HOH Top 60 Goaltenders of All Time (2024 Edition) - Round 2, Vote 3

[rmartin65]

But that's not what happened. 15 years after 1965 it got worse. I think I was and am one of the leading people here that said "the early 80's is almost as bad as War time hockey"...

But then why did Gretzky say it got better? It is a contemporary quote, which you claim we shouldn't just through away because it disagrees with our world view.

In fact, most of the accounts from the early 50's is that the game is easier for skaters (skaters had a tougher time back in the 20's and were better then)...the only exception that's consistent: goaltending. Which jives with film, stats of non-goalies, and the logical trajectory of the position that we have full scope of, etc.

Are we only looking at the early 50s? No, if we are big on contemporary opinions, we should be looking at the entire scope of history.

And again, respectfully, I feel like you are consistently missing the greater point that I am trying to make- better does not mean greater. You can drop the worst goalie in today's NHL into 1960 (to pick a random-ish time) and I am willing to bet that he is the best goalie in the world. As you are so quick to note, the position has evolved. The techniques and best practices that the early guys pioneered grew. But the worst NHL goalie today isn't historically greater than Plante- I think we can agree on that- even if he would stop more pucks than Plante.

I can do calculus; Pythagoras couldn't. The worst army in the world today would demolish the Romans or the Mongols. Things generally build on each other, but that doesn't make the new thing greater within a historical context.

We really like the contemporary opinion until it says something we don't like...over and over again at this point.

Then why are you so quick to discount Gretzky's opinion? Or Richard's? They are contemporary opinions who are disagreeing with your outlook.

Rhetorically, how many people have to say: pre-forward pass goaltending wasn't anything special before we unhook from a previously unfounded position that it was something? I can't help but wonder what would happen if this became canon first, instead of the current affirmative action era bias taking place haha

I don't think making arguments like "affirmative action era bias" is a productive one. I think people want players from each and every ea evaluated within the historical environment they existed in.

There is no watershed moment where established goalies suddenly couldn't cope. The greatest active goalie is, who, Vasilevskiy? Who overlapped with Carey Price, or, better, Henrik Lundqvist (who people seem to really like this round), who overlapped with Brodeur and Hasek, who overlapped with Roy, who overlapped with Billy Smith, who overlapped with Dryden, Parent, Esposito, who overlapped with Plante, Worsely, and Hall, who overlapped with Lumley, who overlapped with Brimsek, who overlapped with Thompson, who overlapped with Hainsworth, Gardiner, Worters, who overlapped with Connell, Benedict, who overlapped with Vezina, who overlapped with LeSeuer, Moran, Nicholson, who overlapped with Hutton and Stocking, who overlapped with Merritt, who overlapped with Paton, and now we are back to the 1880s. Talented players find a way to stay relevant as the times change- that is why they are all time greats.

 

[Professor What]

I feel like there's some "time machining" going on with some of the questioning of the earlier guys. Yeah, they almost certainly weren't as good, but they didn't have the advantages of modern training, years of history to learn from, modern nutrition, modern medicine, etc. I'm sure some folks are tired of reading that, because it's said often enough, but I think it keeps happening, so it has to be repeated.

To build on the Pythagoras thought. What might he have done if he were a contemporary of Isaac Newton? Would he have beaten Newton to the punch? Would they have worked together on the discipline? At the very least, I have no doubt that he would have soaked it all up quickly and put it to good use. I think we can safely say who was the better mathematician, that being Newton, but not who's the greater. Because, let's make Newton a contemporary of Pythagoras now, and there's zero chance he's inventing calculus at that time. The groundwork just hadn't been laid.

Re: the contemporary opinion stuff. Yeah, I think that it has to be a key part of what we're doing, but I think we have to use it judiciously. All of it isn't of the same value. The Gretzky stuff is a good example to me. Gretzky has always been overly diplomatic, so everything is always the best and everyone is always the greatest. I'm not trying to criticize him for that. He's in a pretty unique position as far as hockey nobility is concerned, and there's every reason to be as unoffensive as possible. But that also means that you can't take everything he says at face value. There's almost always some diplomacy at work.

 

[Michael Farkas]

But then why did Gretzky say it got better? It is a contemporary quote, which you claim we shouldn't just through away because it disagrees with our world view.

Has anyone ever taken any Gretzky quote seriously? But even if so, is he really sitting there and considering eras and the massive changes in rules and everything that Adams, Gottselig, Boucher, etc. are? I mean, the guys that are saying these things are being very specific...very pointed about it.

Gretzky talking about hockey from when he was 6 is a lot different than the guys that played/coached/managed on both sides, right?

Are we only looking at the early 50s? No, if we are big on contemporary opinions, we should be looking at the entire scope of history.

No, these quotes are across a couple decades around this time. That way there's an obvious means of comparison. I wouldn't expect anyone today to know what 1915 hockey looked like or remember it haha. So, the wheelhouse for knowing what it looked like then vs. a more modern game/position would be in this timeframe. And it is overwhelmingly discussed one way.

