HOH Top 60 Goaltenders of All Time (2024 Edition) - Round 2, Vote 5

[MXD]

And the answer is "clearly not". Losing record in the O6 playoffs (very much buoyed by (...) - his only full time run in that time, right?).(...) Sent down to the minor multiple times in his prime due to performance...and talent begets performance, of course.

What other O6 strong holds were getting sent to the minors in their prime at this time? Are they available for voting? Will they ever be?

Just to make sure, we're talking about Harry Lumley or Lorne Worsley here?

 

[jigglysquishy]

Just through reading newspaper reports and books, I think Bower is closer to Plante/Sawchuk/Hall than any other goalie is to him if we're talking the 1948-1970 timeframe.

It is kind of funny that both Lumley and Bower lost jobs to Sawchuk 16 years apart under wildly different circumstances. But Bower is two years older.

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

And the answer is "clearly not". Losing record in the O6 playoffs (very much buoyed by 1966's run - his only full time run in that time, right?). Over 3 GAA in the O6 playoffs. Sent down to the minor multiple times in his prime due to performance...and talent begets performance, of course.

What other O6 strong holds were getting sent to the minors in their prime at this time? Are they available for voting? Will they ever be?

We're at - what - 20th? We're going to take a bottom half goalie (or if that's too strong) a league average goalie from his era right now (or ever)?

I don't know...this is gettin' kinda rocky this round haha

Cap it at 20 and call it a successful project. We're going to bat for a guy who had to wire a hammock between his legs to compete, and another who would sooner be found sleeping in one than working on his trade...

1. Um, you're working on a case for a guy who had a 29-47 record in the Original Six playoffs to be #1 on your list this round, correct?

2. Johnny Bower, because of Gump Worsley himself. In addition, I personally don't see a significant difference between platooning with Ed Chadwick and being in the minors for two months and then resuming as the starting goalie. We collectively put Bower on the list last round.

A couple of those minor league stints were clearly injury-related, as I mentioned.

In 1958, Worsley started 5-4-1, .924, 2.20 when he pulled a thigh muscle. Marcel Paille went on a hot 10 game run and the Rangers let him have the starting job for a bit, before Worsley came back in (and led the league in save percentage). In 1963, Worsley pulled a hamstring and got sent to the minors, and Charlie Hodge ran off with the starting job.

3. Why did Gump Worsley have a losing record in the Original Six playoffs?

1956: 74 point Rangers vs. 100 point Canadiens
1957: 66 point Rangers vs. 82 point Canadiens
1958: 77 point Rangers vs. 69 point Bruins
1962: 64 point Rangers vs 85 point Maple Leafs

I don't know, it truly is an unexplained mystery.

(And if you want to kill him for that Boston series, go ahead. Just pointing out that the Rangers, despite being the higher seed, played two games at home (where they went 1-1) and four games on the road (where they went 1-3) in a six game series because the circus was at Madison Square Garden, which was just a thing that happened at that time.)

Speaking of Bower, you know what his playoff record was as a Ranger? 0-0. Because he didn't even get there in the first place. You also know what Bower's career playoff record was against teams that finished 10+ points ahead of his own in the regular season? It was 1-12, with an .891 save percentage.

Let me repeat that: One win and twelve losses.

Somehow I don't remember anybody killing Johnny Bower last round because he got completely and utterly dominated by stronger teams in the playoffs. So it's truly weird that I should seriously view it as a strike against Gump Worsley that he lost three series to teams that finished 16 or more points ahead in the standings, on a team that (once again) nobody had a cumulative winning record for over an entire era of hockey, including 5 Hall of Fame goalies.

I think people massively underestimate how difficult it is to win on a big underdog team. I posted the stat before that the team with home-ice advantage was 35-6 in Stanley Cup Finals from 1939 to 1979. The better team won an awful lot of the time.

Honest question: You don't think goalies are that valuable as a position, right? You don't have a goalie in your top 15 because they don't make that much of an impact, it's all team effects, etc., etc. So why on earth are you so critical of goalies on bad teams? It really doesn't make sense based on what you yourself profess to believe.

Final parting shot re: Worsley and winning:

Montreal Canadiens, Playoffs, 1961-70:
Worsley 29-7
All other goalies combined 25-23

4. Look, we all have to pick a system. I'm going with results, which is why I'm going to NR Harry Lumley and have Worsley somewhere on the edges of my top 5 this round. You're going to put Lumley at #1 because he looked good in the net and could potentially have hypothetically accomplished a bunch of stuff that he never actually did, and you're going to NR Worsley because he had no technique. That's all good, it creates for interesting discussion.

 

[jigglysquishy]

Smith and Fuhr

Both guys are here because they won 4 Cups on a dynasty. Outside Fuhr's 87-88 season, neither have a regular season that would bring them in for the next several rounds.

Smith was more important to the Islanders dynasty than Fuhr was to the Oilers. He gets more praise more consistently and from more people. He has more games the media fawns over. In terms of consistent praise, he's behind only Potvin, Bossy, and Trottier and roughly equal to Gilles. And he's the guy for all 5 Cup run years.

Moog is the guy for the first 1.5 for the Oilers and Ranford is alone in the last Cup run. Fuhr gets praise, but he's way back of Gretzky, Messier, Coffey, and Kurri. He is rougly equal to Anderson. And Ranford gets nearly as much praise in 1990 as Fuhr does in 83,84,87,88 combined.

There's also the Gretzky factor. If you search for greatest goalie or Fuhr great or any variation in 1986-1989 you get majority Gretzky quotes. Like 80% of articles praising Fuhr include a direct quote from Gretzky. I'm serious. Google newspaper check it. Gretzky is very happy to praise everyone, especially his teammates and especially Fuhr.

As a whole, Smith just gets more praise more consistently throughout the dynasty years than Fuhr does. Neither player excites me, but I for sure have Smith ahead by a bit.

 

[Michael Farkas]

1. Um, you're working on a case for a guy who had a 29-47 record in the Original Six playoffs to be #1 on your list this round, correct?

Correct.

2. Johnny Bower, because of Gump Worsley himself. In addition, I personally don't see a significant difference between platooning with Ed Chadwick and being in the minors for two months and then resuming as the starting goalie. We collectively put Bower on the list last round.

Bower played one year in the NHL and was down in the minor for a consecutive stretch and then was up for good. Worsley was sent down for extended periods at age 24, 28, 30, 34-35. Bower refused to sign with NHL teams and the Barons refused to sell him for most of the time referenced.

A couple of those minor league stints were clearly injury-related, as I mentioned.

In 1958, Worsley started 5-4-1, .924, 2.20 when he pulled a thigh muscle. Marcel Paille went on a hot 10 game run and the Rangers let him have the starting job for a bit, before Worsley came back in (and led the league in save percentage). In 1963, Worsley pulled a hamstring and got sent to the minors, and Charlie Hodge ran off with the starting job.

3. Why did Gump Worsley have a losing record in the Original Six playoffs?

1956: 74 point Rangers vs. 100 point Canadiens
1957: 66 point Rangers vs. 82 point Canadiens
1958: 77 point Rangers vs. 69 point Bruins
1962: 64 point Rangers vs 85 point Maple Leafs

Did Turk Broda take a hit from you from beating more sub-.500 teams in his Cup runs or did he maintain the "money goalie" moniker?

I don't know, it truly is an unexplained mystery.

The mystery is how he won at all. Seems like a case of bleh goalie on a great team. Osgood territory?

(And if you want to kill him for that Boston series, go ahead. Just pointing out that the Rangers, despite being the higher seed, played two games at home (where they went 1-1) and four games on the road (where they went 1-3) in a six game series because the circus was at Madison Square Garden, which was just a thing that happened at that time.)

Speaking of Bower, you know what his playoff record was as a Ranger? 0-0. Because he didn't even get there in the first place. You also know what Bower's career playoff record was against teams that finished 10+ points ahead of his own in the regular season? It was 1-12, with an .891 save percentage.

Let me repeat that: One win and twelve losses.

Somehow I don't remember anybody killing Johnny Bower last round because he got completely and utterly dominated by stronger teams in the playoffs. So it's truly weird that I should seriously view it as a strike against Gump Worsley that he lost three series to teams that finished 16 or more points ahead in the standings, on a team that (once again) nobody had a cumulative winning record for over an entire era of hockey, including 5 Hall of Fame goalies.

I think people massively underestimate how difficult it is to win on a big underdog team. I posted the stat before that the team with home-ice advantage was 35-6 in Stanley Cup Finals from 1939 to 1979. The better team won an awful lot of the time.

I don't think anything in this regard is ever fit to standalone, so you can "seriously view" it as you like, but no matter what, there's always a "yeah, but..." when you measure players by something that is accumulated after the fact. Like, we're not evaluating a player's greatness here. We're absolutely not going to do it this round at all it seems. Team results and averaging stats...? It's fundamentally poor. So any time that you go drill down far enough on any of these things in this manner, it completely disintegrates for every goalie. So, I'm actually in favor of it haha

Honest question: You don't think goalies are that valuable as a position, right? You don't have a goalie in your top 15 because they don't make that much of an impact, it's all team effects, etc., etc. So why on earth are you so critical of goalies on bad teams? It really doesn't make sense based on what you yourself profess to believe.

They are generally not as valuable, or at least overrated relative to skaters.

I don't have a goalie in the top 15 of players all time, no. They sort of float in the breeze on the whole. The public stats are mostly team effects.

Critical of goalies on bad teams? Oh...no. That's not me. I'm quite sure I'm the highest in the project on Carey Price, Harry Lumley, Gilles Meloche, Dennis Heron, Dan Bouchard, etc. I think the opposite, I think folks are using confirmation bias too much to prop up convenient goalies. Like...Gretzky's goalie, or a goalie that makes a few extra easy saves from distance compared to some others, or a goalie that gets heroic levels of scoring to outscore his blunders...

Skaters, we're a little more confident in...maybe the writers are or whoever else we take orders from...great example, is Phil Housley...a ton of context about play and style there...but he's - what - 3rd all time in d-man scoring and wasn't good enough for the top 60 d-men of all time a decade ago? All of a sudden, we're brimming with context and interest in play style. With a position we collectively don't understand - it's different. I'm trying to bend with the curves as best as I can, but we're seeing how bad things are gonna get here in a hurry...I mean, these names are ghastly, and they're being sold as useful.

Final parting shot re: Worsley and winning:

Montreal Canadiens, Playoffs, 1961-70:
Worsley 29-7
All other goalies combined 25-23

It's a parting shot to this process, not mine. If the idea that Worsley is better than Plante based on this - because, how else can I read this? - then super...if the idea is that we should not count playoff records, then Esposito should have been top 5 (apparently)...if the idea is that every clue is part of a large tapestry and requires context, then I'm way ahead of ya...

