Sorry, I'm re-posting the Lumley post here. He belongs #1 in this group too...
The Future of Goaltending - Today!
Harry Lumley laid the groundwork for the first golden era of goaltending, but is left behind by history.
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The sponsorship era produced quite a haul for the NHL. It's patently unfair to the players in retrospect, but we can't go back and litigate that now. It did produce a lot of very well rounded players...developed players. Most clubs took their time with their players, they didn't force junior-aged players into the league very much...
Conversely, when players were forced into the league early, some had their development stagnate in some respects...Ted Lindsay (entered the NHL at 19 full time), for instance, played the game like he was being chased by bees...kind of similar to Bep Guidolin (entered NHL at 17) who played a reckless style of game. They sort of over-played it, and lacked "touch" in certain aspects.
It's tough even today for some players to make it early and hang in there...Nino Neiderreiter really struggled for a while, Luca Sbisa never got it, it took RNH how long to stay healthy, etc. - naturally, guys like McDavid, Crosby, Lemieux, Orr, Howe are supernatural and if you put them in the NHL at age 12 with a rake in place of a hockey stick, they'd still figure it out probably...
But generally, especially in this time period, rushed players had a really hard time rounding out their games.
Enter Harry Lumley. A goalie who played his first NHL game a month after his 17th birthday on Dec. 19, 1943.
Lumley is credited with stopping Mosdell on a breakaway as the turning point of the game.
Other newspaper accounts list him as the Wings "backbone" for the first six games of the series. He also may have been given one of the first delay of game puck over glass penalties ever...in the series (game 6?) when he caught a puck and nonchalantly threw it over his shoulder and out of play haha
Obviously, he got supplanted famously by a guy already on the list - Terry Sawchuk. Gordie Howe stated there was "a good chance" the Wings would've won all those Cups with Lumley in the crease. Which might be a Gretzky-like quote, to be fair. But he also didn't have to say it...they also won their first with Lumley.
Well, we know the O6 era well enough to know that when you get ousted from a contender, you rarely end up on another one. So
Lumley went to some really bad situations and we know what bad situations can do to goalie stats and, therefore, award voting...
A bit neurotic and very protective of his crease (think Billy Smith before Billy Smith in some respects), Lumley was the
first goalie in history to hit 300 wins.
"Correcting" the Al Rollins Hart Trophy of 1954?
There's a lot of debate about the Rollins Hart, which we won't litigate now. But the United Press conducted a poll for the NHL's Player of the Year (which isn't necessarily the same criteria).
Red Kelly won it by getting five more votes than Harry Lumley, who finished 2nd. (Others receiving votes: Gord Howe, Al Rollins, and Maurice Richard)
[Of possible interest...the UP had Bower as their rookie of the year, by one vote over Dutch Reibel; Camille Henry (actual Calder winner) had "heavy support"...followed by Mohns and Beliveau.)
- A team that
@Eric Zweig has cited in THN "wasn't very good".
Lost 1955 Vezina on goal that likely would have been wiped out by goalie interference...
Lumley tore thigh tendons later in the 1956 season, and he struggled to return from that. At that point he had already had 12 full NHL seasons as a starter before age 30...and he did it in some pretty uncomfy places...
He went down to the minors in 1957...didn't pout. He was a Second-Team AS there behind...another player already on the list...Johnny Bower, of course.
Stats misleading...
(Editor's note on the last bolded; Remember, this is still a league with Johnny Bower in it.)
Lum battled with weight post-injury. But still was called in to Boston well into his 30's to help with stretch run...
On that, Milt Schmidt said...
This was in place of Don Simmons. Who is consistently referred to as inconsistent and unreliable around this time.
Became early goalie coach.
More importantly, let's check the tape...
Now, we give points here for being an adventer and/or inventor and I think that's just. Frank Nighbor gets a lot of points for "inventing" the pokecheck. Clint Benedict, rather silently, got a ton of support for breaking the rules and falling. Well...I think Lumley should get a lot of points for carrying the position to its modern state.
Whether this is a first-time view or a refresher, let's take a quick peak at two contrasting goalie styles in the previous generation...a short clip that can be viewed at 1x or 0.75x speed, I actually recommend the latter.
I've traced this game (mislabeled as they mostly are) to Dec 20, 1936.
On one side, we see some semblance of modern-ish goaltending with New York's Dave Kerr. We see some telescopic leg movements while remaining torso upright, etc. It's a little tougher with him, but there's obviously something there. That's for another time (though, probably not soon enough for my tastes).
On the other side, we have the opposite...we have George Hainsworth...who plays the position like a trash bag full of leaves...watch him surrender the late lead and then lose the game in overtime (by 2, as was the style at the time).
So, that's immediately what we came from. Most relevant goalies were somewhere in between this. Exception probably being Worters who was a scrambly goalie...who played more out of control than Kerr. But was also usually alone on the screen when facing attacks. So, he sort threw himself all over the place to compensate for his general loneliness and remarkably accurate depictions of his size at 5'2" or whatever he's listed at. That's probably on skates haha. This is kind of like what we saw with Rogie Vachon later. Fun and interesting. But not
great.
On the "steadier" end of things, we have a lot of goalies that played a stand-up style, as you'd expect, passed down from Vezina. Some were more stick-led than others. Importantly, some were much better skaters than others. Like Durnan. Some were superb in terms of angles and really incorporating the glove...like Brimsek...and Durnan x2.