And again, respectfully, I feel like you are consistently missing the greater point that I am trying to make- better does not mean greater. You can drop the worst goalie in today's NHL into 1960 (to pick a random-ish time) and I am willing to bet that he is the best goalie in the world. As you are so quick to note, the position has evolved. The techniques and best practices that the early guys pioneered grew. But the worst NHL goalie today isn't historically greater than Plante- I think we can agree on that- even if he would stop more pucks than Plante.

And I don't agree with the "drop a goalie" thing. The worst goalie today would be awful and do much worse than Plante in 1960. This isn't about individual goalies. This is about the position and the league as a whole.

I'll ask again...if 1965 hockey is a 9 or 10 out of 10 in terms of quality. What is 1915 split-league hockey? What is 1955 Soviet hockey?

What is the reason that Plante/Sawchuk/Hall are up there and Vasilevskiy or Price or Vezina are not? If every era needs IMMEDIATE representation because someone said "this guy was the best" - then how come the positions aren't fixed? Aren't we trying to adjust for quality while still also representing the entire of history of the league?

But no, I don't agree. The worst goalie in the NHL would not stop more pucks than Plante. I don't think there's a chance in hell of that, in fact.

I can do calculus; Pythagoras couldn't. The worst army in the world today would demolish the Romans or the Mongols. Things generally build on each other, but that doesn't make the new thing greater within a historical context.



Then why are you so quick to discount Gretzky's opinion? Or Richard's? They are contemporary opinions who are disagreeing with your outlook.

As addressed, Gretzky just says stuff...he's not critical, he's just a flowery "everything is great but me" guy. Do you accept his commentary in 1982 about hockey in 1967 when he was 5 or 6 years old as equally valid as Jack Adams - who was born in like 1895 commenting on 1920s and 1950s hockey?

I agree with Richard's very, very well thought about opinion that "hockey is better today" in 1965. It was. 1965 hockey was better than anything we had before. He's right. His non-specific, gloss-over, one-liner is correct. So, I accept that one too.

I don't think making arguments like "affirmative action era bias" is a productive one. I think people want players from each and every ea evaluated within the historical environment they existed in.

Why isn't Vezina #1 then?

There is no watershed moment where established goalies suddenly couldn't cope.

Watershed? Maybe, maybe not. But there's a lot of evidence that there was a major, major shift that changed the position forever. Film, contemporary opinion, and statistics all point to more or less the same general area.

Questions left unanswered:
League quality coefficients?
Why was this same issue not considered with the top non-NHL Europeans list?
If the "best in the first 50 years of hockey" is actually the value that it's being hawked as...why is Vezina not #1? And if he's not #1, what difference does it make to "fair era representation" if he's 11th all time or 21st all time? He's gonna make the list and he's gonna be high.

 

[overpass]

And again, respectfully, I feel like you are consistently missing the greater point that I am trying to make- better does not mean greater. You can drop the worst goalie in today's NHL into 1960 (to pick a random-ish time) and I am willing to bet that he is the best goalie in the world. As you are so quick to note, the position has evolved. The techniques and best practices that the early guys pioneered grew. But the worst NHL goalie today isn't historically greater than Plante- I think we can agree on that- even if he would stop more pucks than Plante.

Mike has disagreed and I'll disagree too. I don't think the worst goalie in today's NHL would be particularly close to Plante if you sent him back to 1960 without modern equipment. Even putting aside the lack of familiarity with the equipment and the players of 1960, why suppose that a random modern goaltender is a better athlete or student of the game than Jacques Plante was?

I can do calculus; Pythagoras couldn't. The worst army in the world today would demolish the Romans or the Mongols. Things generally build on each other, but that doesn't make the new thing greater within a historical context.

I've thought about your example of Pythagoras and mathematics, and I think I've been able to pinpoint where it falls down for me as a comparison to hockey. It's that math has no opponent, and hockey is a competitive game which always has an opponent. Statics vs dynamics.

Mathematical techniques can be developed, learned, and executed, building upon past discoveries, in a way which allows today's student to reliably excel yesterday's master. But in sporting competition, technique is the servant to the man. Techniques are constantly tested, deployed, and alternated against an opponent who is doing the same. One can't simply learn a series of hockey techniques and then succeed with them in a competitive game. A certain level of hockey IQ and athleticism is required to apply techniques to game success.

If you took a modern engineer who had mastered his engineering calculations back to ancient Egypt, he could apply them to the building of the Great Pyramid with 100% reliability. But if you took a modern junior hockey player who's a great stickhandler back to an NHL game of the past, his moves would get figured out pretty quickly by opposing teams and players and he would become ineffective, unless he had the elite hockey IQ and athleticism to read and react to the game. (Assuming his modern stickhandling tricks would translate to sticks and ice surfaces of the past.)

 

[Michael Farkas]

I feel like there's some "time machining" going on with some of the questioning of the earlier guys. Yeah, they almost certainly weren't as good, but they didn't have the advantages of modern training, years of history to learn from, modern nutrition, modern medicine, etc.

I don't want this whole post to get lost, but most of it was already addressed. But I don't think it's fair to say that it's time machining. What's being said by me and the contemporary opinions is, generally, that: the skaters could play. Morenz, Joliat, Siebert, Shore, Nighbor, etc. etc. not only could they have played, they might have been better than 40's and early 50's guys. I think that may well have been right, as 40's hockey doesn't impress me very much on the whole.

