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

rmartin65

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Apr 7, 2011
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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.
 

blogofmike

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Dec 16, 2010
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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

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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
 
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blogofmike

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Dec 16, 2010
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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.
 
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Michael Farkas

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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

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Jun 20, 2011
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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.
 

blogofmike

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Dec 16, 2010
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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

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Dec 21, 2011
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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 just 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 just 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'm just 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 just about 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 just 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 just 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. That's just my preference, but it's my ballot so I'm sticking with it.

Tell me where I'm wrong...
 

jigglysquishy

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Jun 20, 2011
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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.
 

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