s thru the 1960s. I can't possibly trust those guys. It's pretty massive. The position had so little depth for its history. And we saw that on high when the league enforced teams to carry two goalies in 1965 and it took 20 years to recover.

Sure, but often years removed from actually playing in those leagues. Ayres hadn't played high-level (if we want to call Senior Hockey in the 21st century that) for about 5 years, and had ton quite poorly that season. Foster was 13 years removed from college, and wasn't particularly great there either. Those guys weren't even average players in their leagues.

But in order to get to that level, you need to have foundations in goaltending. You can fundamentally play the position. The guys we're talking about never played it before and are stepping into real situations and winning. Winning a Cup, even. That's a lot.

As you have made a good case for, the goalie position was less developed. It was undoubtedly easier for skaters back then to fill in than it would be today. I mean, a long long time again, goalies even served their own penalties and skaters had to fill in. That was the way the game and the position was played back then, and I think we should be contextualizing each player within the environment they played in.

Right. And juxtaposed against other goalies' respective eras.

No clue. But that doesn't mean that kids had an easy time watching the stars of the time.


Pythagoras can't win the Fields medal because he, as far as I understand it, is/was over 40 and because people don't get awarded for the same discoveries. I imagine he would have won a couple if the medal existed back then, haha, but I fear we are veering pretty far away from the thread.

I think it is an appropriate example because we are talking about how we need to accept the environment in which early mathematicians/goalies/players played in. Things evolve, and we should understand that. Pythagoras was a better mathematician than I am despite my knowing calculus (ok, having taken a couple calc classes), just like I think Vezina was a better goalie than Belfour despite Belfour being more advanced as a goaltender. Pythagoras was greater relative to his peers in math than I am (which is tough for me to admit), just like I think Vezina was greater relative to his peers than Belfour was.

Sure. But would you rather hire a guy in the 10th percentile of his class at Harvard or 90th percentile at Arizona State?

I think there is a large gap in quality. I just think we should be evaluating players' legacies relative to their contemporaries in addition to looking at era/league strength. Because otherwise we can just grab the top 60 goalies from the last 50 years and call it a day.

I don't think we can (the last sentence). I think we can mix the two better than we are (vs. peers and then vs. era/strength).

Sounds like Baugh should be more in the public consciousness. And I know I am pushing a lot for looking at players vs their peers, but that doesn't mean we should throw league/era strength into account; the final picture should look at both, and if we simply ignore the early guys because early goalies didn't look like goalies, then we aren't doing that.


The fact that you aren't open to any goalies before X date is why I am interested in this discussion, not because I particularly care where you put Vezina, Gardiner, Moran, or any individual goalie.

This is not my opinion. Vezina, Benedict, LeSueur, etc. are on my list. They just aren't very high because I'm adjusting for era. Conversely, Gardiner is much higher than all of them. Hell, I had Harry Lumley and Frank Brimsek in my top 12. It's not about a date. It's about all the factors we're talking about: against peers, league quality, position quality/evolution.

Unless you mean that I'm taking anyone from that 9 on 9, wood puck game in 1875 that pre-dates rules...then yeah, no one from that game haha

I'm just trying to nail down when we should consider the Hall of Fame's actions to be righteous and when they are bad.

The HOF will never lead my charge in debate for obvious reasons. But like I said, it's a breadcrumb that follows the pattern that I see. I'm happy to have it dismissed.

I don't have an issue with Laprade being there, either.


I believe Gretzky called Fuhr the best goalie in NHL history.

Gretzky can suck a lemon.

We should definitely take league strength into account. We shouldn't just ignore players because their league was weaker.


Maybe. I'm not terribly happy with how my list turned out, I was in a rush due to some private life events (which is largely my own fault, because we had plenty of time to get them in and I put it off longer than I should have). I am trying to be more diligent and thoughtful as we progress through the round 2 voting.