It's specifically the goalies that can't do it. And since we're specifically doing a goalie list, this seems very relevant. It's the "top" goalies of all time. Not the "top goalie of each decade, followed by the second-top goalie of each decade after that...list"...

 

[Professor What]

I don't want this whole post to get lost, but most of it was already addressed. But I don't think it's fair to say that it's time machining. What's being said by me and the contemporary opinions is, generally, that: the skaters could play. Morenz, Joliat, Siebert, Shore, Nighbor, etc. etc. not only could they have played, they might have been better than 40's and early 50's guys. I think that may well have been right, as 40's hockey doesn't impress me very much on the whole.

It's specifically the goalies that can't do it. And since we're specifically doing a goalie list, this seems very relevant. It's the "top" goalies of all time. Not the "top goalie of each decade, followed by the second-top goalie of each decade after that...list"...

How much of that with the 40s has to do with the war years? You basically "lose" half the decade because of that. If that's what it is, I don't really see how it affects some of the goalies that we have up for discussion right now. Brimsek in the last round, and Broda in this one were absent for some of those years. I can see how it would cause one to question Durnan a bit as he lost his toughest competition, but I didn't have him very high on my ballot last round (without looking, I think I had him eighth).

And I agree with you that it's not the best of each era followed by the second best, etc., but I'm not sure I see how that's been bourn out so far. I mean, in the first round, we basically voted in the top three of two different eras. It seems to me that that's saying that we certainly view some eras as stronger than others. I mean, unless you count Vezina as pre-NHL (I don't since he played most of his seasons in the NHL), we could end up with Ed Belfour, the #4 guy of his generation going on the list before any pre-NHL guys do.

Ultimately, (and this isn't aimed at you Mike, I suppose I'm just venting general frustration from recent months) that's what bothers me so badly about the crowd that refuses to acknowledge that anything good could come out of hockey's early eras. They charge that there's a reverse era bias going on, where we want to put all eras on an equal footing, but the facts don't bear that out. We aren't even talking about amateurs yet. Anyway, rant over.

 

[Michael Farkas]

refuses to acknowledge that anything good

And that's the problem too...this isn't being said in this project. Quite simply, that is not the conclusion. And I know you're saying not at me, but I'm also cognizant that I'm leading the charge on this in some way. This wasn't a thought I had coming in either. It's only after I did the bulk of my research for this project that I went, "hmph...goaltending looks to get pretty weak...skaters hold up well."

And now we see a lot of the same hockey people that we covet all time lists from and the like saying, "yeah, the skaters were gold. Goaltending is the thing that really improved in this time period. It went from stick the fat slow guy in the net to the best athletes."

From my point of view, I think it would be a little silly to trot out a goalie from a time period that is panned by the people that saw it (not a skater...this isn't a mark against Shore or Morenz or Joliat or whoever...I'd go to bat for those guys right now. If anything I think Joliat is underrated)...it's the position we're talking about. It didn't evolve. We see the huge issues that occur when goaltending gets touched even a little bit...

The backup goalie rule set back the goaltending talent pool by decades. Expansion killed it. The new rules of the lockout sort of hit the reset button for all but like 5 goalies. Every time someone fiddles with the knobs, it's not forwards that fall on their face...

- Triple the league size?
Forwards: No problem! I have some random ass guys with point per game seasons aplenty...
Goalies: We, uhh, we still only have like four relevant guys. There's almost no one in the pipeline because the backup goalie thing - we weren't ready for that after 50 years of backup goalies playing. Umm, what we can do is extend the careers of the guys that used to be good well into their retirement ages...if that would help. Plante, Sawchuk, Hall, etc.

- Add some more power plays and open up east-west play a bit?
Forwards: Absolutely! Finally, us little guys can play more without getting killed.
Goalies: Uhhh...we are gonna leave you with advanced age Brodeur, Luongo with 100,000 miles on him, and a guy who fishes all summer in Finland...we're gonna need, I don't know, like 10 years to adjust to this. We have a ton of journeyman that are indiscernible from one to the next...if you want to rotate through them for a while...

It's just a more fragile position, it's always been behind the skaters evolution wise, it seldom has meaningful depth (ratio in the O6 era, notwithstanding). So if the project is specialized towards goaltending, then I feel it ought to be responsive to goaltending.

Maybe in a larger project - like a top 100 or what have you - where there isn't the time or desire to sit there evaluate things like this...maybe that's just a clip show, a compilation/Best Of album and that's fine. But in that case, we better be awfully careful about how we do things in the specialized list.

I think it's a disservice to the history of the game to try to color by number here. We have a specialized, single-position list and there's partial rejection about learning about the position itself in some ways. And I don't mean we all have to sit around and learn about fingers up vs fingers out pros and cons, but it might be another decade before we get to sit here and do the work on this, I think we could be a little bit more thoughtful than "3rd of this era vs 1st of this era" that's color by numbers to me. That's not art.

 

[VanIslander]

Leonardo da Vinci was stupid 'cuz he couldn't pass a 4th-year engineering undergraduate 2024 state exam on aerodynamics.

