HOH Top 60 Goaltenders of All Time (2024 Edition) - Round 2, Vote 6

[The Pale King]

I got:
Lumley >>> Rayner
Kipper > Quick
Fuhr, Barrasso, and CuJo are sort of take your choice. Especially the first two. CuJo gets a lot of love here...I was disappointed that there wasn't more of a push for him. I was expecting to get the ol' timeshare sales pitch on him.

These two are very much my guys this round but I have them flipped. Just so it's chronicled, curious how you see them? Hasn't been much Kiprusoff discussion at all.

An unrelated observation : There's a lot of guys who had the starting spot from a very young age in this round (Barasso, Beezer, Lumley, Fuhr, Joseph to an extent, Rayner). In previous rounds, there were numerous guys where I was like "just imagine if they would have had the reins when they were younger". I think a lot of these guys up for discussion currently prove that that is not necessarily always a good thing, career-wise, even if it can lead to an early Vezina or what-have-you. They almost all stumble after that.

Super rare for a goalie to carry those early career accolades into a meaningfully great career from an all-time standpoint. Steve Mason and Andrew Raycrofts, those guys are more common than your Sawchuks.

 

[bobholly39]

These two are very much my guys this round but I have them flipped. Just so it's chronicled, curious how you see them? Hasn't been much Kiprusoff discussion at all.

An unrelated observation : There's a lot of guys who had the starting spot from a very young age in this round (Barasso, Beezer, Lumley, Fuhr, Joseph to an extent, Rayner). In previous rounds, there were numerous guys where I was like "just imagine if they would have had the reins when they were younger". I think a lot of these guys up for discussion currently prove that that is not necessarily always a good thing, career-wise, even if it can lead to an early Vezina or what-have-you. They almost all stumble after that.

Super rare for a goalie to carry those early career accolades into a meaningfully great career from an all-time standpoint. Steve Mason and Andrew Raycrofts, those guys are more common than your Sawchuks.

I also have Quick over Kiprusoff, and quite high in this round.

Does Quick have the best single playoff run out of any goaltender left to vote for in this project? Outside of Giguere, I think he might, and that's quite important to me.

Kiprusoff....I'm not sure, I just don't like him as much. I do find his run of 7 straight seasons of 70+ games played very impressive. I don't have him at the very bottom of my list, but definitely in the second half.

 

[bobholly39]

Beezer vs. Fuhr vs. Barrasso vs. Joseph in the playoffs.

Beezer 28-38, 0 Cups
Barrasso 61-54, 2 Cups
Fuhr 92-50, 4 Cups
Joseph 63-66, 0 Cups

I cannot generate much enthusiasm for Vanbiesbrouck.

My Best-Carey

To be honest I'm not crazy for any of these 4 goalies.

I normally try to rank players based on "resume" vs "ability" most of the time, but I find that for goalies in this project, I'm finding myself considering ability a lot more than resume, just because how much team structure and team play effects a goalie's performances.

Despite that - I do think that for someone like Fuhr, whose been around for 3 rounds, it's probably time to vote him in. He maybe wasn't the "best" goalie ever, but his resume is great. He did win all those cups. Yes - behind the greatest offensive powerhouse in the history of the sport - but you still needed a goalie to consistently stop more pucks than the other guy in a run and gun playstyle, and I think as such his resume and playoff record are important. I have him #1 among those 4.

I find Joseph to be pretty good too. I think he had bad luck. I think with slightly more luck, and especially team luck, he really could have had a couple of "wow" moments in his prime to really rise him up a few ranks. I think he was probably the best goalie among the 4 in terms of ability, even though Fuhr has the better resume.

I'm just not high on either Barasso or Vanbiesbrouck. I have both of them towards bottom of my list. I know Barasso has a good Vezina record, but I think he did that in some very weak year for goalies.

 

[rmartin65]

I also have Quick over Kiprusoff, and quite high in this round.

Does Quick have the best single playoff run out of any goaltender left to vote for in this project? Outside of Giguere, I think he might, and that's quite important to me.

Kiprusoff....I'm not sure, I just don't like him as much. I do find his run of 7 straight seasons of 70+ games played very impressive. I don't have him at the very bottom of my list, but definitely in the second half.

What's the argument for Quick outside of 1-2 (admittedly great) playoff runs?