Like I said, it doesn't bother me at all if you or anyone else doesn't have Vezina in the top 10. I just want players looked at within the context of their environments, not ignored because the goalie position was still developing, people weren't driving cars yet, etc.

Now you are the one who is going too far down. I'm not pointing to one game report and making the claim that a player deserves a spot on this list. I have well over 2200 game reports ranging from the early 1880s to 1909, and I am trying to share what the general contemporary discourse was around individual goalies and the goalie position in general.

I don't appreciate you trying to paint my assertions as being so flimsily supported.

All fair. I didn't mean to paint your assertions like that. I was more using it as an example of "don't limit the scope". The people in 1912 had no idea what good goaltending was or wasn't at the level that we do right now.

So a writer in 1912 going "This was the greatest custodial exhibition we've seen" is one thing. But what happens when that same writer in 1935 goes, "Oh snap, dawg, THIS is the best exhibition we've seen."

By nature of how this project goes...we're forced to talk about Vezina right now. And therefore, you want to enforce a limited scope view, focused entirely on what we knew in 1912. But that's only fair to Vezina. It's like the old gag where someone goes "From 1998 to 2022, Patrick Marleau led all players in ice time" or whatever. It's another way of centering items around one player's career. But we have the full scope of knowledge and we have more players to discuss.

So, I agree, we have to take Vezina vs his peers into account. No question. But we also have to look forward because everyone else on the list is up ahead. It's not fair to them to go "well, they said in 1925 that he was the best." Especially because of my theory about goaltending not having been realized as the position we know in the film era.

So...let's give credit to Vezina for being the best before 1925 or whatever the claim is. That seems quite legitimate. I also don't think that makes him a top 20 goalie ever because of the other two factors.

We are scoping down so far because some people are just trying to hand-wave them out of consideration because they played a long time ago.

The game reports stating hat the play of the goalies being deciding factors in the games is important because it shows that the goalie position had an impact that was recognized by observers. It defends the legitimacy of the position at that time, which I feel like you are challenging. It wasn't to get everyone to clap their hands and praise Fred Chittick because he had a good game.


I don't want all these 1910 guys in right now. I don't. I merely don't think we should be ignoring them because they played a long time ago and we can't watch them play.

I don't want to ignore them either. I don't think I see a lot of people saying that either. I'm just not ready for them now.

 

[jigglysquishy]

One thing we've seen happen is "era bunching". It's not really present in the other projects but it's happening here now and it happened in 2012.

Plante/Sawchuk/Hall all came up together and went 3/4/6.
Hasek/Roy/Brodeur all came up together and went 1/2/5.
Dryden/Tretiak came up together and will likely go high this round.

Vezina/Benedict came up this round.
Brimsek/Broda/Durnan came up this round.
Belfour is from the same era as Hasek/Roy/Brodeur.

So 14 of our top 15 eligible goalies ultimately are coming from 5 eras (late 10s/early 20s, early/mid 40s, O6, late 70s, mid/late 90s). Gardiner is the lone wolf.

I think it happens because the goalies seem close so we induct them close together. But I think if we look closer it's not actually close.

There's a sizeable gap in peer opinion on Plante/Sawchuk and Hall. There's a sizeable gap between Hasek/Roy and Brodeur. We at least are recognizing there's a large gap between Hasek/Roy/Brodeur and Belfour.

I think there's a sizeable gap between Vezina and Benedict.

I think there should be space between Brimsek and Broda/Durnan.

I've seen enough for a least a little gap between Tretiak and Dryden.

We should be voting in players, not eras. I think the "era bunching" is happening because it's hard to pick so instead of picking the goalie, we pick all the good goalies from that era.

 

[overpass]

Why does it being an early stage of development mean players don't get full credit for their actions/reputations?

Saying they "don't get full credit" is kind of begging the question.

I would say there might be less credit to give out if the conditions of play gave less opportunity for goaltenders to demonstrate athletic excellence or less opportunity to make a significant impact in competitive play.