 

[Professor What]

And that's the problem too...this isn't being said in this project. Quite simply, that is not the conclusion. And I know you're saying not at me, but I'm also cognizant that I'm leading the charge on this in some way. This wasn't a thought I had coming in either. It's only after I did the bulk of my research for this project that I went, "hmph...goaltending looks to get pretty weak...skaters hold up well."

And now we see a lot of the same hockey people that we covet all time lists from and the like saying, "yeah, the skaters were gold. Goaltending is the thing that really improved in this time period. It went from stick the fat slow guy in the net to the best athletes."

From my point of view, I think it would be a little silly to trot out a goalie from a time period that is panned by the people that saw it (not a skater...this isn't a mark against Shore or Morenz or Joliat or whoever...I'd go to bat for those guys right now. If anything I think Joliat is underrated)...it's the position we're talking about. It didn't evolve. We see the huge issues that occur when goaltending gets touched even a little bit...

The backup goalie rule set back the goaltending talent pool by decades. Expansion killed it. The new rules of the lockout sort of hit the reset button for all but like 5 goalies. Every time someone fiddles with the knobs, it's not forwards that fall on their face...

- Triple the league size?
Forwards: No problem! I have some random ass guys with point per game seasons aplenty...
Goalies: We, uhh, we still only have like four relevant guys. There's almost no one in the pipeline because the backup goalie thing - we weren't ready for that after 50 years of backup goalies playing. Umm, what we can do is extend the careers of the guys that used to be good well into their retirement ages...if that would help. Plante, Sawchuk, Hall, etc.

- Add some more power plays and open up east-west play a bit?
Forwards: Absolutely! Finally, us little guys can play more without getting killed.
Goalies: Uhhh...we are gonna leave you with advanced age Brodeur, Luongo with 100,000 miles on him, and a guy who fishes all summer in Finland...we're gonna need, I don't know, like 10 years to adjust to this. We have a ton of journeyman that are indiscernible from one to the next...if you want to rotate through them for a while...

It's just a more fragile position, it's always been behind the skaters evolution wise, it seldom has meaningful depth (ratio in the O6 era, notwithstanding). So if the project is specialized towards goaltending, then I feel it ought to be responsive to goaltending.

Maybe in a larger project - like a top 100 or what have you - where there isn't the time or desire to sit there evaluate things like this...maybe that's just a clip show, a compilation/Best Of album and that's fine. But in that case, we better be awfully careful about how we do things in the specialized list.

I think it's a disservice to the history of the game to try to color by number here. We have a specialized, single-position list and there's partial rejection about learning about the position itself in some ways. And I don't mean we all have to sit around and learn about fingers up vs fingers out pros and cons, but it might be another decade before we get to sit here and do the work on this, I think we could be a little bit more thoughtful than "3rd of this era vs 1st of this era" that's color by numbers to me. That's not art.

First of all, as I said, that criticism wasn't aimed at you. I probably shouldn't have even said it here. It's more of a general frustration on the forum that I have. I'm not going to name any names, but I'm sure you think of some of the same ones I do. I think I'm partially afraid that some of this could go in that direction, but no, you're right, it hasn't been said in this project, I apologize if my comment came out wrong.

Where I think you and I are disagreeing is on the color by number part. What I was trying to say is basically that I don't think we've been doing that. There hasn't been an effort to make sure all eras are represented equally, it's just people making the argument for the eras where they fall in. It's a disagreement on where that is.

I'm not trying to shut either side down. I think there discussion has been great and I want to see it keep going. Quite frankly, it would be boring if everyone were on the same page.

 

[Professor What]

Also, I want to say that I think the conversation has been slowly souring me on Benedict. It didn't hurt him too bad in the last vote, but it may hurt him more in this one.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Leonardo da Vinci was stupid 'cuz he couldn't pass a 4th-year engineering undergraduate 2024 state exam on aerodynamics.

Did he take that exam? And did he, in fact, fail it?

 

[rmartin65]

No, these quotes are across a couple decades around this time. That way there's an obvious means of comparison. I wouldn't expect anyone today to know what 1915 hockey looked like or remember it haha. So, the wheelhouse for knowing what it looked like then vs. a more modern game/position would be in this timeframe. And it is overwhelmingly discussed one way.

It is overwhelmingly discussed in the sense that goalies were better puck stoppers or that their job was harder, not that one era's goalies were greater than another.

I get it- you are an evaluator of talent. But that isn't what I think this project is about in my opinion. Even if we agree that all the goalies were slow fat dumb or whatever adjective you are using for them, the best of that group is still the best of that group. They are still the ones who are standing out among their peers. In a cross-positional list then yes, we 100% should be looking at the rates at which positions evolved. But to me, the positional lists are all about who fulfilled the expectations of his position at the time he played the best relative to his contemporaries.

And I don't agree with the "drop a goalie" thing. The worst goalie today would be awful and do much worse than Plante in 1960. This isn't about individual goalies. This is about the position and the league as a whole.

Why? Modern goalies have much more experience, better equipment, etc, I think one would be much better than Plante. The modern goalie knows the butterfly. He's basically been a dedicated professional since 16. He's gotten individual goalie instruction for a decade plus. He's used to every player being able to whip the puck.