4. Look, we all have to pick a system. I'm going with results, which is why I'm going to NR Harry Lumley and have Worsley somewhere on the edges of my top 5 this round. You're going to put Lumley at #1 because he looked good in the net and could potentially have hypothetically accomplished a bunch of stuff that he never actually did, and you're going to NR Worsley because he had no technique. That's all good, it creates for interesting discussion.

Probably and, fair enough...I mean, Gump says it out loud...no one good at their job goes, "don't matter none..." - but a singer that can't sight read music, that has to swoop up into notes without proper breath control, etc. it catches up with you. Can you mimic some noises for a while? Sure. But - and this won't translate to text very well - how many times have you heard someone scrape their way up to "the rockets red... gl-aaa-rrre" without the proper breath? It sucks. Yes, they hit the note for the song that they've heard by ear 500,000 times...but if you put the sheet music in front of them, they wouldn't know how to get there.

Like with Esposito...he watched Glenn Hall, tried to steal, looked like a horse's ass and there was just no one around to notice or do anything about it. In 1964, 11 goalies played more than one game at a perceived top level. By 1974, that number was 81 (NHL+WHA). By that point, clubs appeared happy to get guys that could put their pads on the correct legs. The whole "best of the era is best of the era" could fall apart the second we get to #2 - not that mindset holds up indefinitely anyhow.

 

[AlfiesHair]

You're not? I mean, look at the situation...this is sort of a lay up, no?

If we're really gonna try to shoehorn GSAA...in 1974...to boost Tony Esposito as some sort of hero here, I don't know...I'd be at a real loss for words haha

I guess I sort of underestimated how expansion could affect this stat - and how a small amount of starters throws this off too - maybe I'm also missing something else? But what are we supposed to do with SV% from this era then? Obviously every stat needs its historical context, but if we don't use SV% and therefore GSAA than what stat should we use to evaluate 70s goaltending? Genuine question. I've dove deep into hockey history and stats for only about three years I do want to learn, don't want to distract the discussion though if my points don't make sense though.

Although separately, I think my point around Esposito's all star voting record stands. It's incredibly strong.

 

[Michael Farkas]

I guess I sort of underestimated how expansion could affect this stat - and how a small amount of starters throws this off too - maybe I'm also missing something else? But what are we supposed to do with SV% from this era then? Obviously every stat needs its historical context, but if we don't use SV% and therefore GSAA than what stat should we use to evaluate 70s goaltending? Genuine question. I've dove deep into hockey history and stats for only about three years I do want to learn, don't want to distract the discussion though if my points don't make sense though.

Although separately, I think my point around Esposito's all star voting record stands. It's incredibly strong.

There aren't many stats out there for goalies and the ones that do exist are highly subject to team effects. So, if you lead with stats you're going to get burned. Not to say that they're all useless, but my war against save pct. is well documented here. I think I've helped to chip away at its weird aura a bit over the years, but still, where do people go? I don't have that solution, numerically.

As I said in the prelim a number of times, with team effects leading to goalie stats and goalie stats tied to award voting and award voting tied to canon, I don't think anything meaningful can come from that method. So, I went back and watched them all* and made my list on talent as to not bias myself towards - say - Gretzky's goalie.

That's not for everyone. Many here argue that it's not for anyone haha - but it's tough for me to reason it any other way given what we know about the context. I mean, otherwise, why aren't we just using pnep's HHOF monitor points and call it a day?

 

[Bear of Bad News]

As I said in the prelim a number of times, with team effects leading to goalie stats and goalie stats tied to award voting and award voting tied to canon, I don't think anything meaningful can come from that method. So, I went back and watched them all* and made my list on talent as to not bias myself towards - say - Gretzky's goalie.

It's my duty to point out that scouting approaches (or "watch the game") are frought with behavioral science biases, even if one is aware of the effect
and attempts to correct for it.

I love what you're doing and the value you're adding to these conversations, but they do have (a different kind of) bias involved.

 

[Michael Farkas]

It's my duty to point out that scouting approaches (or "watch the game") are frought with behavioral science biases, even if one is aware of the effect
and attempts to correct for it.

I love what you're doing and the value you're adding to these conversations, but they do have (a different kind of) bias involved.

Oh most certainly. My intent was the whole sentence..."not bias myself towards [a guy who was at the top of the last list]".

The whole process was prejudiced because I partially used award voting to create my shortlist in the first place. There wasn't time to watch every goalie ever. It's possible that Ernie Wakely should have been on my list. But I didn't watch him. So, his main highlight is that he's Manitoban.

But that's the nature of this...there's give and take. I wouldn't get anywhere trying to convince people that Rick DiPietro or Jason Bacashihua could have been good haha

I hope that people will at least entertain the idea that the talent evaluation process is actually a more consistent and reliable process than save pct. over the course of time as a side effect of this project. But...*shrug*

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Ah, I gotcha - that makes good sense and I appreciate it (one of the natural biases is that "the prior list had this guy at the top so he must be pretty good").

Rick DiPietro I can agree with, but if you're telling me that these eyebrows aren't worthy of top 60 induction, I can't support you.

 

[DN28]

Finally found some time to respond to last week's comments.

Sorry, I don't want to dismiss Holecek out right. I don't want to reduce him to "some guy playing behind a good defense" or anything like that.

I also didn't think VI's "how did anyone beat the Soviets (once in a while)?" rhetorical question as if that's some sort of trump card for top 15 and 20 places of all time.

I will say that stats aligning directly with award voting would make me much more suspicious of the award voting. I look at that as a bug before I look at it as a feature...

If we remove the best two year peak in goalie history, perhaps, for Parent...what about the games that Holecek didn't play?

Didn't make (?) the team in '65...
Didn't start over Dzurilla in '66
Didn't start over Ndarchal in '67
Didn't make (?) team in '69...hurt?
Didn't make (?) team in '70
Didn't start in the '72 Olympics
Split with Crha in '74
Split time in Canada Cup '76
Didn't start over Dzurilla in '77

Just looking at it superficially, of course...

What about in his home league? Is there anything there? You can only play who you play, but the 70s Worlds aren't exactly brimming with talent. It was basically a two horse race a lot of time. Do we have splits of Holecek vs the Soviets compared to other Czech goalies?

I just need more to suggest that he blew the doors off of Dzurilla before I'm ready to compare him to Bower...the tape on Holecek is up and down, so I'm open to the idea of him but skeptical of his reliability at this stage...

Holeček's case lies in his 8-year prime. Seasons 1971-1978, that's what bring Holeček in the discussion. It's nice that young Holeček sneaked into National team in 1966 and 1967, that he showed some promise but I'm not going to sell his 2 stints as if he became NHL calibre goalie around 1966 or so. Hence whether he started or didn't start over somebody in 1965 or 1968 is not my concern.

I do think Holeček became NHL quality in 1969-1970, one year before becoming the CSSR starter. He was his team's best player by far, finished 2nd in league SV% just below Dzurilla's best league season. Hope the image is clear, goaltending stats from 69-70 CSSR league season. SV% is displayed in the column most right. Dzurilla 93.5%, Holeček 91.9% and the rest. 1970 Holeček also finished 12th in Golden Stick voting which is good enough if you consider he didn't play internationally. Holeček reportedly saved his club team from relegation. 1970 season re-opened the door to the National team at the onset of the 1971 season.


9 relevant seasons is not that big for the era Holeček played in but it's also not too low.

Re: '72 Olympics. Holeček was expected to be the team's #1 but then the USA game happened. To remind it:

CSSR vs. USA 1-5.
Another American upset. Holeček started and was replaced by Dzurilla after 2nd period. Holeček was not singled out for any goal. In fact, he received no criticism from anybody. But his 4 GA from 13 SA look bad. 3rd period Dzurilla allowed 1 goal and stopped 3 saves. Mike Curran faced 81 shot attempts, 52 shots against and recorded 51 saves. Very uneven game to say the least.

February 8:
“…goalies did everything they could.”
"Curran shone among the winners, the team's victory grew out of his confidence."

Kostka:
“Goalie Curran has the biggest merit on the USA team’s victory, he was literally unbeatable.”

Czech newspapers never otherwise mentioned shot attempts. There was a reason why the reporter signified the 81 shot attempts at the USA goalie, and contrasted to the SAs faced by Holeček and Dzurilla - to illustrate the absurdity of the game. As Czechs couldn't score, they made penalties out of frustration. 2 out of 4 goals allowed by Holeček were scored on him during PK.

Dzurilla played (and played great) in two subsequent games against FIN and SWE. He failed in the game against USSR... and that was the end of that short Olympic tournament. Holeček didn't have a chance to fix his low SV%. Teams at Olympics didn't play each other twice as in World Championships.

My point: 1972 Olympics gets redflagged on Holeček's resume as "another occasion he lost his position and his backup replaced him", but it was really just one bad game... Mind you, Holeček led the CSSR to a victorious Championship just two months later.

Re: '74 WHC. Holeček didn't really split time with Crha. He played the tournament injured, with abdominal tears limiting his mobility. That's why Holeček posted average ca. 0.900 SV% rather than his usual 0.930. Even injured Holeček still got to play all of four games against USSR and Sweden. He was undisputed starter, though Jiří Crha was never as good a goalie as Vlado Dzurilla.

Re: '76 Canada Cup & '77 WHC. This is really the only time that Holeček legitimately lost his starting position. There were more bad games than just one fluke against battling US college team. Holeček simply disappointed at CC 1976 and at WHC 1977. He intended to quit the National team but Czech coach (K. Gut) himself, who had sat him in 1977, convinced Holeček to continue in 1978.

While not making excuses, it should also be noted that these two tournaments occurred in one season. 1 subpar season within 8-season long prime.

Here's Holeček's Golden Stick voting (=award for best CSSR player):
1970: 12th
1971: 5th
1972: 5th
1973: 5th
1974: 1st
1975: 2nd
1976: 2nd
1977: 8th
1978: 2nd

You see the 1977 voting result confirming the drop of play, and top 5 finish in all of his other prime years. So my main point to your comment: Holeček = 7 great seasons (1971-1976; 1978), 1 down season (1977), 1 good season showing him ready to play on high level (1970).

As for his team quality, did Holecek ever have a better save percentage than Dzurilla in the WC/Olympics/Canada Cup?

Carey Price and even Luongo were clear #1s for Canada in best-on-best situations.