Similarly, I'm not committed to keeping every era equal if there is reason to believe that goaltenders of some eras demonstrated more athletic excellence than others. This might be the case if top athletes with potential for greatness tended to play other positions in certain eras. Just as I wouldn't be committed to ranking all eras of Canadian wingers equally, when I know that in some eras top young Canadian forwards were all placed at centre rather than wing.

I hate to keep hammering the same example, but we all think Pythagoras was a pretty great mathematician. But there are high schoolers- and not even the genius level kids, just regular 17-18 year olds- who are doing math that far outstrips the level of math that he was doing. Math was clearly in an early stage of development, but it doesn't/shouldn't lesson what Pythagoras did for math just like what the early players shouldn't be diminished because the game was still evolving.

Right. Current high schoolers are just working from a textbook and Pythagoras was working on the frontiers of knowledge. There's no reason to believe the textbook learners could do anything worth noting under any conditions.

Similarly, I'm not saying and I don't think anyone is saying that anyone who can execute a basic butterfly with a 2024 set of goalie equipment is greater than the best of 1924. I'm completely against any sort of pro-technology, anti-human argument. It means something to make it to the top of a competitive group at the highest level of competition available. But it doesn't always mean the same amount. It depends in part how competitive the group was.

 

[overpass]

Brimsek's praise is really high in 1941, 1943, and 1946. I think it's fair to point out that Eddie Shore gets the bulk of the defensive praise in 1939, but after that Boston doesn't have a great blue line and Brimsek's performances are routinely singled out. I'll point to something like game 5 in 1946, where despite a Cup loss he is praised. Durnan and Broda get praise in the relevant series, but Brimsek is definitely talked about most favourably. There is lots of evidence of Brimsek bailing the team out in 43 and 46.

I don't know...maybe Brimsek's 41 is the best series of the three, but I don't find Brimsek's 43 or 46 to be at a level above Durnan or Broda's playoffs.

Most accounts in 46 praised Brimsek and Durnan equally, and there's at least the one Gazette quote from Game 3 that says Durnan was better than Brimsek.

Brimsek finished with a 3.54 GAA and 0.897 SV% in 1943 playoffs. I understand defensive support varies and the Bruins missed the Kraut line, but I don't think I can rate a sub-0.900 SV% playoff from the 40s as all time. How would you get that ahead of Durnan's 44 or 47, or one of half a dozen playoffs from Broda?

 

[rmartin65]

One thing we've seen happen is "era bunching". It's not really present in the other projects but it's happening here now and it happened in 2012.

Plante/Sawchuk/Hall all came up together and went 3/4/6.
Hasek/Roy/Brodeur all came up together and went 1/2/5.
Dryden/Tretiak came up together and will likely go high this round.

Vezina/Benedict came up this round.
Brimsek/Broda/Durnan came up this round.
Belfour is from the same era as Hasek/Roy/Brodeur.

So 14 of our top 15 eligible goalies ultimately are coming from 5 eras (late 10s/early 20s, early/mid 40s, O6, late 70s, mid/late 90s). Gardiner is the lone wolf.

I think it happens because the goalies seem close so we induct them close together. But I think if we look closer it's not actually close.

There's a sizeable gap in peer opinion on Plante/Sawchuk and Hall. There's a sizeable gap between Hasek/Roy and Brodeur. We at least are recognizing there's a large gap between Hasek/Roy/Brodeur and Belfour.

I think there's a sizeable gap between Vezina and Benedict.

I think there should be space between Brimsek and Broda/Durnan.

I've seen enough for a least a little gap between Tretiak and Dryden.

We should be voting in players, not eras. I think the "era bunching" is happening because it's hard to pick so instead of picking the goalie, we pick all the good goalies from that era.

I would say there might be less credit to give out if the conditions of play gave less opportunity for goaltenders to demonstrate athletic excellence or less opportunity to make a significant impact in competitive play.