I'll ask again...if 1965 hockey is a 9 or 10 out of 10 in terms of quality. What is 1915 split-league hockey? What is 1955 Soviet hockey?

No idea. I have no problem saying that 1965 was better hockey than 1915. But, again, I don't think that means we should ignore 1915 hockey. 1915 hockey was the best there was in 1915- that is what we should be judging those players against.

What is the reason that Plante/Sawchuk/Hall are up there and Vasilevskiy or Price or Vezina are not? If every era needs IMMEDIATE representation because someone said "this guy was the best" - then how come the positions aren't fixed? Aren't we trying to adjust for quality while still also representing the entire of history of the league?

I'm not getting where you are going with this. I think Vasilevskiy and Price should be eligible right now.

But no, I don't agree. The worst goalie in the NHL would not stop more pucks than Plante. I don't think there's a chance in hell of that, in fact.

Interesting

As addressed, Gretzky just says stuff...he's not critical, he's just a flowery "everything is great but me" guy. Do you accept his commentary in 1982 about hockey in 1967 when he was 5 or 6 years old as equally valid as Jack Adams - who was born in like 1895 commenting on 1920s and 1950s hockey?

No, I don't. But I'm also not the one accusing people of disregarding contemporary opinions when they disagree with one's world view.

I agree with Richard's very, very well thought about opinion that "hockey is better today" in 1965. It was. 1965 hockey was better than anything we had before. He's right. His non-specific, gloss-over, one-liner is correct. So, I accept that one too.

And 1915 hockey was better than anything that we had before then.

Why isn't Vezina #1 then?

Because we do adjust for era? My argument is just that we shouldn't just assume that the old time guys were useless (fine, not useless, but not worth a spot in the top half of this list) because they played a long time ago and the position didn't evolve at the same right the other positions did.

Watershed? Maybe, maybe not. But there's a lot of evidence that there was a major, major shift that changed the position forever. Film, contemporary opinion, and statistics all point to more or less the same general area.

The position definitely changed, but the best in the league remained the best in the league.

Questions left unanswered:
League quality coefficients?

I'd be interested in seeing them. I don't think they are the end-all be-all for a project like this, but they would be interesting.

Why was this same issue not considered with the top non-NHL Europeans list?

Why wasn't it? I wasn't a participant.

If the "best in the first 50 years of hockey" is actually the value that it's being hawked as...why is Vezina not #1? And if he's not #1, what difference does it make to "fair era representation" if he's 11th all time or 21st all time? He's gonna make the list and he's gonna be high.

Why are we bothering with any rankings whatsoever?

Mike has disagreed and I'll disagree too. I don't think the worst goalie in today's NHL would be particularly close to Plante if you sent him back to 1960 without modern equipment. Even putting aside the lack of familiarity with the equipment and the players of 1960, why suppose that a random modern goaltender is a better athlete or student of the game than Jacques Plante was?

Mike quoted a Lester Patrick statement citing equipment as one of the reasons goalies were better, so no, I'm giving that goalie his own equipment, his own training, experience, etc.

I've thought about your example of Pythagoras and mathematics, and I think I've been able to pinpoint where it falls down for me as a comparison to hockey. It's that math has no opponent, and hockey is a competitive game which always has an opponent. Statics vs dynamics.

Mathematical techniques can be developed, learned, and executed, building upon past discoveries, in a way which allows today's student to reliably excel yesterday's master. But in sporting competition, technique is the servant to the man. Techniques are constantly tested, deployed, and alternated against an opponent who is doing the same. One can't simply learn a series of hockey techniques and then succeed with them in a competitive game. A certain level of hockey IQ and athleticism is required to apply techniques to game success.

If you took a modern engineer who had mastered his engineering calculations back to ancient Egypt, he could apply them to the building of the Great Pyramid with 100% reliability. But if you took a modern junior hockey player who's a great stickhandler back to an NHL game of the past, his moves would get figured out pretty quickly by opposing teams and players and he would become ineffective, unless he had the elite hockey IQ and athleticism to read and react to the game. (Assuming his modern stickhandling tricks would translate to sticks and ice surfaces of the past.)

I really, really appreciate this explanation. I think you make several good points, and I concede that the math example is not a 1-1 comparison for athletics. I maintain that it is a good example to demonstrate how later generations build on what those before them did, but your point is well made and well taken.

Getting back to the goalies at hand, because I feel like the debate about eras is going in circles and I don't think that @Michael Farkas and I are ever going to come to a common ground-

Also, I want to say that I think the conversation has been slowly souring me on Benedict. It didn't hurt him too bad in the last vote, but it may hurt him more in this one.

Benedict is still pretty low for me. He played for the best team of his era and made his name in no small part due to his breaking of the rules.

 

[seventieslord]

In 2124, long after we're gone, if this board remains, and posters in this section are still doing rankings lists, and there's a poster named... let's call him Fike Markas... who pays lip service to a couple of players who were active in 2024, and nothing to anyone before them, because the position and the sport evolved so much between 2024 and 2124... would that be an appropriate position to take, or...?