Jiří Holeček entered as CSSR #1 at the start of every major international tournament from 1971 to 1978. On the topic of SV%...

Here are career save percentages of Holeček, Tretiak and Dzurilla (all major international tournaments they took part in):

Jiří Holeček (CSSR):
- 13 major international tournaments between 1966-1978
- 76 games / 150 goals allowed / 1761 saves / 0.9215

Vladislav Tretiak (USSR):
- 19 major international tournaments between 1970-1984
- 126 games / 228 goals allowed / 2801 saves / 0.9247

Vladimír Dzurilla (CSSR):
- 12 major international tournaments between 1963-1977
- 67 games / 131 goals allowed / 1237 saves / 0.9042

Holeček has considerably higher career international SV% than Dzurilla, and lower than Tretiak's. What about the 1971-1978 time frame, i.e. period most beneficial for Holeček compared to Tretiak & Dzurilla?

Jiří Holeček (CSSR):
- 11 major international tournaments between 1971-1978
- 70 games / 139 goals allowed / 1654 saves / 0.9225

Vladislav Tretiak (USSR):
- 11 major international tournaments between 1971-1978
- 75 games / 156 goals allowed / 1821 saves / 0.9211

Vladimír Dzurilla (CSSR):
- 5 major international tournaments between 1971-1978
- 23 games / 41 goals allowed / 437 saves / 0.9142

Holeček looks better as expected. He's leading SV% over this 8-season span.
______________________________________________

I also wanted to take a look at simpler comparison - how many goals against the Soviet team and the Czechoslovak team allowed during Holeček's prime. (CC 1976 excluded due to different number of games played by Czechoslovakia and Soviet Union)

1971 WHC:
USSR 24
CSSR 20

1972 Olympics:
USSR 13
CSSR 13

1972 WHC:
USSR 17
CSSR 16

1973 WHC:
USSR 18
CSSR 20

1974 WHC:
USSR 18
CSSR 20

1975 WHC:
USSR 23
CSSR 19

1976 Olympics:
USSR 11
CSSR 10

1976 WHC:
USSR 15
CSSR 7

1977 WHC:
USSR 16
CSSR 20

1978 WHC:
USSR 23
CSSR 15

Overall GAs:
USSR 177
CSSR 160

During this time frame, Czechoslovaks won gold medals 3x, silver medals 5x, bronze medals 2x. Soviets won gold medals 7x, silver medals 2x, bronze medals 1x. Czechoslovakia was competitive with the Soviet Union, but remained well below them.

Superior USSR team success didn't transmit to defense. The main difference between the Soviet team and the Czechoslovak team lay in the offensive output, not in the defensive results. Any time before or after 1971-1978 will show Soviets being the best in whatever offense or defense team metric you can think of. Holeček deserves credit for this.

 

[jigglysquishy]

Every Hugh Lehman playoff game (1910-1927)

1910 Challenge Cup (age 24)
Lehman is goalie on heavy heavy underdog Galt HC against Ottawa HC with goalie Percy LeSueur in a two-game total goal series

Ottawa wins 12-3

Ottawa Citizen · ‎Jan 6, 1910

Lehman and [Pete] Charlton only classy players on challenging side.
Lehman stopped dozens of shots in a remarkably cool manner and cleared in a very effective way.

Ottawa wins 3-1
The Morning Leader · ‎Jan 8, 1910

Their shooting was wild and Lesueur had a comparatively easy time of it. Lehman in goal for the Galt team was busy, and performed exceedingly well, breaking up strong rushes in great style.

1910 Challenge Cup (age 24)
Lehamn is goalie for the Berlin Dutchmen against the Montreal Wanderers in a single elimination game with Riley Hern in opposing goal.

Wanderers win 7-3

Ottawa Citizen · ‎Mar 14, 1910

Lehman played a first class game in goal and Corbeau and Seibert in front of him blocked well.

Hern pulled off a good save from Anderson and then Lehman went through a stiff siege.

Carelessness gave Berlin several fine chances that were missed by slow work when Hern was the only player between a Berlin man and a score.

1915 Finals (age 29)
Vancouver beats Ottawa 6-2 in a best-of-five series
Millionaires 1 Senators 0

The Sun · ‎Mar 23, 1915

Lehman was really called upon to do little during the night and what few chances the Ottawas had to score he turned aside with his accustomed brilliancy.

Vancouver wins 8-3
Millionaires 2 Senators 0

The Sun · ‎Mar 25, 1915

In goal Lehman had more or less a busy time during the first period, when he made a number of wonderful saves.

Vancouver wins 12-3
Millionaires 3 Senators

The Sun · ‎Mar 27, 1915

Vancouver players kept checking back and held the play so far away from the nets that Lehman had anything but a busy time.

Hugh Lehman had a comparatively easy night although he was called to make a number of sensational saves.

Overall, Vancouver stomped Ottawa (goals were 26-8 in three games). Cyclone Taylor and Frank Nighbor get the bulk of the praise, with Frank Patrick probably being third though it's hard to say as lots of his praise if tied to being manager/coach/owner too. Lehman might only be fourth most praised Millionaire.


1918 Finals (age 32)
Vancouver ties Seattle 2-2 in a two-game total goal series for PCHA crown

The Calgary Daily Herald · ‎Mar 12, 1918

Lehman saved Vancouver heaps of trouble early in the second period and also got into the spotlight in the last period, but the defence, Griffis and Cook, failed to show their usual form.

Vancouver wins 1-0 to win series 3-2

Zero coverage of the game


Toronto beat Vancouver 5-3 in a best-of-five series. Every time a team won was under their league's rules.
Millionaires 0 Toronto HC 1

Quebec Telegraph · ‎Mar 21, 1918

Lehman starred for the Westerners and his great playing saved them from a heavier defeat.

Vancouver wins 6-4
Millionaires 1 Toronto HC 1

The Calgary Daily Herald · ‎Mar 25, 1918

Cyclone Taylor and Mickey MacKay starred for the Millionaires

Lehman was never better and he gave a wonderful exhibition of goal tending.

Toronto wins 6-3
Millionaires 1 Toronto HC 2

The Calgary Daily Herald · ‎Mar 27, 1918

The weak point in their team was Giffis on defence.

Although far behind they kept up the old style of playing three-man defence with the result than Lehman was given a busy twenty minutes.

Vancouver wins 8-1
Millionaires 2 Toronto HC 2

The Calgary Daily Herald · ‎Mar 30, 1918

Lehman Starred

Lehman, on the other hand, played a stellar game, but undoubtedly had horseshoe luck. There is no gainsaying that, for he was beaten time after time by Toronto forwards, but something cropped up to save a tally.

Toronto wins 2-1
Millionaires 2 Toronto HC 3

The Calgary Daily Herald · ‎Apr 1, 1918

Cyclone Taylor and Mickey McKay Starred for Vancovuer Team

The defence and Lehman were always steady as rocks.

1919 Playoffs (age 33)
Seattle beats Vancouver 6-1 in a two-game total goal series

No comments


Vancouver wins 4-1, but loses series 7-5

Edmonton Journal · ‎Mar 15, 1919

While they staged some sensational dashes up the ice, Goalie Lehman thwarted every effort to score.

1920 Playoffs (age 34)
Vancouver defeats Seattle 3-1 in a two-game total goal series

No comments

Seattle defeats Vancouver 6-0 to win series 7-3

Vancouver Daily Sun · ‎Mar 16, 1920

Holmes, in the first 10 minutes, had more shots to handle than did Hughie Lehman, but he whisked them aside with the master finish he had been displaying of late.

1921 Playoffs (age 35)
Vancouver beats Seattle 7-0 in two-game total goal series

The Vancouver Sun · ‎Mar 15, 1921

If Frank Patrick had set bear traps in front of Hughie Lehman the result could not have been any more effective.

Local squad bombarding Holmes from every angle. The Seattle goal cop was in excellent form and was aided and abetted by a goodly amount of luck. Time and again he turned back shots by split-second saves, and more than once was bowled over under the fury of the attack. On the other hand, Hughie Lehman was little more than an interested spectator.

Vancouver wins 6-2 to win series 13-2

No comments, but Lehman was struck in the face in the second period and badly injured.


1921 Finals
Vancouver beats Ottawa 3-1 in a best-of-five series
Millionaires 1 Senators 0

The Saskatoon Phoenix · ‎Mar 22, 1921

[Boucher] only to have his shot stopped by Lehman. Denneny made two long rushes through Vancouver's line and shot but Lehman blocked.

Denneny made another long rush and shot but Lehman was on the job.

Lehman seemed to be everywhere at once and saved continually.

Easterners made super-human attempts to draw up to the Vancouver score, and tested Lehman with many hard shots.

The great defensive tactics and the invincibility of Goalie Lehman kept them from scoring.

Senators win 4-3
Millionaires 1 Senators 1

The Montreal Gazette · ‎Mar 25, 1921

The only thing which saved Vancouver was the remarkable work of Lehman in goal.

Senators win 3-2
Millionaires 1 Senators 2

The Vancouver Sun · ‎Mar 29, 1921

Hughie Lehman, most of the way, was an entire team in himself. The Ottawas sifted through the locals at will, but they found their passaged blocked when they encountered Lehman.

Vancouver wins 3-2
Millionaires 2 Senators 2

The Saskatoon Phoenix · ‎Apr 1, 1921

They sent in many dangerous shots on Lehman and seemed able to more successfully penetrate the Millionaire defence.

The Millionaires, however, made more rushes than their opponents and managed to send in about two shots for every one sent in on Lehman. Very few of these shots were dangerous, being checked by the Ottawa defence men before they received any strength or precision.

Senators win 2-1
Millionaires 2 Senators 3

No relevant comments.


Lehman is absolutely the most praised player on the Millionaires this series, but Ottawa is just on another level. They're talked about as the greatest team ever.


1922 Playoffs (age 36)
Millionaires beat Seattle 1-0 in a two-game total goal series

The Morning Leader · ‎Mar 4, 1922

Hughie Lehman gave an almost uncanny exhibition of goal-tending and Captain Happy Holmes at the other end ran him a close second.

The Vancouver Sun · ‎Mar 7, 1922

Lehman was called upon to save some hot ones when the Mets finally got their artillery in action.

The game ended with Lehman undergoing a heavy bombardment.

Regina beats Vancouver 2-1 in a two-game total goal series

The Vancouver Sun · ‎Mar 9, 1922

Both Laird and Lehman were called upon to stop almost certain goals

Aside from Hughie Lehman, the only Millionaires to show their real form were Duncan, MacKay, and Parkes.