The golden era...saw Sawchuk - who modified the standup into something else. Saw Hall, who modified the falling into something actually useful. And we saw Plante, who never played from a deficit because of his skating, angles, and then his ability to pounce and cut down angles in a unique way.
But there's a missing link between ol' garbage bag Hainsworth and Jacques Plante. The answer is Harry Lumley for me...and I proudly boast him at 10th overall on my initial list.
The 1949 Final shows another gap between goalie evolution, but more so style, in some regard. We see Turk Broda give up the first goal in this clip...
Broda is sort of a one-and-done standup. Skating deficiency, sort of a lack of compete for second chance pucks, etc. produce this sort of result. He made it work in the very defensive Leafs situation and he deserves credit for that - I'm not trying to litigate him or that.
Now, let's get to 0:30 of the same clip. Thankfully, both teams are wearing dark colors. So it's immediately obvious what's happening...........................
As the Leafs come down the wing. Sophisticated post integration from Lumley. Shows off really good skating to move from post to post. We remember 20 years later, it takes Worsley three strides to make that trek successfully. He makes two saves in a row - which doesn't sound like a lot, but at this point in history...it's more than you think haha - let me leave it like that. Now...I don't know that any goalie is equipped to handle a third shot in a row in a scramble at this point in history. So, he ends up on his wallet by the third one...which I don't love. But there's a lot of compete there and it's not unreasonable what he's doing in the context of the other film that I've seen. If he routinely ended up sitting on his ass, I wouldn't be making this post because I wouldn't like him.
Now, go back and just watch DET5 absolutely clobber some poor Leaf in front. Whew boy...
Anyway, after Cruella De Vil stands up, we see at 0:43 Lumley getting set for a semi cross net-line pass. He gets good crease depth. He's almost in a Sawchuk-like stance but this game pre-dates Sawchuk of course. There's some blocker overlap it appears (not great, if true), it's a bit blurry on the freeze. Then as TOR24 lets the shot go...he's going to make a one-knee, kneeling block, stick blade backed by pad, moving into the trajectory of the shot (ya know, unlike Gump...who slides out of the way, randomly, of everything but a hot meal), very under control, with a mindset of playing the rebound out of danger.
Who does that remind you of? If you said, "Martin Brodeur"...you'd be right. If you didn't fast forward in time that quickly and said, "Jacques Plante"...you'd be right. It's not just me that feels that way...
Now, second chances are really hard for goalies through history to stop...even now. But back then...given where the position was, where equipment was, where technique was, etc. - a second chance is............in. But watch after the initial save, which comes off of a really good pre-shot pass...watch at 0:45 as Lumley comes up with a brilliant save. The puck rebounds around to the other side of the net. Lumley doesn't dilly dally...he slides right over. Gets his head quickly around, robs TOR9 from 7 feet away. Tries to catch the rebound, bobbles it...and then still fights to try to get depth and angle on yet another chance in the sequence. Which, to be fair, he's not exactly in fine shape...but who would be at this point? The puck is saved by the d-man behind him on the near post, while Lumley takes up the middle of the net, remaining in good form...torso upright, reading the puck off the stick.
Watch that Hainsworth OT goal again...you think he takes one stride in these situations? You think Worsley is even on the same street as the arena in these cases? No chance. Zero.
Even with 200,000 kilometers on him here late in 1959, he's still very quick and very good technically. This is very high end goaltending overall from him...
Watch him fight off the Leaf power play as a member of the Bruins. Isn't throwing himself all over, making the first move...very composed. Slides post to post, stick blade is confidently in the right spot. I tee'd it up for you to see him make a save on a second chance opportunity on the other side of the net once again, just like he had done 10 years prior. Remember what I said before about "save process"...it's generally not gonna change too, too much for most goalies. Now, you either get a save or you don't, but that might be predicated on the team in front of you...which is my whole stance in this really.
But look at 1949...look at 1959...he does exactly the same thing. Players with a process don't stray super far from their mean...situations do though. That's why talent... *clears throat*
Anyway...here's the leave-behind...
- Forced into the league at barely 17
- Got booted from a dream spot by Sawchuk at 23, but the first Cup in that run is Lumley's (he got them to the Final the previous two years as well...before Howe had any 1st Team AS nods or top 5 scoring finishes)
- Several sources cite that Chicago basically sucks at defense and that he had no chance, and this would be a theme for most of the rest of his career
- Still found time to eek out some statistical and award voting recognition - I'll leave that to you guys I guess
- After 12 years in pro hockey and a serious injury, went down to the minors with a sad sack team, was considered right there with Bower for best goalie down there despite the situation.
- Comes back up for the stretch run with Boston for a couple years...one time getting them into the playoffs with his late season run in a tight race.
- Then became one of the first (?) known goalie coaches because of his technical advents and expertise
- And he might well be the
Father of Modern Goaltending. Doing things in the late 40's that were not only picked up by the next generation, but things that are still en vogue today...that's a big deal.
We were handed a list of goalies, many of which have no business at these reaches of the list, Gretzky's goalie, Tony O...and 60 in the playoffs, ol' garbage bag Hainsworth, the second-best "Gump" in pop culture...I say if you like goalie advents, if you want to shine a light on the forgotten men of history - especially those given a raw deal team-wise, if you want the first 300-game winner, if you want the Production Line's first Cup...
you want Harry Lumley #1 this round.