Like, let's say he had Carey Price 44th and Vasilevskiy 53rd, and then managed to find room for one "older" guy, Patrick Roy, at 75th. What would we, looking at that from here and now, think of that?

 

[jigglysquishy]

In 2124, long after we're gone, if this board remains, and posters in this section are still doing rankings lists, and there's a poster named... let's call him Fike Markas

For privacy's sake let's call him Mike F. No, that's too obvious. Let's say M. Farkas.

 

[seventieslord]

For privacy's sake let's call him Mike F. No, that's too obvious. Let's say M. Farkas.

Mike will like that one

 

[Bear of Bad News]

I have it on good authority that in the year 2124, the sport will be called "space hockey".

 

[Michael Farkas]

I have it on good authority that in the year 2124, the sport will be called "space hockey".

Exactly. If practically a new sport is created, then this poke-funnery would certainly apply haha

Given Price and Vasilevskiy's ineffectiveness in a zero gravity league, their performance tanked...

 

[seventieslord]

Exactly. If practically a new sport is created, then this poke-funnery would certainly apply haha

Given Price and Vasilevskiy's ineffectiveness in a zero gravity league, their performance tanked...

they played in a time before anyone drove a zyverncraft

 

[Michael Farkas]

All right, I think my stance has gone as far as it could. Respectfully, I'm not gonna go back and highlight the "ignore the era" stuff that no one wants to do anyway.

What else do we have to talk about this round? Any particular video requests?

I'm quite ready to talk about Bernie Parent (who was in my top 15 on my prelim). A lot of guys get sympathy points for dying and what not...Parent had his career cut short due to a freak injury.

If we look ahead...he's headed further into a particularly weak league time. The technically good, but very slow Pete Peeters filled in for him and was top 5 in goalie stats and goalie voting in 1980 and 1981.

No reason to think that a much better version of Peeters in Bernie Parent wouldn't do at least as well in the Philly defensive juggernaut of that decade. That really meaningfully would extend his prime years after an inconsistent start to his pro life.

The '80 and '81 1AS and 2AS duos were: Tony Esposito/Don Edwards & Mike Liut/Mario Lessard. Not exactly an insurmountable group. You can't give credit for what he didn't do, but...it's easy to see him getting two more First-Team All Star nods at the end there if not for injury...that would probably change his perception...

 

[jigglysquishy]

I agree it's thing to move on. We're spinning in circles on a short time frame.

I would watch Parent footage. After Gardiner/Vezina and Lundqvist/Durnan my ballot is wide open. I'm deliberately not looking at my original list. I'm not ready to install Benedict or Broda yet.

No one is advocating for Belfour or Bower despite their mass popularity.

Parent/Holocek for third best goalie born 1931 through 1965.

I'm not at all convinced Vasilevsky is the best goalie born after 1982. Not saying he's not, but the fall off the last year doesn't make me want to rush to induct him.

 

[Michael Farkas]

So you have a gap between Lundqvist that's pretty wide, eh? If Lundqvist is installed on your ballot and Vasilevskiy - who is active, of course - left a bad impression (though, it was a half a goal per game better than his backups).

The "comfortable" thing about Vasilevskiy is...even if he's done (which I don't think he is), we still got a 6 or 7 year straight ahead powerhouse performance. Which is more than basically every goalie we're gonna list from here on out...

 

[jigglysquishy]

I think there's just more post Brodeur names in play between Lundqvist and Vasilevsky. They're not up so I get it.

If we're specifically looking at longevity, someone like Belfour jumps out ahead of Vasilevsky.

I get that Vasilevsky might not be done. But that's the reality of voting on active players.

 

[Dr John Carlson]

With everything on the resume taken into account, between awards/all-star voting, NHLPA voting, deep playoff runs, I'd say Vasilevskiy has a solid 5 year stretch as claiming the consensus best-in-the-world title.

Who else in this round can claim that? Maybe it's easiest to go the other way and consider names who definitely don't - for me, that's Holecek, Broda, Benedict, Parent, Bower/Belfour with the caveat that Vasilevskiy wouldn't be ahead of the guys they were behind either. Lundqvist, probably not? You'd have to quibble on which years Luongo/Price were at the top.

Vezina definitely does, Durnan probably does, Gardiner probably should except he died.

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

So you have a gap between Lundqvist that's pretty wide, eh? If Lundqvist is installed on your ballot and Vasilevskiy - who is active, of course - left a bad impression (though, it was a half a goal per game better than his backups).

The "comfortable" thing about Vasilevskiy is...even if he's done (which I don't think he is), we still got a 6 or 7 year straight ahead powerhouse performance. Which is more than basically every goalie we're gonna list from here on out...

I'd say it's more like 5 years (2018-19 to 2022-23). At least that's what the publicly available advanced stats suggest (and yeah, they're limited in what they measure, but it seems to check out to me given Ben Bishop's run on those early Cooper teams immediately prior to Vasilevskiy's breakout). Still a very strong run and certainly worth consideration here of course.