Millionaires beat Regina 4-0 to win series 5-2

The Vancouver Sun · ‎Mar 12, 1922

Much of the credit for the Vancouver Millionaires brilliant 4 to 0 victory over Regina last night must be handed to the "Big Three" - Hughie Lehman, Art Duncan, and Lloyd Cook. Lehman was unbeatable.

1922 Finals
Vancouver beats Toronto 4-3
Millionaires 1 St. Patricks 0

The Morning Leader · ‎Mar 18, 1922

Hughie Lehman is Vancouver's Best

The way shots rained in on the Millionaire's citadel had every one dizzy, but Lehman turned them all away.

Time after time the locals were in on top of Lehman, but he demonstrated that while he is older than most men who participate in active sports, he is justified to the title "eagle eye" bestowed on him.

Toronto wins 2-1 in OT
Millionaires 1 St. Patricks 1

The Vancouver Sun · ‎Mar 22, 1922
Lehman Thrills Queen City Fans

Toronto hockey fans were given an exhibition of goal-tending by Hughie Lehman the like of which has never been seen in the Queen City. Eastern sport writers have been singing the praises of John Ross Roach, the St. Patrick's goaler, but after seeing "Old Eagle Eye" in action they are convinced that the west has the greatest netminder in the business

Vancouver wins 3-0
Millionaires 2 St. Patricks 1

The Vancouver Sun · ‎Mar 24, 1922

Although a whole lot of credit is due each member of the team, the lion's share must go to Hughie Lehman for his wonderful performance in the net. A goalkeeper who can go through four grueling games of world's championship hockey without having a goal scored against him surely deserves the title of the "greatest in the game"

Toronto wins 6-0
Millionaires 2 St. Patricks 2

The Vancouver Sun · ‎Mar 26, 1922

Lehman Stars Again

Only the strong defence presented by Lehman, Cook, Dunan and Mackay kept the Sein Feiners down to six scores.

Toronto wins 5-1
Millionaires 2 St. Patricks 3

The Vancouver Sun · ‎Mar 29, 1922

They did not have as many shots on Lehman as the westerners had on Roach.

The defence was open, and the locals were in close formation for more than half the shots Lehman faced.

Lehman is the biggest star on Vancouver and by far the most praised. He is praised as the best goalie in the world.


1923 Playoffs (age 36)
Vancouver beats Victoria 3-0 in a two-game total goal series

The Morning Leader · ‎Mar 8, 1923

Hughie Lehman and Ernie Parkes are Joint Heroes of 3-0 Win Over Victoria.

Lehman played an airtight game, bringing the fans to their feet several times with his remarkable saves.

Victoria beats Vancouver 3-2, but loses the series 5-3

No relevant comments


Senators beat Vancouver 1-0 in a best of five series
Maroons 0 Senators 1

The Calgary Daily Herald · ‎Mar 17, 1923

Ottawa beat Vancouver after the Maroons had bombarded Clint Benedict from every possible angle unsuccessfully ever few seconds during a solid hour's play.

Vancouver wins 4-1
Maroons 1 Senators 1

The Calgary Daily Herald · ‎Mar 20, 1923
Easy for Lehman.

In two periods Hugh Lehman did not have half a dozen shots to stop, in fact he did not have to show his class until the third period.

Ottawa wins 3-2
Maroons 1 Senators 2

The Morning Leader · ‎Mar 24, 1923

Lehman made a miraculous save [on Nighbor]

The forwards sent in several hard shots on Lehman.

"Eagle Eye" Lehman's work also left nothing to be desired.

Ottawa wins 5-1
Maroons 1 Senators 3

No relevant comments



Not as great a run as 1921 or 1922, but still highly praised.


1924 Playoffs (age 37)
Vancouver ties Seattle 2-2 in a two-game total goal series

No relevant comments

Vancouver beats Seattle 2-1 to win series 4-3

No relevant comments


Vancouver beats Calgary 3-1 in a best of five series
Maroons 1 Tigers 0

The Calgary Daily Herald · ‎Mar 11, 1924

Lehman Steals Goals From Morris, Oliver, and Wilson One After Another.

The Tigers tore in time after time, but Lehman was dressed for championship hockey and he showed it.

Calgary beats Vancouver 6-3
Maroons 1 Tigers 1

The Calgary Daily Herald · ‎Mar 13, 1924

While Lehman turned in his usual high style of play, he was pestered by frisking forwards in black and yellow.

Lehman was their big stumbling block on the majority of occasions, but toward the end of the game the slushy ice made the rubber hard to handle.

Calgary wins 3-1
Maroons 1 Tigers 2

The Calgary Daily Herald · ‎Mar 17, 1924

In Saturday's contest the Vancouver team lacked aggressiveness and were fortunate to give Calgary as close a battle as they did. This was due, of course, to the fact that they packed their defence throughout and have a great goalie in Lehman.

Calgary wins 2-1
Maroons 1 Tigers 3

No relevant comments


Montreal beats Vancouver 3-2 in a best-of-three series

The Calgary Daily Herald · ‎Mar 19, 1924

Hughie Lehman - Vancouver goalie, who was hooking 'em from every angle last night.

Hughie Lehman, the trusty custodian of the Vancouver cage, once more unfolded before the eyes of the eastern critics his dazzling samples of western net minding. His work was brilliant. The highly excited jabbering of the Frenchmen in spurring on their favorite cohorts died away at times and rose to an equally high pitch in praise of Lehman's phenomenal performance.

Montreal beats Vancouver 2-1

The Morning Leader · ‎Mar 21, 1924

"Eagle Eye" Lehman gave another of his characteristic displays when time after time he dashed out from his nets to turn aside attacks. Lehman again was the star performer and continually saved his team.

1927 Playoffs (age 41)
Boston beats Chicago 6-1 in a two game total goal series

The Calgary Daily Herald · ‎Mar 30, 1927

Lehman, Chicago goalie, was given poor support and his forced attempt at hurried clearing at times failed and the dashing Bruins' forwards were at close grips with him frequently.

Boston and Chicago tie 4-4, but Boston wins series 10-5

No relevant comments.



That was a doozie to go through.

Lehman comes across very well in the 1921-1924 window. Vancouver is a good team that is always in contention and he is the most praised player across these years, with him sometimes being called the best goalie.

In terms of contemporary praise, I think he's close with Benedict and will go high for me this round.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Finally found some time to respond to last week's comments.

I think I speak for everyone when I say, "thank you for continuing to put all of this together for us".

 

[overpass]

I guess I sort of underestimated how expansion could affect this stat - and how a small amount of starters throws this off too - maybe I'm also missing something else? But what are we supposed to do with SV% from this era then? Obviously every stat needs its historical context, but if we don't use SV% and therefore GSAA than what stat should we use to evaluate 70s goaltending? Genuine question. I've dove deep into hockey history and stats for only about three years I do want to learn, don't want to distract the discussion though if my points don't make sense though.

What stat, indeed. I don't think there is a single goalie stat that really captures the environment of the 70s.

One issue is that goalies on stronger teams had a much easier save percentage environment. One approach to estimate the size of this effect in statistical terms is to compare the goalie's stats to the stats of their backups.

Another issue is that goalies faced several teams that were very weak, both relative to their league and also on an absolute scale. The worst few NHL teams of the last 70 years were probably all 1970s teams. It was remarked upon at the time and we can see it in the statistical record today. One approach to deal with this issue is to split out performance vs weaker teams and stronger teams, as has already been done in this thread for Esposito.

To follow up on the difference in save percentage environment, I've added up the stats for all goalies who played less than 30 games in a season from 69-70 to 79-80 (Esposito's prime), and I'll present them by team. I've also excluded any goalies who changed teams in a season. You can see there's a huge difference from top to bottom.

1969-70 through 1979-80 backups

Team	W	L	T	SA	Svs	GA	TOI	W%	GAA	SV%
NYI	14​	9​	5​	831​	755​	76​	1697​	0.589​	2.69​	0.909​
MTL	112​	35​	21​	4728​	4271​	457​	9990​	0.729​	2.74​	0.903​
PHI	79​	63​	29​	5282​	4748​	534​	10402​	0.547​	3.08​	0.899​
CHI	63​	59​	36​	5021​	4498​	523​	9625​	0.513​	3.26​	0.896​
TOR	80​	77​	25​	5854​	5206​	648​	11148​	0.508​	3.49​	0.889​
BOS	118​	52​	26​	5156​	4576​	580​	11807​	0.668​	2.95​	0.888​
MNS	68​	117​	47​	7301​	6477​	824​	13991​	0.394​	3.53​	0.887​
BUF	88​	63​	24​	5161​	4578​	583​	10834​	0.571​	3.23​	0.887​
LAK	65​	86​	28​	5698​	5049​	649​	10996​	0.441​	3.54​	0.886​
STL	72​	91​	30​	5760​	5093​	667​	11774​	0.451​	3.40​	0.884​
NYR	53​	55​	21​	4000​	3507​	493​	7927​	0.492​	3.73​	0.877​
PIT	59​	91​	18​	5107​	4467​	640​	10207​	0.405​	3.76​	0.875​
VAN	46​	86​	23​	4888​	4273​	615​	9428​	0.371​	3.91​	0.874​
AFM	21​	23​	4​	1385​	1208​	177​	2893​	0.479​	3.67​	0.872​
OAK/CGS	17​	61​	15​	3393​	2947​	446​	6134​	0.263​	4.36​	0.869​
WSH	18​	52​	9​	2619​	2269​	350​	4804​	0.285​	4.37​	0.866​
DET	53​	106​	24​	5757​	4986​	771​	11159​	0.355​	4.15​	0.866​
KCS/CLR	17​	65​	21​	3107​	2680​	427​	6114​	0.267​	4.19​	0.863​

There was a 30-40 point difference between the save percentages of the backups of the best teams (Montreal, Philadelphia, Chicago), and the worst teams (Kansas City/Colorado, Oakland/California, Detroit, Washington).

(NYI and Atlanta had relatively few goalie seasons that qualified because they platooned two goalies evenly. Most of the NYI numbers above are from one Resch season of 25 GP. I wouldn't conclude that NYI had the easiest SV% environment based on those numbers.)

If you were going to calculate a GSAA or GSAR stat that took team defense into account, you could use these numbers or a similar calculation as your baseline. Any such calculations would significantly reduce the GSAA values for Dryden, Parent, and Esposito, as they played for the 3 teams with the easiest save percentage environment of the decade.

In fact, here is an updated GSAR calculation for several goaltenders using the team SV% above as the threshold, regressed to the mean a little with 1000 shots against at league average of backups (0.883).

