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

[rmartin65]

Count me among the Vasilevskiy supporters as well. He has everything that people look for in projects like these- contemporary praise? check. dominance relative to peers? check. talent? check. awards? check. winner? check. You might put varying degrees of weight on each those categories, but Vasilevskiy looks good in ALL of them.

 

[VanIslander]

Voted.

 

[blogofmike]

Or if we're going to credit Lundqvist for his success with middling offensive talent in this round, I hope Quick receives the same consideration when his name eventually comes up for his two cups with, as I mentioned, clubs that finished 25th and 29th in regular season GF.

We could, but that would be wrong.

Regular season GF is misleading. I like Quick, but in the playoffs the 2014 Kings were #1 in the league in GF per game.

In 2012, they were 3rd, behind Philly and Pittsburgh who decided to spend their first round trying play video game hockey.

The LA Kings gave Quick tons of goal support, lots of time playing with a lead, and a much larger margin of error. The degree of difficulty was much lower because during their Cup runs the Kings scored like they were an offensive powerhouse, regular season results be damned.

Had Quick received 2.58 GFG (11 of 16) like Lundqvist, the 14 Kings aren’t going anywhere.

 

[CaptBrannigan]

In other words, Vasy is 10th in GAA over that time, his composite backups are 72nd. Tied for 6th in save pct. but his backups would be dead last in the NHL (84th).

Damn, I knew there had been a big disparity down here in Vasy vs backups but would not have guessed those backups would be literally bottom of the barrel.




Big picture wise, does his run of shutouts in series clinching games do anything for anybody or just a neat little bit of trivia? At least one 1-0 was in there.
Edit: And don’t forget the currently unbeatable 18 wins in a single playoffs, according to NHL stat keeping…lol

 

[blogofmike]

As people are voting, I'd like to point out that Bernie Parent won the Vezina (Low GA definition) in 74 and 75 while facing an extra 2 PP chances against per game.

He won 47 games in regulation. His .932/1.89 stat line in 1974 was accomplished with non-Parent Flyers (Bobby Taylor) posting an .872/4.26.

Although like Vasy, perhaps his backup just wasn't very good. Parent didn't outperform Stephenson by that much. Same with Vasilevskiy and ancient Brian Elliott.

 

[Michael Farkas]

I'd also like to point that out ^ (the first paragraph)

He also was one of the few goalies to be consistently around the Final without a #1 PMD.

Stephenson got them to the '76 Final the next year, FWIW. I'm gonna zip my lips of the talent evaluation of these backups though haha

 

[jigglysquishy]

I'd also like to point that out ^ (the first paragraph)

He also was one of the few goalies to be consistently around the Final without a #1 PMD.

Stephenson got them to the '76 Final the next year, FWIW. I'm gonna zip my lips of the talent evaluation of these backups though haha

You should have made a Parent video instead of watching the Penguins get walloped.

 

[Michael Farkas]

You should have made a Parent video instead of watching the Penguins get walloped.

It's worse than you think...not only did I watch the Pens starting at 9 local, but then I had to watch the Rutgers game starting at 11 local.

The seasonal ciders I had were good. Easily the best part of the night...

 

[VanIslander]

Coaching, the talent of skaters, as well as team strategy, all play into a goalie's baseline of success.

 

[blogofmike]

I'd also like to point that out ^ (the first paragraph)

He also was one of the few goalies to be consistently around the Final without a #1 PMD.

Stephenson got them to the '76 Final the next year, FWIW. I'm gonna zip my lips of the talent evaluation of these backups though haha

The Flyers scored more in 76. 52 goals in the 12 games before the finals. They had 54 and 53 in 17 games the previous two years.

There must have been some magic in Reggie Leach's stick tape to score 19 goals in a 3 round era.