Source: Moneypuck

Andrei Vasilevskiy:

Year	GP	Goals Saved Above Expected
2015​	16​	2.1​
2016​	24​	-6.5​
2017​	50​	1.1​
2018​	65​	3.9​
2019​	53​	16.3​
2020​	52​	3.8​
2021​	42​	18.2​
2022​	63​	28.4​
2023​	60​	25.3​
2024​	52​	-2.5​

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

Last project, I was low on Bill Durnan relative to the rest of the voting pool. I spent a bit of time this week looking at him again, and while I think there have been some good arguments made for him and it's clear that his contemporaries rated him pretty highly, I'm not quite fully convinced he deserves to go on the list just yet.

1. The Problem with Bill Durnan's Save Stats

The main reason that I was hesitant about Durnan last time was that there are unofficial save percentage numbers from the 1948-49 and 1949-50 season that don't really make it seem like Durnan stands out all that much. Here is the data I have, with the missing numbers estimated using the recorded SA rates and the goalie's actual GA numbers:

Year

Goalie

Team

Official MIN

Official GA

Record MIN

Recorded SA

Recorded GA

Est Missing SA

Est SA

Est SV

SV%

SA/60

1949​

Rayner

NYR

3480​

168​

3120​

1661​

143​

192​

1853​

1685​

0.909​

31.9​

1949​

Lumley

DET

3600​

145​

2720​

1155​

90​

374​

1529​

1384​

0.905​

25.5​

1949​

Durnan

MTL

3600​

126​

3540​

1300​

122​

22​

1322​

1196​

0.905​

22.0​

1949​

Brimsek

BOS

3240​

147​

2640​

1255​

121​

282​

1537​

1390​

0.904​

28.5​

1949​

Broda

TOR

3600​

161​

3120​

1426​

134​

219​

1645​

1484​

0.902​

27.4​

1949​

Henry

CHI

3600​

211​

2740​

1393​

164​

437​

1830​

1619​

0.885​

30.5​

Year

Goalie

Team

Official MIN

Official GA

Record MIN

Recorded SA

Recorded GA

Est Missing SA

Est SA

Est SV

SV%

SA/60

1950​

Lumley

DET

3780​

148​

3220​

1398​

118​

243​

1641​

1493​

0.910​

26.0​

1950​

Durnan

MTL

3840​

141​

3600​

1400​

132​

93​

1493​

1352​

0.906​

23.3​

1950​

Rayner

NYR

4140​

181​

3740​

1728​

156​

185​

1913​

1732​

0.905​

27.7​

1950​

Broda

TOR

4040​

167​

4040​

1632​

167​

0​

1632​

1465​

0.898​

24.2​

1950​

Brimsek

CHI

4200​

244​

3600​

1802​

201​

300​

2102​

1858​

0.884​

30.0​

1950​

Gelineau

BOS

4020​

220​

3360​

1485​

182​

292​

1777​

1557​

0.876​

26.5​

Just eyeballing those numbers, while taking into account team quality and coaching, it sure looks to me like Chuck Rayner was the most effective goalie in the league over those two seasons, despite Durnan walking off with the First Team All-Stars.

And if we're not entirely sure whether he was the best in those years, then that's a pretty big issue for the perception of his career as a whole. Durnan didn't have a great year in 1947-48 (it looks like he pretty much collapsed together with the rest of his team when Toe Blake got injured and they missed the playoffs), and that only leaves two non-wartime years left where he might have been the best goalie in the NHL.

Even in 1945-46 and 1946-47 we have a bit of a problem. @overpass posted a bunch of playoff shot and save data from Durnan's entire playoff career, and from that info we can estimate that he faced a very low 23.2 SA/60 during his playoff career (very much in line with the regular season data above). As a result, we can strongly infer that the Habs were likely very good at preventing shots for Durnan's entire career (other than possibly 1947-48, particularly in the second half), as teams tend to have playoff shot prevention that correlates pretty closely with their regular season shot prevention (especially teams that played multiple postseason series).

If we use that info in an attempt to fill in the gaps and estimate Durnan's results, I honestly doubt that he won a single save percentage title in his whole non-wartime career, other than possibly 1946-47 (where I'd estimate from the playoff results and surrounding seasons that it was likely neck-and-neck between him and Rayner). For a guy who was viewed as the best goalie in the world playing in a six team league, that's not particularly great.

Of course that doesn't tell the whole story, because we need to consider the quality of those shots. There have absolutely been some team situations where a team was preventing shots at the cost of shot quality, giving up fewer shots but with a higher average degree of danger on the ones that did get through. From my coaching stats, here are a few bench bosses who consistently fit this pattern (remember less than 1 is better than average and greater than 1 is worse than average):

Coach	GP	Shot Impact	Save % Impact
Gerry Cheevers	376​	0.84​	1.02​
Don Cherry	480​	0.87​	1.07​
Jim Schoenfeld	580​	0.91​	1.03​
Bill Peters	438​	0.91​	1.09​
Terry Crisp	631​	0.92​	1.04​
Joel Quenneville	1768​	0.93​	1.02​
Andy Murray	738​	0.95​	1.04​
Brian Sutter	1028​	0.96​	1.03​

The problem for Bill Durnan is that his coach was Dick Irvin, who had a positive effect on both metrics throughout his coaching career in the save percentage era:

Coach	GP	Shot Impact	Save % Impact
Dick Irvin	550​	0.91​	0.92​

That doesn't mean it's impossible that Irvin had a different system in his earlier career or that Durnan played under different conditions than Irvin's later goalies, but I'm not convinced that's the case. It looks to me like the Habs were great at preventing shots, and a lot of people attributed too much of that defensive impact to Durnan. And as for the "Canadiens stopped winning Vezinas when Durnan left" argument, the reconstructed stats suggest that the Canadiens' shot prevention dried up a lot more in the years following than their save percentage did (in 1950-51 and 1951-52 combined, my data has McNeil at a .906 save percentage on 26.5 SA/60).