Goalie	Team	SV%	Team backups	Diff	GSAR/backups	H-R GSAA
Tony Esposito	Chicago	0.913​	0.894​	0.020​	413.9​	428.5​
Dan Bouchard	Atlanta	0.899​	0.877​	0.023​	256.8​	110.0​
Bernie Parent	TOR/PHI	0.915​	0.895​	0.020​	242.0​	238.9​
Ken Dryden	Montreal	0.922​	0.900​	0.022​	240.9​	317.2​
Rogie Vachon	MTL/LAK/DET	0.898​	0.885​	0.013​	224.0​	91.1​
Ed Giacomin	NYR/DET	0.897​	0.876​	0.021​	206.0​	13.9​
Cesare Maniago	MNS/VAN	0.900​	0.884​	0.016​	197.7​	57.0​
Gilles Meloche	CGS/CLE/MNS	0.886​	0.874​	0.012​	138.0​	-56.5​

Esposito is still #1, largely because he faced more shots than everyone else, but on a per-shot basis there's little difference between him and Dryden, Parent, Bouchard, and Giacomin, with Maniago close behind. It's possible this methodology is over-adjusting in some way--for example, maybe it's easier to outperform a low threshold than a high threshold--but it's certainly better than using the same league average for every goaltender, no matter which team they played for.

As a comparison, I ran the same stats for the 2013-14 through 2023-24 seasons. The range of backup SV% was much smaller. Only 20 points, from 0.894 (PHI) to 0.914 (PIT, NYR), of which about half was caused by random variation. Much of the rest could be attributed to backup quality and usage. It was probably obvious already but the 1970s were very different from today's hockey with a much more varied save percentage environment.

 

[VanIslander]

It's remarkable that after spending most of his pro hockey career in the AHL, Bower had a 5-year significant span in the NHL 1960-1964, from age 35 to 38.

Worsley had two great playoffs in that age range and one great regular season long before it. Otherwise, Gump has had a disappointing career.

Bower belongs more than ten notches higher than Worsley on any all-time ranking. They ain't close.

 

[Doctor No]

(NYI and Atlanta had relatively few goalie seasons that qualified because they platooned two goalies evenly.

Fun trivia: the Atlanta Flames played more than four consecutive seasons before anyone other than Dan Bouchard or Phil Myre even *dressed* for a game (Michel Belhumeur, November 3 and November 5, 1976).

And it was a full year after that (Yves Belanger, December 15, 1977) before any other goaltender saw on-ice time for the Flames.

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

Correct.

Bower played one year in the NHL and was down in the minor for a consecutive stretch and then was up for good. Worsley was sent down for extended periods at age 24, 28, 30, 34-35. Bower refused to sign with NHL teams and the Barons refused to sell him for most of the time referenced.

Did Turk Broda take a hit from you from beating more sub-.500 teams in his Cup runs or did he maintain the "money goalie" moniker?

The mystery is how he won at all. Seems like a case of bleh goalie on a great team. Osgood territory?

I don't think anything in this regard is ever fit to standalone, so you can "seriously view" it as you like, but no matter what, there's always a "yeah, but..." when you measure players by something that is accumulated after the fact. Like, we're not evaluating a player's greatness here. We're absolutely not going to do it this round at all it seems. Team results and averaging stats...? It's fundamentally poor. So any time that you go drill down far enough on any of these things in this manner, it completely disintegrates for every goalie. So, I'm actually in favor of it haha

They are generally not as valuable, or at least overrated relative to skaters.

I don't have a goalie in the top 15 of players all time, no. They sort of float in the breeze on the whole. The public stats are mostly team effects.

Critical of goalies on bad teams? Oh...no. That's not me. I'm quite sure I'm the highest in the project on Carey Price, Harry Lumley, Gilles Meloche, Dennis Heron, Dan Bouchard, etc. I think the opposite, I think folks are using confirmation bias too much to prop up convenient goalies. Like...Gretzky's goalie, or a goalie that makes a few extra easy saves from distance compared to some others, or a goalie that gets heroic levels of scoring to outscore his blunders...

Skaters, we're a little more confident in...maybe the writers are or whoever else we take orders from...great example, is Phil Housley...a ton of context about play and style there...but he's - what - 3rd all time in d-man scoring and wasn't good enough for the top 60 d-men of all time a decade ago? All of a sudden, we're brimming with context and interest in play style. With a position we collectively don't understand - it's different. I'm trying to bend with the curves as best as I can, but we're seeing how bad things are gonna get here in a hurry...I mean, these names are ghastly, and they're being sold as useful.

It's a parting shot to this process, not mine. If the idea that Worsley is better than Plante based on this - because, how else can I read this? - then super...if the idea is that we should not count playoff records, then Esposito should have been top 5 (apparently)...if the idea is that every clue is part of a large tapestry and requires context, then I'm way ahead of ya...

Probably and, fair enough...I mean, Gump says it out loud...no one good at their job goes, "don't matter none..." - but a singer that can't sight read music, that has to swoop up into notes without proper breath control, etc. it catches up with you. Can you mimic some noises for a while? Sure. But - and this won't translate to text very well - how many times have you heard someone scrape their way up to "the rockets red... gl-aaa-rrre" without the proper breath? It sucks. Yes, they hit the note for the song that they've heard by ear 500,000 times...but if you put the sheet music in front of them, they wouldn't know how to get there.

Like with Esposito...he watched Glenn Hall, tried to steal, looked like a horse's ass and there was just no one around to notice or do anything about it. In 1964, 11 goalies played more than one game at a perceived top level. By 1974, that number was 81 (NHL+WHA). By that point, clubs appeared happy to get guys that could put their pads on the correct legs. The whole "best of the era is best of the era" could fall apart the second we get to #2 - not that mindset holds up indefinitely anyhow.

I could go in detail about some of the points related to Worsley, but you seem to be saying they mostly aren't relevant to your process, and they aren't relevant to mine either, so that seems like a bit of a waste of time.

In the big picture, my problem isn't with ranking a guy with a 29-47 playoff record first, it's ranking a guy with a 29-47 playoff record first while talking in a negative way about the playoff win/loss records of other candidates in this round as if that disqualifies them from consideration. It's logically inconsistent, and looks very much like you're trying to find evidence for an existing opinion.

Which makes complete sense, of course, because I think you've made it clear that your opinions are from watching the goalies. I guess I'm really mostly confused why your arguments aren't, "Worsley looks bad on film because xyz", which I'd personally be very interested to listen to, rather than some absolute nonsense-tier argument like "had a losing record on the New York Rangers in the Original Six playoffs".

If you feel like people aren't open to the talent valuation perspective or the video arguments or that you got too much pushback from some voters, please don't worry about it. I think you're significantly underestimating the silent majority at the expense of a few people who seem to be demanding consensus for no good reason. I got accused of bias and manipulating numbers in the last goalie project for stats that passed entirely without comment this time around. Perspectives change.

I think it's a very valuable point of view, because you're the guy in this voting pool that I trust the most to identify one of the hardest things in goalie evaluation, which is the goalie on the bad team who is still really good (even if I do still maybe think you are sometimes overly harsh on a few guys who probably should qualify for that description, the ones where you seem to repeatedly bring up their win/loss records while hand waving it away for others, which was what I was mainly referring to in my previous post, it certainly wasn't a blanket criticism). As for Meloche and Bouchard, I was highest on them in the last project, let's see who had them top this time around.

 

[jigglysquishy]

Any attempt I could find related to best or greatest with Hainsworth, Thompson, and Worters 1925-1935 except explicitly towards the Vezina Trophy. Most newspapers call the Vezina Trophy the award for "best goalie in the NHL". We already have the award results so I'm not doubling up.

The Drummondville Spokesman · ‎Nov 13, 1928

Worters, regarded as one of the best goalies in the National Hockey League,

The Meriden Daily Journal · ‎Dec 29, 1934

Worters, Mighty Mite, Termed Best Goalie in Major Hockey

Youngstown Vindicator · ‎Mar 6, 1932

Roy Worters is rated the best in the business

The Day · ‎Oct 30, 1935

Worters, still one of the best goalies in the league

The Meriden Daily Journal · ‎Oct 31, 1928

Worters, who is accredited with being the best goalie In the professional ranks, last year received $4,000.

The Calgary Daily Herald · ‎Mar 3, 1932

Recognized last season as one of the best goalies in the NHL, Tiny Thompson...

Reading Eagle · ‎Jan 17, 1930

Tiny Thompson, goalie supreme of the NHL

[Art] Ross insists that Thompson is the greatest goalie he has ever seen.

The Vancouver Sun · ‎Nov 5, 1931

Tiny Thompson, one of the best goalies in recent years

I couldn't find a reference to Hainsworth being the best/greatest in the NHL unless it's specifically referring to GAA/Vezina.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Which makes complete sense, of course, because I think you've made it clear that your opinions are from watching the goalies. I guess I'm really mostly confused why your arguments aren't, "Worsley looks bad on film because xyz", which I'd personally be very interested to listen to, rather than some absolute nonsense-tier argument like "had a losing record on the New York Rangers in the Original Six playoffs".

If you feel like people aren't open to the talent valuation perspective or the video arguments or that you got too much pushback from some voters, please don't worry about it. I think you're significantly underestimating the silent majority at the expense of a few people who seem to be demanding consensus for no good reason. I got accused of bias and manipulating numbers in the last goalie project for stats that passed entirely without comment this time around. Perspectives change.

If this is, in fact, the case...I'd much prefer to do that. It's a much better use of time for me...I don't know if it is for folks in this project, but I guess we'll see what they come back with haha

So, let's use what we already know about goaltending and know about goaltending at the time.

Gump basically spanned the career of Plante. We remember Plante, but if we don't, here's a reminder:


So you look at 2:53 of the video, puck goes behind the net. Watch the puck tracking of Plante. Puck tracking that is fully enabled by excellent skating.

One of the key tenets of great goaltending is anticipation. Anticipation is the driving force. The nets are only so big, you take up X amount of space of that net just by being alive...guys are shooting a 3" x 1" disc at a rate that's really hard to react to. If you can't anticipate, it's gonna be tough. You're gonna always be playing from a deficit. Every shot attempt is a fight uphill.

Can you compensate for that in other ways? Yeah, it's the same thing that skaters do that have limited anticipation skills...

Anticipation reveals itself in aspects of goaltending like puck tracking, shooter tracking (where shooters are, where the biggest threats are, etc.), reading shots off of sticks, reading where to direct rebounds and where to play pucks, etc. - you convert these aspects into things like crease depth, save selection, etc.