Similarly, I'm not committed to keeping every era equal if there is reason to believe that goaltenders of some eras demonstrated more athletic excellence than others. This might be the case if top athletes with potential for greatness tended to play other positions in certain eras. Just as I wouldn't be committed to ranking all eras of Canadian wingers equally, when I know that in some eras top young Canadian forwards were all placed at centre rather than wing.

Right, and I don't think anybody is pushing for all eras to be represented equally. The argument that I am making is that the earliest era guys shouldn't be discounted simply because the goalie position was different than what the position eventually grew to be.

Maybe the goalies were all the worst skaters- but the best goalie of the era is still the best goalie in the era. If he dominated his era to a greater degree than a goalie who grew up in a system where good skating was the expectation, why shouldn't he still be discussed? I think that is the way to go about cross-comparing eras, by looking at the expectations for each position while they played that position and then looking at relative dominance. Then you take the strength (not the talent, in my opinion) of the era into account.

Similarly, I'm not saying and I don't think anyone is saying that anyone who can execute a basic butterfly with a 2024 set of goalie equipment is greater than the best of 1924. I'm completely against any sort of pro-technology, anti-human argument. It means something to make it to the top of a competitive group at the highest level of competition available. But it doesn't always mean the same amount. It depends in part how competitive the group was.

I think we are saying mostly the same thing.

 

[jigglysquishy]

I don't know...maybe Brimsek's 41 is the best series of the three, but I don't find Brimsek's 43 or 46 to be at a level above Durnan or Broda's playoffs.

Most accounts in 46 praised Brimsek and Durnan equally, and there's at least the one Gazette quote from Game 3 that says Durnan was better than Brimsek.

Brimsek finished with a 3.54 GAA and 0.897 SV% in 1943 playoffs. I understand defensive support varies and the Bruins missed the Kraut line, but I don't think I can rate a sub-0.900 SV% playoff from the 40s as all time. How would you get that ahead of Durnan's 44 or 47, or one of half a dozen playoffs from Broda?

I agree with this, but reading the entire account, Montreal outplays Boston heavily so I take that as a plus towards Brimsek. I'm definitely leaning towards Durnan being last of the trio largely due to a short/war impacted career.

I just don't want us to get into a situation that we vote them all in back-to-back-to-back because making a decision who is better is too hard.

I also think where we're getting bit is that 6 of the 19 of us haven't posted in this thread, and another 3 only have 1 post. So instead of us getting into the weeds as a big group, it's a small group arguing over semantics.

We are at a point where we have to vote on where Brimsek/Broda/Durnan go and we haven't even talked about it yet. And I don't think 14 of 15 being from 5 eras is an accurate representation of hockey history. We would be voting in the third best goalie of the 40s as better than anyone born 1975-1995.

 

[Michael Farkas]

I don't mean to end the conversation at all (as I think we're making really good progress)...but I'm actually enjoying the philosophical part of this and thanks for going down that road. It would be easy to dismiss that prompt, but I think this discussion (including the really good point that jigglysquishy brought in) will make this a better project...

Now, I hate to say it...if there was ever a round to extend a week...it might be this one haha - but I won't campaign for that because it really sets a trend.

 

[nabby12]

Just a quick note here as some recent posts have spurred this, but it's worth noting that in doing my book on Frank Brimsek a few years back, his play dipped considerably when he got back from serving in World War II.

He wasn't as quick and his glove wasn't as fast in making saves anymore. Players that I talked to including Milt Schmidt also pointed this out, and while he was still trusted in the Bruins' net, he wasn't the same as before he went into the service.

Towards the end of his career, he also began to develop a bit of 'stage fright,' similar to what Durnan also went through at the end as he acted a little more timid in the net in fear of getting hurt. And the anxiousness surely caused his play to also drop.