I'd also note Parent was very good over the first 5 years of expansion. Not a lot of winning, but he leads the NHL in saves in spite of playing fewer games than Giacomini because his teams surrender quite a few shots, and his .920 is a step above Eddie G's .913. Parent has 109.6 GSAA over those 5 years.

He's .927 in the playoffs during those years, but 5-11 because the early Flyers and post Dynasty Leafs aren't scoring consistently. Parent was better than the Smythe winning Glenn Hall in 1968, but faced more shots in 5 games than. Hall did in 7.

The 1-4/.912 run against 72 Boston is solid too, considering the 69 Bruins scored a million goals on their way to retiring Bower. And try naming a defender on the 72 Leafs.

 

[Dr John Carlson]

Here's where I'm at, with voting closing in about a day and a half. Tiers organized alphabetically...

Ready to go
- Charlie Gardiner: Probably not quite as high on him as I was when I submitted my initial list, but I'm still sold on him. So much to like here... he was great when his team sucked, great when they were good. Developed under pre-forward pass conditions and then was immediately and clearly the best when the game and position modernized in 1929. Huge star power. The only downside for me is longevity, but I really don't feel inclined to hold it against him that he died. Not really the kind of longevity penalty I look for.

- Henrik Lundqvist: So consistently great for so long. One of the rare instances of an entire franchise being built around the goaltender. Frequently crushed this Capitals fan's dreams... that damned 2015 series, .945 sv%, ugh... 2013 too, back to back shutouts to close it out in seven... okay, I'm rambling/reminiscing now, so I'll stop. Not the most technically conventional goalie here but I saw enough.

- Andrei Vasilevskiy: I have a hard time overlooking a five year stretch as the consensus best goalie in the world, something that few left on the board can claim. Drastically outperforms backups, which is a factor I'm wary of, but over a large sample size versus many backups then it's not nothing. Passes eye test for me. Also, everyone important bought into him from the start, you know what I mean? Drafted highly into a smart organization, brought in early for a cup of coffee and did well there, groomed as the next franchise goalie at just 22 and immediately succeeded in that role, even though they had a well-liked starter in the prime of his career in front of him - they dumped him to bring Vasi in, and the team took off, gave him a mega contract as a result. I don't know if I'm making that point make sense or not.

Just about there
- Johnny Bower: Like Bill Durnan, circumstances dictated that he has fewer NHL seasons than a player of his caliber should have, but unlike Durnan, in those sub-NHL years he was acclaimed in a way befitting that of someone up for a top 15 spot. Definitely put into a prime spot to succeed in Toronto, but I agree with Mike Farkas that he had the technical ability to succeed anywhere. Very disciplined style. I like him a lot.

- Bill Durnan: One of the aforementioned 'five year stretch' guys like Vasilevskiy, I have a few more questions here... why didn't he dominate the QSHL the way a top 15 goalie of all time should? Gerry McNeil did just a few years later, but it's gonna be a while until he shows up for voting here. Why not Durnan? And I guess I'm generally hesitant to load up on 40s goalies when I believe the depth at the position was very weak in this decade.

- Georges Vezina: The debate about the pre-forward pass guys has probably run its course, and I've tended to side with the skeptics. At the same time, Vezina is 'just about there' because I don't think there's many names left who I feel good with putting ahead of a guy who was the consensus best in the game for a very long time.

Thinking about it
- Ed Belfour: Great for a long time, trophy case suppressed by playing behind three out of our top five, great postseasons. I feel like I'm still 'thinking about it' because there hasn't been much talk about him, and it has me wondering if I should make room for other guys to go ahead of him. A few questions that I'm mostly just curious about: why did he move around so much in his career? Was it just because he was an asshole? How do you go from having that five season stretch to start in his career in Chicago to being traded within only two years?

- Bernie Parent: I'm more convinced than I was before that he's underrated in his non-peak seasons, but not so convinced that I can put him above guys who were better for longer. For my preliminary list, one of the first sources of game film I went for on 70s goalies was international tournaments, and Parent never played in one, so I'll admit that I'm lacking on the eye test for him versus other guys in this round. Definitely someone I'd like to look into more if he's available in vote 4.