It's all part of your save process. Save process remains relatively consistent in your professional years. Sometimes you make the save, sometimes you don't. The key is to have a process though.

If you're a house builder, you don't start with a random part of the house each time. "Today, instead of laying the foundation first, we're gonna start with the door bell"; if you're a chef, you probably don't want to taste your chicken before you put it in the oven.

Now, theoretically, you could start with a door bell and still end up with a successful house. It could depend on what your second step is. But again, if it's sort of random and not technically sound, the results are going to vary considerably more than someone who has a sensible process.

One of the key points of goaltending before the proliferation of the butterfly (Roy-era butterfly) is about keeping your feet. Because if you're lying on the floor, chances are your not in a position to make a save. Contrary to popular belief by people who watch Gretzky and Lemieux lobotomizing minor leaguers on highlight films, there were some legitimately good goalies in this era and the eras before.

But, if you're lying on your back because you can't skate or you have no balance, you probably aren't going to succeed consistently. You certainly aren't going to stop any second shots with regularity. You aren't gonna stop any cross-net-line passes, you're going to be vulnerable on rudimentary lo-hi plays, etc.

Now, of course, excellent teams and/or well coached teams are evaluating this and making appropriate changes (this version of the Tampa Bay Lightning change up their in-zone coverage and PK structure to allow more shots CLOSER to the net at certain angles because Vasilevskiy is better at stopping those than 40 foot wrist shots, especially those that are shot against the flow of the play, for instance). Moral of the story is, some goalies with pronounced weaknesses can be compensated for by the team around them. Some goalies with the same weaknesses or maybe less of that weakness don't have the team support for that and their stats suffer...stats suffer, award voting suffers...award voting suffers, they don't make the list. Which is why I like the talent evaluation route better because it puts less emphasis on the team.

"Hey, **** for brains, if keeping your feet is so important in this era...what about Glenn Hall? Did you have him 40th on your prelim or something...you idiot?"

No, I had him in my top 10. Because while Hall does drop down quite a bit, he used the butterfly as a common save selection, but not exclusively. His save process is clear and consistent. Was it possibly his downfall sometimes? Sure. But he was technically very good, his save process was scalable, it all adds up. In a world where he's not wearing sponges on his legs, he might win a few more playoff series even.

Hall knew when to keep his feet and knew when to make the butterfly the save selection. Take this clip here for example:



The initial save that he makes here is a standing save, as there is no benefit to going down here. Going down likely exposes the five hole and exposes short side high (goalies of today, take a note). He makes a poised save and doesn't fall on his ass because he can actually skate. The rebound is not amazing, but because he's on his feet, he can get (slight) depth and push into the angle to make a butterfly stop. He remains torso upright and tries to find the puck in a maze of players who did not keep their feet and are generally useless. He slides his right leg to the post just in case a puck some how squirts through while he tries to track from the other side of the pile. This makes sense because there's no Hab around to lift it over his leg. He can just seal that ice and be all right.

Outside of the uncontrolled rebound off of a backhand shot from 8 feet away (life's tough), that's an informed sequence from Hall. He wasn't just dropping and hoping something hit him. There's a clear and sensible save process there.

Let's take a look at some Gump...



We saw guys like Plante and Hall slide effortlessly to their posts and get the seal on the post, get the post integration and setup right away. It's because they're spatially aware and they have full control over their body mechanics as they both can skate. Gump is not those things.

It's all little stuff when you're a goalie pretty much, but it all adds up. In this little sequence, like 2 seconds...puck gets shot to the far right offensive corner. Fairly labored push from Gump, and then he overlaps the post - he goes too far. Then he has to correct, the correction opens him up for a brief second, the correction pulls his stick away from the correct position. Then he finally gets there.

Now, nothing happens right then and there, but he's playing from a deficit.
- Overskate your net -> more net is open than necessary
- Correction -> feet aren't set for any quick shots, so a rebound would be all but a guarantee
- Correction 2 -> Poor skating mechanics means that the upper body is part of the movement of the feet, so shoulder and stick jostling can create issues in terms of readiness to move again with the play, or make a quick pass disruption, or even come out and play the puck to a teammate (see: Plante, all the time)

You let that clip roll past 2:43 and you see Worsley lose track of most things here. But in fairness, that's a tough play.

The very next sequence - where Worsley surrenders a lead in short order to an expansion team in a potential elimination game - is much more telling of what we're working with here...



Blues will round the net at 3:09. Worsley is fine, stick blade isn't the best, but whatever. He appears to check the right point man - a virtual non-threat - but seems unwilling or unable to scan the middle of the ice at all. He has plenty of opportunity to do so as the player emerges from the corner in a very non-threatening way.

Jacques Laperriere (MTL2) helps support my claims about staying upright with that milquetoast defensive effort, but watch Worsley as this pass is made into the slot. A couple things you can read here...

- Worsley has no clue that that player exists, even though that's the biggest threat on the rink.
- Worsley is not a good skater in general (it's not just laterally), as he fails to gain any depth, cut down any angle, and immediately loses his feet here (though, intentional as it may be...more on that in a second).
- This is a soccer style save at best (I'll give credit where its due, Worsley has surprisingly good feet in terms of kicking pucks out...he probably would have been a better soccer goalie) - this just doesn't really work in hockey. Soccer goalie is a lot of guesswork...if you've ever seen penalty kicks, it can look pretty silly at times. Well, that's sort of what we see here, but that doesn't apply to hockey, it's not necessary to do this.

I don't mind him giving up his feet here - I think Hall would have gone butterfly here too - but what I don't like is that he's just guessing. Hall would have tracked that shooter instead of looking out to the point. And Hall would have butterflied into the save with good depth. Worsley actually slides out of the way of this shot because of poor technique.

I made an observation about goalies during this time period in the prelim discussion...

Guys that won often/a lot:
Plante
Bower
Sawchuk
Parent
Smith
Dryden

Guys that famously did not win often/a lot:
Hall
Vachon
Giacomin
Esposito
Crozier
Worsley until he was in his late 30's on a wagon Habs team that leaked into the expansion era

If you don't believe me about the keeping your feet, being able to skate, and being well balanced/anchored - well, you're a "results guy", CG...you got standup guys that could skate up top, and you guys that fell all over the floor at the bottom. There's your results.

But the whole thing is a mess...



Here he slides out of the net for this low angle play, I'm not convinced that they couldn't have gone short side high there if they weren't an expansion team. But ok, so he slides like a goof...but it's not slide -> pop up -> get set. Watch him in this sequence, he's just swimming out of the net while play continues. It takes him 3 to 5 business days to even get up. His stick is long gone.

It's a mess.

He was sent to the minors more in the O6 era than he received AS voting. He picks up a 1st in '68 (where he didn't lead in 1H OR 2H voting), he picks up a 2nd in '66 (probably only because Plante went on hiatus)...then there's a couple of 3s in there.

That's a whole lot of nothin' for 20+ years as an NHLer pro.

 

[Dr John Carlson]

If this is, in fact, the case...I'd much prefer to do that. It's a much better use of time for me...I don't know if it is for folks in this project, but I guess we'll see what they come back with haha

This was a really excellent post, and I'll echo ContrarianGoaltender in saying I'd love to see more like this going forward.

---

It's close to voting time, and this week has been a bit more quiet than the last couple. There's a lot of turnover in this round and I'm not at all convinced that I have them sorted out the way I want, especially when I've spent most of my time here on the Hainsworth post, which is hopefully out tonight. Do we as a group think we could use more time on these guys, or are we good to go ahead with voting?

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

This was a really excellent post, and I'll echo ContrarianGoaltender in saying I'd love to see more like this going forward.

---

It's close to voting time, and this week has been a bit more quiet than the last couple. There's a lot of turnover in this round and I'm not at all convinced that I have them sorted out the way I want, especially when I've spent most of my time here on the Hainsworth post, which is hopefully out tonight. Do we as a group think we could use more time on these guys, or are we good to go ahead with voting?

Personally I'd love if this got extended a week, as I am traveling next week and probably won't be involved much, if at all. Agreed that there are lots of new faces that didn't get much air time yet.

 

[Dr John Carlson]

George Hainsworth's Amateur Career

George Hainsworth is the second of the great goalers on our list to spent a significant portion of his career playing senior amateur hockey, after Bill Durnan. Hainsworth was born in Toronto and grew up in Berlin - later renamed Kitchener - where he spent almost the entirety of his amateur career, which spanned from 1912 to 1923, at which point he finally turned professional with Newsy Lalonde's Saskatoon Crescents in the WCHL.

overpass's post earlier in the thread did an excellent job of outlining Hainsworth's path through the OHA tiers. Everything up until 1916 was junior, or lower level intermediate hockey, and thus holds little interest for my purposes. So, this post will start from 1916 and go from there.

As I wrote in my Bill Durnan post: how much stock should we put into senior hockey of the time? Allan Cup hockey was certainly much closer to NHL level than it was in Durnan's 1940s, notably because of the split leagues at the professional level, as well as there being many more 'simon pure' hockeyists who still took pride in playing the sport for leisure - remember that by 1916, professional hockey had only existed for about a decade, and there remained some holdouts. That meant that amateur teams featured more future pros, and more amateurs who were just as good as those future pros, than what we saw in the QSHL of Durnan's day.

Since Hainsworth stayed in one spot for his senior career, and the lineup he played behind was remarkably stable throughout the years, I won't format this like I did for Bill Durnan, where I looked at each section of his career in order. Instead, I'll just borrow from the three questions I asked in that post: When did George Hainsworth become pro-caliber? Was he in high demand from pro circles? What kind of teams did he have success under?

I will borrow from some other posts when appropriate, as there's been lots written on George in this thread as well as the preliminary thread. Let's see what we can do...

---

Playing Style

Okay, I'll start here just briefly because, again, I don't know where to put this otherwise. There's fewer descriptive passages of Hainsworth's style compared to Durnan - there's just less on Hainsworth in general because he played in Kitchener instead of Montreal - but I'll include here what I found. There will be unfamiliar names included in these quotes, but the focus is on Hainsworth.

McDonald found an opening after a face-off and carrying the puck to the right boards drove a fast shot at Hainsworth. The plucky net guarder caught the rubber with his hands and dropped to his knees for an instant. It was enough to draw a penalty of one minute's duration.

Hainsworth was always being penalized for dropping to the ice, as did his opponents. It was rampant in Ontario during this time, and made me wonder when Clint Benedict first started to gain notoriety for this trick in the pros. Was he the first to do it, or was he the first to do it in the NHA? I don't know.