On the other hand, Turk Broda was actually a better goaltender when he got back from WWII then before it, and had some of his most successful years afterwards from 1946 to 1951. Broda was also fearless and never went through that sort of 'stage fright' type of anxiety that some of his counterparts endured. The only thing he had to worry about was keeping his weight in check.

 

[nabby12]

I think there's a sizeable gap between Vezina and Benedict.

I'm still not seeing the gap between Vezina and Benedict. Many players from this era have said the two goaltenders were close in terms of skill, and even some Habs players have said that Benedict was better.

Also, a big issue I have is that Vezina was the Montreal Canadiens goaltender for 15 YEARS and only produced TWO Stanley Cups, which is still kind of shocking. Benedict on the other hand, won four Cups split between Ottawa and the Montreal Maroons.

Here's some notes from a THN story I did on Benedict in the THN Top 100 goalies magazine a few years ago:

There’s long been a debate on who was the better netminder of the early NHL: Benedict or Georges Vezina. Comparing the two is difficult, since they were polar opposites as goaltenders. Vezina didn’t like to go down to block shots. Instead he stopped pucks with his pads in the stand-up position or slapped them aside with his stick. Benedict was a flopper, doing everything in his power to stop the puck.

Hall of Famer Punch Broadbent once noted, “Georges Vezina of the Canadiens was a great goalie back then. He’s honored with a trophy practically legend in hockey. But we all thought there was no goalie ever better than Clint Benedict. Clint went on for many years with a distinctive style that included going to the ice for pucks, which has become so much a part of a goalie’s play through the years.”

Prior to a game between Vezina’s Canadiens and Benedict’s Montreal Maroons, Vezina told Leo Dandurand, the Canadiens owner who donated the trophy in Vezina’s name, “It will be a close battle. I can hold them out at my end, Leo, but it will be tough to score against them. The best man is in the other goal, you know.”

Dandurand also once claimed to a reporter that he was always very much tempted to trade for Benedict to play goal for the Canadiens instead of Vezina. It goes along with the legend that if Vezina hadn’t tragically died from tuberculosis in 1926, the Vezina Trophy that we know today might instead be called the Benedict Trophy.

 

[rmartin65]

One thing we've seen happen is "era bunching". It's not really present in the other projects but it's happening here now and it happened in 2012.

Plante/Sawchuk/Hall all came up together and went 3/4/6.
Hasek/Roy/Brodeur all came up together and went 1/2/5.
Dryden/Tretiak came up together and will likely go high this round.

Vezina/Benedict came up this round.
Brimsek/Broda/Durnan came up this round.
Belfour is from the same era as Hasek/Roy/Brodeur.

So 14 of our top 15 eligible goalies ultimately are coming from 5 eras (late 10s/early 20s, early/mid 40s, O6, late 70s, mid/late 90s). Gardiner is the lone wolf.

I think it happens because the goalies seem close so we induct them close together. But I think if we look closer it's not actually close.

There's a sizeable gap in peer opinion on Plante/Sawchuk and Hall. There's a sizeable gap between Hasek/Roy and Brodeur. We at least are recognizing there's a large gap between Hasek/Roy/Brodeur and Belfour.

I think there's a sizeable gap between Vezina and Benedict.

I think there should be space between Brimsek and Broda/Durnan.

I've seen enough for a least a little gap between Tretiak and Dryden.

We should be voting in players, not eras. I think the "era bunching" is happening because it's hard to pick so instead of picking the goalie, we pick all the good goalies from that era.

I realized I quoted this post then never responded to it. Since it is similar in theme to your next post, I'll quote that one and respond to them both below-

I just don't want us to get into a situation that we vote them all in back-to-back-to-back because making a decision who is better is too hard.

I also think where we're getting bit is that 6 of the 19 of us haven't posted in this thread, and another 3 only have 1 post. So instead of us getting into the weeds as a big group, it's a small group arguing over semantics.