Waiting on it
- Clint Benedict: I'm sold that there's real separation between him and Vezina. I like that he did well with the Maroons to validate his Ottawa success, but I'm also concerned about how he was swiftly whisked away in 1929 once forward pass rules came into effect. Yes, he was an old man at 37, but Vezina was still great at 37, Hugh Lehman and Hap Holmes were playing on Cup finalists at 37, George Hainsworth still had another 3 years as a starter left in him when he turned 37. I'm not there on him.

- Turk Broda: Again, I'm hesitant to load up on 40s guys, and I think Broda has historically gotten a bit of a pass for how much of his legacy was made once the Leafs became a defensive dynasty. From my Durnan research, I picked up lots of 'all time' talk on the side, and contemporary sources clearly didn't consider him an all-timer until he was in his mid-30s. Brimsek was an all-timer from the start, so he's already in, Durnan was an all-timer from the start but I have some questions about him, so he goes lower than Brimsek... Broda's all-timer status was built too much on his team's success, so he goes lower than Durnan. That's how I'm looking at it.

- Jiri Holecek: I'm just not ready to go here yet. Didn't care much for him in international games I watched. Sort of the 'artist' to Tretiak's 'engineer', and I don't want an artist in goal, I want someone more predictable, someone I know what I'm getting from at all times. I know that's only my preference, but it's my ballot so I'm sticking with it.

Tell me where I'm wrong...

 

[VanIslander]

Administrators with skin in the game?

 

[Dr John Carlson]

... I am a voter, yes...

 

[rmartin65]

Why wouldn’t an administrator be a participant?

 

[VanIslander]

Why wouldn’t an administrator be a participant?

2024.

 

[jigglysquishy]

The old practice was to have administrators not vote to remove any potential bias. For example, if you knew the outcome of the votes you could strategically vote to get a player at a certain spot.

If we had 30 participants it would be a smart thing to do. But we're already starved so losing someone is too big a hit.

 

[The Pale King]

Belfour's reputation suffers a bit because his last season in Chicago and Dallas were both lackluster. He's got a bit of mid-career lag, I would call him a victim of "Dollar" Bill Wirtz dismantling of those great Hawks teams. He's also got some off-ice things that don't paint a super rosy picture of him.

That said, he's my clear number 1 this round. I feel like I could cut his career into two halves and I would still have him in my top-4 here. Leads the league in SV% his first year in the league, and still very effective 13 seasons later at age 38 with the Leafs (7th in Vezina voting on a Leafs team with an ugly d-core outside of Tomas Kaberle).

I haven't seen anyone post his Vezina results in the thread. 1-1-2-3-4-4-4-7-7-7

His AS voting results are very sold as well. 1-1-2-3-3-4-5-5-7-8

The NHL of 90-91 he debuted in was a far-cry from the pre-lockout period, he showed adaptability, playing under a variety of coaches (notably Keenan, Hitchcock, and Quinn), all very different in-terms of how favourable those environments are to goalie success. In my mind, that let's him off the hook a bit for some of the season-to-season inconsistency.

Did he suddenly get worse in 1997, or was the team collapsing around him? I think it's fairly clear that was a team-quality effects issue.

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

Did he suddenly get worse in 1997, or was the team collapsing around him? I think it's fairly clear that was a team-quality effects issue.

I don't think that's clear at all. Chicago had the same top 3 D in Belfour's last year in Chicago (Chelios, Suter, Weinrich) as in 1994-95 when he was a Second Team All-Star. Jeff Hackett put up great stats both before and after Belfour left, finishing 3rd-2nd-6th in the league in save percentage from 1995-95 to 1997-98. Belfour also underperformed in San Jose relative to Hrudey and Terreri in 1996-97, suggesting that he was struggling individually that year.