Hainsworth, the local net tender, is right there with the goods. He has an eye like a hawk, and is as quick as a flash. George uses his legs to great advantage, and last night stopped several shots that seemed impossible.

Honeyboy's first offence earned him 2 minutes, and was the reward for connecting with Shaumaker's eyebrow. The big husky wing-man was loafing almost in the nets with Honeyboy, much to the latter's annoyance. A tustle between the two ensued, and now Shaumaker goes back to [Sarnia] with only half an eyebrow...Hainsworth's second sin happened after eighteen minutes play in the third frame, when [referee] Bobby Hewitson handed him two minutes for dropping to his knees to save a hot one.

Honeyboy was a very common nickname for Hainsworth in the Waterloo Region Record. Origins unknown, and it never appeared in other papers. Honestly, I might take passages from the Waterloo Region Record with a small grain of salt, as they're especially complimentary toward Hainsworth. I don't know what this paper's sports editor's relation to George was, but it's clear from other articles that they knew each other personally.

Both goaltenders, [Charlie] Stewart and Hainsworth, were penalized for dropping to their knees to stop what meant almost certain goals. During the absence of Stewart, Kitchener was unable to score, but during the absence of Hainsworth, [Toronto] Dentals scored the goal that broke the tie in the second period.

...

On several occasions Hainsworth came out of his goal to meet the Dental rushes and blocked the shots. Stewart duplicated this feat several times in the Dental goal.

The Kitchener net guardian made some seemingly impossible stops slashing them into the corners with his stick, jumping into the air to catch them on his chest pad and cutting high shots to the ice with his gloved hand in a manner that was really sensational. On one occasion Hainsworth came 10 feet out of the net to stop Jerry Laflamme, when the Dental leader had beaten both Karges and Trushinski. He prevented a score but was penalized for so doing.

...

George also is a comedian, and delights in pulling a funny stunt. Once during the game he caught one in his hand and feinted to throw to centre ice. Instead of releasing the puck as his hand descended he let it drop beside the net. The 'feint' fooled the Dents and the fans enjoyed the joke immensely.

...

According to locals fans who saw the game the refereeing of Steve Vair was crude. He left Charlie Stewart, in goal for the Dents, save three times by dropping to his knees, but handed Hainsworth 2 minutes in the penalty box for his one similar offence.

In one attack Hainsworth beat five shots in quick succession. He popped back and forth in the goal area like a kernel of popcorn on a pan.

Hainsworth was good and on account of the bald spot upon which he was standing in front of the nets, he was forced to make most of his saves with his hands.

Probably no better example of high class net minding was ever seen in [Hamilton.] [Hainsworth] stopped them with his stick and hands upon the ice, with his chest protector, with his hands he batted them coolly into the corner and on 2 occasions swung his stick around like a baseball bat and slammed a 'liner' into the corner.

Hainsworth, in goal, played a very strong game, but gave the fans heart failure with his clearing, although he appeared as cold as ice himself.

Hainsworth, the goalie, is one of the best net guardians in the OHA, though he is not as spectacular as some of them. He is also very cool under fire, and he has a good defense in front of him.

Also some talk about him playing baseball, as so many goaltenders of the time did:

George also is a Baseball player of note, and has figured conspicuously upon some of the best Amateur teams in the Province.

Hainsworth, the Kitchener star hockey goalkeeper, plays the short stop position on the intermediate team from that city... Hainsworth has a wonderful throwing arm and the manner he could pick up grounders and speed the ball lightning fast across the diamond to first was a treat to the fans.

That's really about it. The most notable feature of George Hainsworth's style in the OHA was his affinity for dropping to his knees to stop pucks, which was a one minute penalty by the rules, and something that most other goalers of the time did as well. He also featured as a referee in lower level games during this period, and by the time he was wrapping up his OHA career he was reffing every week mid-season, which would lead me to believe he was a good skater.

I wonder, with the rules and restrictions of the time, if there was simply less room for variance between different goaltending styles.

---

When did George Hainsworth become pro-caliber?

Let's look at how he compares to the field within the OHA. The league was a goalie factory after WWI, so George's competition would be very high, probably higher than any other amateur league at any point.

He received plenty of praise pre-1916 in lower level hockey, and kept it up as his Berlin/Kitchener squad moved up to the senior ranks.

Hainsworth in the nets is one of the best, if not the best, goalkeepers in these parts. His work last night was simply marvellous.

At the other end Hainsworth put up a star performance. He has few superiors as a net guardian in the amateur ranks.

A comparison of the individual players on both teams starting with the goalers, Hainsworth and [Charlie] Stewart, is worth while.

Both are gems of the first water. They are consistent workers and never seem to have a night off. In size they are about equal and in ability it is a fifty-fifty break.

[On the upcoming Allan Cup final between the Winnipeg Ypres and Kitchener Greenshirts]

In Hal Winkler [Ypres supporters] believe they have the greatest amateur goaler in the game – but they haven't seen George Hainsworth perform.

Hal Winkler was by far the best Western amateur goaltender of the time, and while I think he was very good, I also think part of that comes down to having much worse competition in goal compared to out East.

George Hainsworth in goal gave the finest exhibition of net tending ever seen in O.H.A. Critics who witnessed the game declared him to be the best goal tender in the Dominion.

[Joe] Dwyer is the well-known Peterboro boy. He is as good as Charlie Stewart of the Dentals and Hainsworth of Kitchener, and that is saying a mouthful.

Joe Dwyer was a career amateur goalie and was not all that prominent, but the point here is that Hainsworth and Charlie Stewart were considered the cream of the OHA crop at this point.

The guardian of the nets – the one and only Honeyboy Hainsworth – the best goal tender in Amateur hockey in the Dominion today, again is wearing the big pads and the big stick. Enough said.

[Toronto St. Pats goalie Leo] Crook was just as good as Hainsworth, and Hainsworth and Charlie Stewart are the Vezinas of the amateur ranks.

For Kitchener, no one stood out. Hainsworth in goal had plenty to do, and stopped many shots, but he certainly is not as good as he was last season – or maybe the shooting of the opposition is stronger.

This was an interesting quote, as the OHA was about to undergo a rapid infusion of talent from players coming back home from the war and returning to game shape. Up until this point, it was Hainsworth and Charlie Stewart atop the Ontario ranks, with a considerable gap between them and the pack.

Hainsworth in goal is still the same great goaler. The Dentals may say that Stewart, their goalkeeper is the best in senior hockey, but Kitchener fans have the same idea about Hainsworth.

In Hainsworth they have a goal keeper who has no superior in amateur or pro hockey. Charlie Stewart is the best in these parts and put up a whale of a game last night, but Hainsworth looked just a little better last night.

When it comes to tending goal Geo. Hainsworth can give all the other goalies in the OHA something to emulate.

So, it's very high praise. From 1916 right up until 1923, he was considered one of, if not the, best goalies in amateur hockey.

Where does that get us? Who was the competition? Well, we had the aforementioned Charlie Stewart, who was considered right there with Hainsworth for this entire duration. Stewart chose to remain an amateur up until the tail end of 1925, when he signed with Boston, who were desperate for competent goaltending. He'd wind up doing well enough that in 1926 he received some Hart support for helping keep afloat a Bruins team that had improved from 6-24 to 17-15-4, before retiring a few years later.

Okay, so there's one solid competitor. Who else?

St. Pat's furnished a big surprise when they skated on the ice by introducing little Vernon Forbes, the crack Aura Lee goalkeeper, to the professional ranks. Forbes has been recognized as one of the best goaltenders in amateur hockey, and his first performance in the money class showed that he is as good as the best in the pro game.

Toronto Aura Lee goaler Jake Forbes received praise just as strong as Hainsworth/Stewart in 1920, before being swiftly snatched up by the St. Pats of the NHL after their starting goalie, Mike Mitchell, took ill. He'd be a starter in the NHL until 1927.

Worters right now is as good as any goalkeeper in the OHA or the NHL, and that is saying something.

Like Forbes, Roy Worters played very little time in the OHA, but was widely praised as well. He'd move to Pittsburgh after this season, and we know his story from there.

[John Ross Roach,] by the way, is a goalie of such a calibre that he would break the heart of any team by his sensational saves. He is uncanny in his cleverness in outguessing the oncoming puck carrier and the few time that the Kitchener forwards did get in the defense, in the earlier portion of the game, he came out and blocked beautifully. You've got to stickhandle right into the goal to beat him.

Roach was signed by the St. Pats in 1921, after one year in the OHA, to replace Forbes, who was holding out for a better contract. Roach would be a starter in the NHL for another decade.

So, the competition was tough starting in 1920, with three future longtime NHLers garnering praise that could sometimes rival or even exceed that of Hainsworth and Stewart. How do we differentiate between them? I don't really know. I wish I had the OHA all star teams of this time, but the newspapers barely ever acknowledge them as even existing, let alone reprinting them. They're a mystery for now. All I can say for sure is that Hainsworth was receiving this sort of praise in 1916, and it remained constant for the duration of his OHA tenure.

To answer the original question... or, to not answer it, I don't know when George became pro-caliber. I suppose 1916 is the earliest. which would've been at the age of 22. I wish I could give a more precise answer, but it's tough.

---

Was he in high demand from pro circles?

This one is much easier, so I won't spend much time on it. The earliest record I can find of George Hainsworth being offered a pro contract was prior to the 21-22 season:

Kitchener's senior hockey team may lose their crack goal keeper George Hainsworth. The latter is seriously considering jumping to the professional ranks as a result of a tempting offer received from Saskatoon which is entering a team in the newly organized Saskatchewan professional league.

Hainsworth was offered $1,500 for the season but when it was pointed out that he would be under considerable expense taking his wife and family out west the amount was raised to $1,600.

That's the only note I could find on Hainsworth turning pro before he actually did. We saw with Bill Durnan that the papers often teased how the Canadiens were very interested in him, and that he in turn was not interested in them. There's nothing like that with Hainsworth, so either he wasn't getting much pro interest, or he was and it just wasn't public knowledge. The latter could very well be the case, considering Worters, Roach, and Forbes turned pro very quickly.

Then again, considering how the editor of the Waterloo paper knew George personally, chances are he'd have known about an offer of this sort.

---

What kind of teams did he have success under?

I'm going to piggyback off of overpass's post in the preliminary thread, which outlined how Kitchener's squad was probably overmatched in talent by the other good teams in the league, like the Granites and the Tigers. The sample here was the 1923 season, after the OHA had boomed in talent. Kitchener as a team was most successful a bit earlier, when the league was more shallow. Let's take a look at the team in their Allan Cup run in 1918.

