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.