We are at a point where we have to vote on where Brimsek/Broda/Durnan go and we haven't even talked about it yet. And I don't think 14 of 15 being from 5 eras is an accurate representation of hockey history. We would be voting in the third best goalie of the 40s as better than anyone born 1975-1995.

I agree with all of this. I think these groupings are exactly what you've described- punting on having the hard debate and avoiding getting to a real (well, as real as message board talk can be) decision on how these guys should be ranked.

I have Brimsek high. Durnan near the middle (he was a riser for me due to @Dr John Carlson 's research). Broda near the end of the group.

I don't mean to end the conversation at all (as I think we're making really good progress)...but I'm actually enjoying the philosophical part of this and thanks for going down that road. It would be easy to dismiss that prompt, but I think this discussion (including the really good point that jigglysquishy brought in) will make this a better project...

Now, I hate to say it...if there was ever a round to extend a week...it might be this one haha - but I won't campaign for that because it really sets a trend.

I'd definitely support keeping this going for a week if it allows for greater discussion of the goalies available this round. I don't think we should be in any rush with this project.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

As someone only reading and not trying to get in the way, I really like these discussions and would love to see them extended.

 

[jigglysquishy]

Broda/Durnan is one I want to get into. Can someone sell me on Durnan? He couldn't push Paul Bibeault out of a job. He dominates a war-depleted NHL. And he retires at 34. I'm just left wanting more.

Just a quick note here as some recent posts have spurred this, but it's worth noting that in doing my book on Frank Brimsek a few years back, his play dipped considerably when he got back from serving in World War II.

This is something I wanted to get into.

What do we do with Brimsek's 1943-44 season? He's still playing, but he's in the army. He misses the entirety of 1944-45.
Broda missed 2.5 seasons with the war.
Durnan was a minor leaguer and didn't miss any time.
Having to miss seasons in the middle of your prime because of the largest war in human history shouldn't be used as a notch towards Durnan.
Both Brimsek and Broda were good enough to be elite NHLers before the war depletes rosters. Durnan was good enough to crack a roster in 1941, but I don't think he's at the level of B and B yet.

In terms of how they were impacted, doesn't Durnan have a really easy go? While his two contemporaries are off the ice in active service, he's staying in game shape and actively playing hockey.

I am struggling to see Durnan as anything other than clearly last here.

 

[nabby12]

Broda/Durnan is one I want to get into. Can someone sell me on Durnan? He couldn't push Paul Bibeault out of a job. He dominates a war-depleted NHL. And he retires at 34. I'm just left wanting more.

This is something I wanted to get into.

What do we do with Brimsek's 1943-44 season? He's still playing, but he's in the army. He misses the entirety of 1944-45.
Broda missed 2.5 seasons with the war.
Durnan was a minor leaguer and didn't miss any time.
Having to miss seasons in the middle of your prime because of the largest war in human history shouldn't be used as a notch towards Durnan.
Both Brimsek and Broda were good enough to be elite NHLers before the war depletes rosters. Durnan was good enough to crack a roster in 1941, but I don't think he's at the level of B and B yet.

In terms of how they were impacted, doesn't Durnan have a really easy go? While his two contemporaries are off the ice in active service, he's staying in game shape and actively playing hockey.

I am struggling to see Durnan as anything other than clearly last here.

Yeah, I'm with you here.

I have Durnan well behind Brimsek/Broda.

 

[overpass]

Broda/Durnan is one I want to get into. Can someone sell me on Durnan? He couldn't push Paul Bibeault out of a job. He dominates a war-depleted NHL. And he retires at 34. I'm just left wanting more.

I think the case for Durnan is really simple. Best all-star voting record of any pre-1950 goalie. According to both writers and coaches. Considered the greatest goalie of all time after he retired.

If you want to dismiss his all star selections because his team was too good, or because it was the war - consider that he had three top 5 Hart voting finishes, all after the war. His Hart record matches Brimsek's and Dryden's even with a short NHL career.