Getting back to the defense we find the team's real weakness, [Frank] Trushinski and [George] Karges. The latter is young but is a comer. He is a free skater and a first-class stick handler but a slow thinker. Trushinski is in the same class. Neither is strong on defense work and so far have permitted themselves to be easily drawn out... Kitchener's defense has got to shake itself up if the Allan cup is going to come this way at the close of the season. Hainsworth is good and can be relied upon to do all that can reasonably be expected of a net man.

[Kitchener] are stronger on attack than defence; but their real weakness lies in the fact they are too easily drawn out.

Kitchener has three speed merchants in Ernie Parkes, George Hiller, and Otto Solomon. They all shoot dead on. Their speed and sharpshooting are Kitchener's chief dependence.

Hainsworth in goal is a star of the first magnitude, but Trushinski and Karges, the defence pair, do not measure up with the [Toronto Dentals' Jerry] Laflamme and [Mac] Sheldon combination. Trushinski is big and strong and Karges is a magnificent stick handler, but circles when he rushes, and has his forwards tied into a knot trying to fit in with him. In fact, they have about quit trying and usually let him play solo.

The locals' defence, composed of Karges and Trushinski, though not as speedy as Sheldon and Laflamme, are their superiors in blocking, and stick handling... Both the locals give Hainsworth a lot of protection, and seldom a long shot gets past them.

Kitchener may attribute its success in holding the Dentals to a tie score to their persistent back-checking, the defensive work of Hainsworth and the excellent offensive hockey shown by 'Ernie' Parkes, the former Argonaut star, and Hiller, the clever center man.

Hainsworth made many difficult stops and put up a most creditable performance, although he was not called upon to do only a third of the work that fell to the lot of Stewart in the other net.

Hainsworth was kept about as busy as a bear in Winter time – nothing to do and lots of time to do it in.

...


Was he indulging in 40 winks or was it pity for his opponents that prompted Hainsworth to let two shots cross his threshold?

The undoubted star of last night's game was Ernie Parks, the Kitchener rover.

It looks rather similar to Durnan's Kirkland Lake and Montreal Royals teams, actually - skilled, speedy forwards and a lacklustre defense. Kitchener's best player was undoubtedly Ernie Parkes, who'd go on to be a solid Coast player for a few years. I'd say their next best player was centreman George Hiller, with Hainsworth a very close third. Interestingly, this would be almost their exact lineup for the next five years, with only some changes to account for Parkes heading to the Coast or Hiller moving to St. Catharines for a year. I think that's a good sign that the talent of the league increased significantly over this span, as Kitchener seemed to get worse each year despite seeing little roster turnover.

As for the 1918 Allan Cup itself, it was probably one of the weaker finals of this time, since the Ypres were missing their star player Dick Irvin, who wasn't allowed to play in any Allan Cup competition after spending a year with the pros in 1917.

---

Additional Notes

These have nothing to do with the point of this post, but I thought they were of note and wanted to include them:

When Hainsworth was taking the ice in Sarnia for the game, a 'Sarnia fan' standing by the gate took a wallop at him with a hockey stick. Fortunately, Honeyboy jumped in time to avoid the wicked slash which, had it landed, would have put him out of the game for the night.

Ernie Parkes is wearing a plaster over his nose, a small bone being fractured in a collision with Laflamme on Tuesday night. It will not prevent him from playing, however.

Extremely early example of a mask being worn during play - but it was by a skater!

At noon today moving pictures of the local Senior Hockey Club – officers and players were taken on the open air rink behind St. Jeromes College. Mr. Oscar Rumpel was the man behind the gun, and all told clicked off about 500 feet of film. The pictures will be developed without delay, and after being shown in the local theatres some time next week will be released on several picture services that will show them all over the British Empire and the United States.

It would be amazing if this footage of Hainsworth's Kitchener squad has somehow survived to this day, locked up somewhere in a can. There's old footage of hockey being played in the late 1800s, but I don't know when the earliest footage of high level, organized hockey being played would be from.

['Paddy' Farrell] is cool, clever and fast and has all the ear marks of a coming senior net minder and Kitchener fans felt assured that when George Hainsworth retired or moved away Paddy would fit the bill acceptably.

I had to laugh at this, seeing a comment that Kitchener had a contingency plan in place for Hainsworth's retirement... yeah, the dude who didn't retire for another 15 years...

During the progress of the World's Series game at the Polo Grounds New York this afternoon it was the privilege of the sporting editor to sit at his desk and plainly hear the game called play by play. This was accomplished when George Hainsworth, the goal tender for the Twin City senior hockey club, tuned in on New York with his radio set and then put the head piece to the telephone which was connect with the sporting department.

George, a handyman, had built his very own radio set and took advantage of this by tuning in to one of the first ever World Series that was broadcast live on the radio. Interesting guy.

---

Conclusion

George Hainsworth's amateur career was similar to his NHL career, in the sense that it was steady, unspectacular, consistent. Let's recap those three initial questions:

When did George Hainsworth become pro-caliber? I really don't know. 1916 is the earliest, but he never seems to take any sort of leap forward in his play after that, unlike Bill Durnan did in 1940. Considering the split leagues at the pro level watering competition down, I imagine he could've hacked it in 1916 if he'd been offered a contract, which I assume he hadn't been at that point.

Was he in high demand from pro circles? Not particularly. We get a notice of a contract offer in 1921 with Saskatoon, but that's it. If there's more than that, it wasn't made public. What's noteworthy is that Jake Forbes gets snatched up by the pros in a hurry, as does John Ross Roach, and Roy Worters chases the bag all the way down to Pittsburgh after just one year. Pro teams wanted OHA goalies, so it comes down to whether or not we believe Hainsworth wanted to turn pro before 1923. I would believe that he didn't.

What kind of teams did he have success under? Speedy and skilled forwards, paired with a weak defense. This isn't a case of a guy being shielded by a strong defense, and it didn't seem as though centre George Hiller was anything special as a defensive player, so I'd venture to guess that Hainsworth didn't get much defensive help, even if there were some reports of Hainsworth having little work to do in some games.

Ultimately, I don't think his OHA career adds much to the case for George Hainsworth. The best case I can make comes down to this: if you value adaptability and versatility, he could do very well for you. He was a good goalie under seven man hockey, then he remained good in six man hockey once the OHA converted to the new school. In Kitchener, he loved dropping to the ice to make saves despite not being allowed to, and he was good there. In the NHL, when he could drop all he wanted to, he was good there too. He was good as an amateur, good out West, good in the NHL. Good pre-forward pass, good post-forward pass. I don't know if George Hainsworth was ever not good from 1916 to 1936, a period of hockey where he would've seen a ton of rule changes, personnel changes, league and team changes. He was always good.

The catch is that it's not clear just how good he was, and his OHA career doesn't make it as clear as I was hoping it would've been. I really wish I had OHA all star teams, but I suspect it'd show Charlie Stewart as being considered the superior of the two.

Considering all of this... during Hainsworth's OHA career, where does he rank across all goalies, in all leagues? Behind Vezina/Benedict for sure. Below Lehman? I'm not big on Lehman, but probably yes. If I'm saying yes to Lehman, then I'm saying yes to Holmes too. Then you look at the other guys who spent time in amateur hockey: Stewart/Forbes/Roach/Worters/Winkler. He's in that group. Stewart is the easiest comparable because they played for so long at the same time, and if I had to pick, I'd go Stewart. So, from 1916 to 1923, Hainsworth is maybe the 6th best goalie over that time span? Does that sound right?

 

[Professor What]

I'd also like to see the discussion extended. I haven't had as much to say, but I feel like there's more to read.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Do we as a group think we could use more time on these guys, or are we good to go ahead with voting?

More time, please.

 

[overpass]

I don't know if George Hainsworth was ever not good from 1916 to 1936, a period of hockey where he would've seen a ton of rule changes, personnel changes, league and team changes. He was always good.

I think this is the best case for Hainsworth's long career, in addition to his 1926-1931 statistical and voting peak.

It's pretty clear that Hainsworth didn't stand out to observers for most of his career. But for any voters who are willing to consider that maybe he was overlooked and the results should tell the story, there's a lot to like in his statistical record.

Hainsworth's OHA stats can be viewed at hockeygoalies.org

In his three seasons in intermediate OHA hockey, from 1912-13 through 1914-15, Hainsworth was age 19, 20, and 21. The competition was a bit weaker, but he excelled statistically. His combined regular season record was 15-1-0, with a 2.00 GAA. And his combined playoff record was 13-5-3 with a 3.89 GAA.

In his two seasons in the war-weakened OHA senior division (1915-16 and 1917-18, age 22 and 24), Hainsworth didn't lose a regular season game, with a combined record of 17-0-0 and a 2.88 GAA. In the playoffs he was 5-3-1 with a 2.91 GAA.

And then in five seasons in the post-war OHA (1918-19 through 1922-23, age 25-29), Hainsworth was a combined 29-19-1 with a 2.75 GAA. Doc Stewart, who played the same seasons for the Toronto Dentals, Toronto Aura Lee, and Hamilton Tigers, finished with a combined 24-16-1 record and a 3.11 GAA. While Stewart was named the first team all-star goalie in three of the five seasons, Hainsworth's stats were slightly better.

In three seasons in Saskatoon, Hainsworth was only all-star goalie once, but he had the best combined GAA and W% of any goaltender in the league. (While the PCHA and WCHL were separate leagues in 23-24, they played an interlocking schedule and can be considered two conferences of one league).

1923-24 to 1925-26, WCHL/PCHA/WHL (Hainsworth was 30-32)

Goalie	W	L	T	W%	TOI	GA	GAA
George Hainsworth	49​	34​	5​	0.585​	5361​	212​	2.37​
Hap Holmes	45​	39​	4​	0.534​	5358​	215​	2.41​
Hal Winkler	36​	41​	7​	0.470​	5155​	229​	2.67​
Hugh Lehman	30​	38​	3​	0.444​	4330​	201​	2.79​
Charlie Reid	23​	23​	1​	0.500​	2881​	144​	3.00​
Herb Stuart	26​	20​	1​	0.564​	2860​	145​	3.04​
Red McCusker	37​	47​	4​	0.443​	5360​	300​	3.36​

Then Hainsworth's NHL stats are well known. Best GAA in each of his first three seasons, consistently good W-L record and GAA, never missed the playoffs.

All this while he wasn't getting a lot of all-star votes or Hart votes, and not a lot of discussion of him as the best. So that seems to have been the verdict of his era. But for anyone who wants to consider discarding that verdict and coming to their own conclusion on Hainsworth, his statistical record was very consistently good over a very long time.