Belfour would then do more or less the same thing in Dallas in 2001-02, having a bad year even though his backup posted great stats, before rebounding to his usual form the next season. I think based on the evidence it wasn't just a team thing, and the better explanation is that Belfour had some consistency issues through his career.

 

[Vilica]

I tend to agree with Mike about old goalies. When we're talking about Vezina or Benedict, what exactly does it mean that they were described as the best of their time? If we go by the ECAHA in 06-07 through Vezina's death in 1925, that's about 20 years worth of goaltending. By my calculations, the ECAHA/NHA/NHL seasons between 1906-07 and 24-25 comprise somewhere between 91 and 141 goalie-seasons, depending on how expansive you want to be with games played. On the other coast, the PCHA and WCHL comprises somewhere between 59 and 76 goalie-seasons. If we look at their share of those seasons, Benedict has 13, while Vezina has 15, so individually they make up between 10-15% of just the East Coast goalie-seasons, or 6-10% of all goalie-seasons. The NHA actually helps to dilute their numbers - if you look at the first 8 years of the NHL, you have 8 seasons from Benedict, 8 seasons from Vezina, and 16 seasons from everybody else.

On the other hand, Lundqvist for me is still above Vasilevskiy. If we look just at just their age 23-29 seasons, Lundqvist has 80 more games played, and they both have a Vezina and 3 other finalist nods, while Lundqvist has 3 years of receiving votes to Vasilevskiy's 2 years. Other than that, Vasilevskiy has 2 partial years at age 20-21 that don't move the needle, this current year, plus an indifferent age 22 season. Lundqvist has another finalist year, plus 3 years of receiving votes, and 3 indifferent years as the starter from 34-36. It's something like 20000 extra minutes played. I've no doubt Vasilevskiy can age like Lundqvist, but I'm not putting him ahead before he plays those extra minutes.

It's the same thing for me with Belfour - he was a full-time starter at age 25, and a full-time starter at age 38, and basically every year in between. Some of his Dallas and Toronto stats are inflated due to dead puck and defensive systems, but he still made the saves. Starting goalie is a lot like starting pitcher - unless you're injured, the coach will let you play as long as you're stopping shots/getting outs. Continue doing that, continue getting minutes. Stop doing that, you're replaced. It's kinda why I've come around on Bower - I don't like AHL until 29, and I don't like that he was 1a/1b for much of his later career, but he kept getting minutes and kept getting saves.

 

[rmartin65]

Since we have some more people expressing doubts about pre-forward passing goalies- what if someone made an argument in favor of pre-pad goalies? What if the argument is that later goalies had it easier because they had bigger (or any, in comparison with the really early guys) to make it safe for them to block more shots? Goalies really have it easy not having to worry about taking pucks of the shins or to the face.

Or what about pre-dropping-to-the-ice goalies? It sure is easier for goalies now since they are allowed to cover more of the goal.

Or... what if we just evaluated goalies against the goalies they played against under the rules they played in?

 

[Michael Farkas]

Or... what if we just evaluated goalies against the goalies they played against under the rules they played in?

We are absolutely doing that or else they wouldn't be in the conversation at all, right? We're adjusting for league quality...perhaps on a slightly harder curve than you, but...

 

[rmartin65]

I tend to agree with Mike about old goalies. When we're talking about Vezina or Benedict, what exactly does it mean that they were described as the best of their time? If we go by the ECAHA in 06-07 through Vezina's death in 1925, that's about 20 years worth of goaltending. By my calculations, the ECAHA/NHA/NHL seasons between 1906-07 and 24-25 comprise somewhere between 91 and 141 goalie-seasons, depending on how expansive you want to be with games played. On the other coast, the PCHA and WCHL comprises somewhere between 59 and 76 goalie-seasons. If we look at their share of those seasons, Benedict has 13, while Vezina has 15, so individually they make up between 10-15% of just the East Coast goalie-seasons, or 6-10% of all goalie-seasons. The NHA actually helps to dilute their numbers - if you look at the first 8 years of the NHL, you have 8 seasons from Benedict, 8 seasons from Vezina, and 16 seasons from everybody else.