Overall, Durnan has some senior years which should count on his record, and we can't completely exclude his performance during the wartime years because it certainly wasn't his fault that there was a global conflict, but I still don't think his actual resume nearly matches up to how highly he's viewed historically.

2. Was Bill Durnan Less Clutch in the Playoffs than Turk Broda?

Having knocked Durnan a bit above, I'm going to defend him in this part. No, I don't think he was less clutch than Turk Broda, I think the difference in team success was mainly down to their respective teammates.

First, here's the breakdown by period:

Bill Durnan, Playoff Career:

Period	MIN	GF	GA	GF/60	GA/60
1​	900​	42​	29​	2.80​	1.93​
2​	900​	45​	40​	3.00​	2.67​
3​	900​	59​	26​	3.93​	1.73​
4​	170​	6​	4​	2.12​	1.41​

Turk Broda, Playoff Career:

Period	MIN	GF	GA	GF/60	GA/60
1​	2004​	78​	71​	2.34​	2.13​
2​	2034​	88​	50​	2.60​	1.47​
3​	2006​	84​	81​	2.51​	2.42​
4​	343​	12​	9​	2.10​	1.58​

Broda has his worst GAA in the third period, while Durnan has the better GAA in OT. The Leafs killed the opposition in the second period, while the Habs look to be really clutch offensively in the third. However that last part is a bit misleading, as we'll soon see.

Let's look in more depth at those third period results:

Bill Durnan, Third Period and Overtime by Score, Playoff Career:

Score	MIN	GF	GA	GF/60	GA/60
Leading 2-4	275​	23​	7​	5.03​	1.53​
Up 1	79​	6​	3​	4.57​	2.28​
Tied	275​	8​	9​	1.75​	1.97​
Down 1	151​	9​	6​	3.59​	2.39​
Down 2-4	143​	5​	2​	2.10​	0.84​
5+ goal diff (either team)	46​	10​	0​	12.94​	0.00​

Turk Broda, Third Period and Overtime by Score, Playoff Career:

Score	MIN	GF	GA	GF/60	GA/60
Leading 2-4	546​	27​	14​	2.97​	1.54​
Up 1	317​	16​	14​	3.03​	2.65​
Tied	811​	28​	21​	2.07​	1.55​
Down 1	265​	10​	13​	2.27​	2.95​
Down 2-4	327​	11​	20​	2.02​	3.67​
5+ goal diff (either team)	83​	4​	8​	2.90​	5.81​

In a way Broda was at least a bit clutch, if you define clutch as being better in important moments than in less important moments, since he didn't seem to care at all during garbage time given that 5.81 GAA when one team was leading by 5 or more. Durnan, on the other hand, kept a clean sheet in those situations, although both of these are very small samples.

Broda's goals against results were great in tie games and when his team had built a multigoal lead. However, when the game was separated by a goal late and one of the teams had to push for an equalizer, creating an unbalanced game state, then his stats became quite poor relative to Durnan's. I think the Leafs really protected him with their conservative system in tie games and when they were in front and had the game well in hand, but despite that defensive support Broda was still worse than Durnan at holding 1 goal leads and he was especially unreliable at making saves when his team was pushing to equalize when trailing (I suspect this was one of the only times that the Hap Day Leafs were likely to be giving up significant rush chances against).

As for Durnan, unfortunately that seemingly clutch third-period offence was mainly just coming with his team already in the lead. With the game tied, the Canadiens were not clutch at all offensively. It is possible that they were also very defensive in that game state, like I suspect the Leafs were, and in that case it would be advantage Broda. But Durnan wins basically every situation other than game tied, which makes me suspect that probably wasn't the case.

Oh, and if you're into teams scoring first/giving up the first goal, I didn't break them down exactly but I do have first period with the score tied for both guys:

First Period, Score Tied:

	MIN	GF	GA	GF/60	GA/60
Durnan	545​	24​	14​	2.64​	1.54​
Broda	1183​	47​	43​	2.38​	2.18​

Again, advantage Durnan.

In short, if I'm a Durnan skeptic, then I'm a straight up non-believer when it comes to Turk Broda. All of the points I mentioned in part 1 about reconstructed save percentages apply just as much to him as they do to Durnan, and I'm even more confident on the coaching effects in Toronto. It's great for Broda that he played behind a great defensive team in the playoffs and he gets the winning cred that goes with that, but I'm far from convinced he was actually a better goalie than the competition here. It is entirely possible that he ends up ranked last on my list for the second straight week.