I meant more that they all played in the aforementioned 'post-professionalism, pre-forward pass' time period, and that LeSueur's longevity looks worse compared to others in that period. Paddy Moran can of course be thrown into that mix, who was born four years earlier yet wrapped up at just about the same time as LeSueur. In fairness, would that have been the case if Clint Benedict was nipping at Paddy's heels in Quebec? Probably not.
Hockey and the culture surrounding it changed so rapidly at that time; I don't think we can lump all goalies who played in that era as contemporaries. I won't argue that LeSueur had relatively poor longevity relative to some of his high-level peers; he clearly played less high-level seasons than some of the other guys he played against. My point is that you were using the wrong players to prove this point, and, later, it looked like you were not applying this criteria consistently across the group of players in this project.
But yes, Moran's longevity was superior to LeSueur's. I am pro-Moran in this argument, so...
It's too bad so many people deep-sixed him on the preliminary list.
I'll break my own project rules about ineligible players and ask you this: another LeSueur contemporary would be Riley Hern. In the preliminary thread, you said you previously underrated his longevity. How does his longevity look compared to LeSueur's?
Hern is another good example, and yeah, one who I would argue had superior longevity to LeSueur.
Not quite how I meant for that to be interpreted. I don't think it's era bias to make the claim that I did, it just seems like common sense. No forward passing -> less lateral movement and fewer high danger chances -> less physical exertion and thus longer careers.
I was saying this in the preliminary thread.
We can easily flip that around and say less/worse equipment (meaning more pain) and less compensation (meaning less incentive to play) makes it less likely for goalies to have longer careers.
We can point to outliers all day. [EDIT- cut a section because I get to it later] Hasek played until he was 46. So did Plante. Should we compare all these other 1965 (or later) births to that kind of longevity?
LeSueur wasn't even that young when he retired- 35. That is older than Tretiak (32), Dryden (32), Gardiner (30), Durnan (34), Parent (34), and Holecek (34), just to look at players already on the list (it's early- please excuse any math errors). EDIT to add: ages taken from birth year, so it is likely that I'm off by a year in some cases. END EDIT
How much of LeSueur's relative lack of longevity is the lack of information we have on LeSueur's early career? Granted, it was probably as a forward... but do we hold that against him here?
Obviously it's a big mark in Hainsworth's favour that he extended his career for so long even after 1929 as an old man.
Maybe it means that the forward pass wasn't this impossible obstacle that previous goalies couldn't handle.
See my previous paragraph. My argument is that LeSueur's shorter career length is more outside of the norm for good goaltenders of his day than Holmes's longer career length is.
Ah, I must have missed where that was stated. My apologies.
That's probably true- as I alluded to earlier, I think we'd get more accurate results if we bracketed players by birth year as opposed to just lumping all the pre-merger guys together, but I bet we can pull this data and actually check. If you select the top 5 guys from the 1883-1893 birth year bracket and get those numbers, I'll grab the top 5 1876-1886 guys and we can take a look.
EDIT- I realized that I basically have a good data set already from when I went through the HoF. It isn't necessarily the best players of the birth year brackets, but it is readily available. I'm trying to move quickly, so the final season age column is just final season minus birth year- I'm sure there are a couple spots where I am off by a couple months. I'm largely just using the seasons as according to Wikipedia. I think this artificially inflates Lehman's numbers a bit, because he played his first couple seasons (and, oddly, a later season) in a poor league, but since he is in both data sets it doesn't really matter. I tried to ignore seasons that were clear outliers in terms of games played- mostly just guys who played seasons of 3 or 4 games at the end of their careers. All numbers were (quickly) compiled in good faith. If anyone points out any errors, I'll be glad to fix the tables.
For LeSueur (HoF goalies born 1876-1886):
| Name | Career (Years) | Career (Seasons) | Final Season Age |
| Paddy Moran | 1902-1917 | 16 | 40 |
| Bouse Hutton | 1899-1904 ; 1909 | 7 | 27 ; 32 |
| Riley Hern | 1898-1911 | 14 | 34 |
| Percy LeSueur | 1904-1916 | 13 | 35 |
| Hugh Lehman | 1904-1928 | 24 | 42 |
| Average | N/A | 14.8 | 35.6 or 36.6 (Hutton) |
For Holmes (HoF goalies born 1883-1893):
| Name | Career (Years) | Career (Seasons) | Final Season Age |
| Hugh Lehman | 1904-1928 | 24 | 42 |
| Georges Vezina | 1910-1925 | 16 | 38 |
| Hap Holmes | 1909-1928 | 19 | 40 |
| Clint Benedict | 1910-1931 | 22 | 39 |
| George Hainsworth | 1913-1936 | 23 | 43 |
| Average | N/A | 20.8 | 40.4 |
Like I said above, the numbers were compiled quickly- point out any errors you see. I am also not a numbers guy so please let me know if these aren't good metrics to use for this exercise.
But, assuming all the information is acceptable, LeSueur's career length is 1.8 seasons shorter than the average, and he retired .6 or 1.6 years years before the average, depending on how you want to deal with Hutton's 1909 season in the FHL. Speaking of Bouse- man, if there is ever a guy whose longevity should be questioned...
Holmes' career was also 1.8 seasons shorter than the average, and he retired .4 years before the average.
This looks pretty close to a wash to me. I think it also shows why birth year is a better gauge for this era than assuming the pre-consolidation era can be considered as a single block.
END EDIT
I'll break the rule again. How does LeSueur's longevity compare against Billy Nicholson?
Definitely worse. Again, you aren't exactly breaking my heart here.
Nicholson had crazy good longevity, and did it in multiple leagues and situations. He played on good teams, bad teams, in East Canada, in the IPHL, even in the West a bit. And he was, until the end, among the top-tier guys. He was 39 when his career ended.
I'm not necessarily arguing
for LeSueur; I am arguing
against not giving him a real glance because he played pre-forward pass or whatever the argument is.
No, his career is short, and that's what my issue is with Kiprusoff. I agree.
Whose career length was more out of the norm, LeSueur, or Kiprusoff?
I'll have to clarify what I mean here. Looking at film of these older goalies, we're looking through the lens of somebody from 2024, who's been exposed to decades of improved technique designed to increase the percentages as much as possible in the goalie's favour. This has been accomplished through film, training, diet and exercise, stats, etc.
None of that was available to players like Harry Lumley, or at least not nearly to the same extent. The 'rules' of how to play goal weren't as clearly defined. Maybe the most clearly defined rule of the time was that you had to stay on your feet, because if you left your feet then the shooter can do whatever he wants. Fast forward a decade and Glenn Hall is breaking that rule. Fast forward another few decades and suddenly the whole rule has flipped - going down to make the save is now accepted, even encouraged at times.
That's just one example. The point I'm making is that I'm not sure how confident we can be in watching this old film and saying this guy's great or this guy's bad. We can look back at film and say Lumley was ahead of his time technically based on what we know now in 2024. Through the lens of hockey people in 1950, did they think Harry Lumley was ahead of his time technically? I know Mike Farkas showed he was an early example of a goalie coach, and that's a mark in his favour. But how far can that get us?
To put it another way, if we look back with our 2024 lens and assess another goalie as not holding up, would somebody with their 1950 lens argue the opposite? Example... Chuck Rayner?
Let me know if that's just mumbo jumbo...
Nah man, that makes perfect sense to me. I am all about looking at these players within the context of their environment, what was expected of the position at the time. It's basically the crux of my arguments here, haha.
The only thing I'd push back on- and it is a small thing- is why would Lumley being a goalie coach be a mark in his favor? Does Mitch Korn sneak onto our list?