You are dramatically under-counting the amount of goalie seasons by stopping (or starting, as it were) at the 06-07 season. The direct NHL season lineage began in 1887 (so 20 years before your line). I'm not going to go through all my files, but a safe estimate of goalie seasons is probably 3-4 per season from just the AHAC/CAHL for those 20 years (so add 60-80 goalie seasons) for those years.

Then I think you should also account for the fragmented nature of hockey back then. There were several Senior leagues for all those years. Even if we just count leagues that competed for the Cup, we are talking about adding the OHA, Manitoba league(s), CIAU, OPHL, etc. Then select seasons of the WPHL and IPHL should also count, and if we want to get really into-the-weeds, I'd argue that some of the exhibition teams (Portage Lake pre-IPHL being the big one) are worth mentioning. And, of course, the FAHL. You are easily missing well north of 100 goalie seasons by avoiding these leagues.

 

[MXD]

I absolutely can't rank Andrei Vasilevskiy this round. Had it a bit too Easy (Lightning not being an all-time defensive team is acknowledged, but that also meant a significantly less stressful environment since he could mostly get away with allowing 3 goals, and it's not like they were bad defensively either), uncertain significance of what means to be the best in the world during the timespan where he was the best in the world. Some awards and finishes also felt a bit egregious to me as well a few years ago, and still still do now. No, Vasilevsky absolutely wasn't the 3rd best netminder in the NHL in 2020.

On top of it, it just doesn't seem like the thread, for a lack of a better word, has been critical enough of him. And it also seems we're giving him A LOT of mileage for outplaying Curtis McIllhiney, Louis Domingue, Pépère Budaj (Pépère being Q-French familiar word for Grand-Father and prononces pretty much exactly like how Petr would be prononced in Slovak, only with a P instead of the T) and Elder Brian Elliott (who looked better on the Lightning than he had for a while, which... kinda goes against the idea that the Lightning system didn't help goaltenders). I don't think this should've been an argument to be honest.

Like... We're wondering whether a netminder is amongst the 15 best of alltime. Saying that netminder was better than Louis Domigue is pretty much tacit admission that the well of arguments had been pretty dried up.

 

[rmartin65]

I absolutely can't rank Andrei Vasilevskiy this round. Had it a bit too Easy (Lightning not being an all-time defensive team is acknowledged, but that also meant a significantly less stressful environment since he could mostly get away with allowing 3 goals, and it's not like they were bad defensively either)

I assume this feeling was equally reflected in previous votes? Like, sure, Vasilevskiy had an easier go of it than someone like Price, but Dyden and Tretiak weren't exactly playing with scrubs.

uncertain significance of what means to be the best in the world during the timespan where he was the best in the world.

I'm not sure I understand

Some awards and finishes also felt a bit egregious to me as well a few years ago, and still still do now.

I'd be interested in hearing more about this. The only one that off the top of my head is a little squishy is the CS win, but I don't think that Vasilevskiy was necessarily underserving.

On top of it, it just doesn't seem like the thread, for a lack of a better word, has been critical enough of him. And it also seems we're giving him A LOT of mileage for outplaying Curtis McIllhiney, Louis Domingue, Pépère Budaj and Elder Brian Elliott (who looked better on the Lightning than he had for a while, which... kinda goes against the idea that the Lightning system didn't help goaltenders).

In a 30(-32) team league, not every goalie is going to have dynamite backups. But yeah, not exactly a murderer's row of backups there.

 

[tony d]

I'll be voting within a matter of minutes, Interesting to see Vasilevskiy's name this soon. Not that he's not deserving of a spot on this list because he is but among the goalies up for debate this round he was last on my initial list.