@jigglysquishy provided Vezina shares and all star teams on the first page, and while I think we can all agree that they aren't perfect measures, I think they provide a good wide-lens picture of what goalies were generally thought of as the best of their time, and Quick looks terrible. A Vezina shares of only .75, well behind every other eligible goalie (who qualify for the metric) this round; Barrasso is at 1.98, Fuhr at 1.84, Vanbiesbrouck at 1.52, Kiprusoff is at 1.44, and Joseph is at 1.02. I mean, guys like Nabokov and Pete Peeters are beating Quick. Shesterkin, with really only 4 seasons captured, has a 1.02.

Quick also does poorly on the 1945-present all star teams tracking, beating only Joseph by that metric.

All this just supports what I said earlier- I never really felt that Quick was one of the top 2-3 goalies in the league.

 

[jigglysquishy]

For post Brodeur goalies, Quick is 17th in Vezina shares. We've voted in 4, Kiprusoff is 5th.

Ya, Quick is better than guys like Bobrovsky, Thomas, Holtby, Rask, and Nabokov who all have stronger Vezina shares than he does.

But I do think it's important to note that he was generally not considered a top 2-3 goalie by the voting block.

His Cup runs (particularly 2012) will weigh strongly though. It's just not his round.

 

[bobholly39]

What's the argument for Quick outside of 1-2 (admittedly great) playoff runs?

@jigglysquishy provided Vezina shares and all star teams on the first page, and while I think we can all agree that they aren't perfect measures, I think they provide a good wide-lens picture of what goalies were generally thought of as the best of their time, and Quick looks terrible. A Vezina shares of only .75, well behind every other eligible goalie (who qualify for the metric) this round; Barrasso is at 1.98, Fuhr at 1.84, Vanbiesbrouck at 1.52, Kiprusoff is at 1.44, and Joseph is at 1.02. I mean, guys like Nabokov and Pete Peeters are beating Quick. Shesterkin, with really only 4 seasons captured, has a 1.02.

Quick also does poorly on the 1945-present all star teams tracking, beating only Joseph by that metric.

All this just supports what I said earlier- I never really felt that Quick was one of the top 2-3 goalies in the league.

I think Quick's argument hinges very heavily on his great playoff runs for me - so I just wanted to say that for starters. There doesn't necessarily have to be a ton of other reasons to rank him high. I also had Giguere pretty high on my preliminary list based on his best playoff run, for example.

In regards to Vezina shares, they do matter, but you also have to consider the years. Most of Barasso's vezina successes comes in the mid to late 80s, a very weak stretch for top end goaltending in my opinion. In contrast - Quick's vezina success comes in the midst of the early 2010s, which I think was very strong for top goalie seasons.

Sometimes voting finishes don't tell a very good story.

I really like Jonathan Quick's Olympic performance i 2014 as well. He came very close to beating Canada in the semis, allowing only 1 goal on 37 shots.

 

[nabby12]

Quick was top 3 for me this round. How he played during those Kings' playoff runs in 2012 and 2014 cannot be understated enough. Even in 2013 when they lost the conference final, he was great.

And unlike a Tim Thomas for example, Quick had more than just one playoff run. You could certainly make the case that Quick was the best goalie in the world for that three-year run of 2012-2014.

 

[MXD]

My take on Quick : He did great with the hand he was dealt, which was a pretty good hand but not an absolute unit of a hand either. I think he had the exact skillset to excel in the situation he was put in, and I'm not QUITE sure he'd have done as well in other scenarios, neither do I think he was at any point amongst the.. say, four best netminders in the league if we go from a purely skill perspective.

But there's something to be said for achieving results. Which he did. He's in the middle of this pack as far as I'm concerned.

Also, something I came around to which definitely represents a change : Miikka Kiprusoff will rank above Curtis Joseph and John Vanbiesbrouck. The only thing the latter two does better is longevity and longevity-derived stats/performances. I don't think Kiprusoff gets enough credit for being an absolute workhorse for 7 straights years, and yes some of those season do look a bit weak, but keep in mind this wasn't done being a very good squand, and that every game he played was also a game Curtis McElhinney wasn't playing. And there's a lot of value in that.

 

[Professor What]

Just a side note, but it's funny to me how a goalie we've all seen play -- Quick in this case -- can have such wildly varying opinions. It's another reason for all of us to at least try to participate in discussions (something I'm trying to do better about myself). If you have a take, air it. Otherwise, your opinion won't have as big of a sway as it might otherwise. The votes aren't public yet, so while votes are what matter in the end, you can help affect how we get there.

 

[Weztex]

Just a side note, but it's funny to me how a goalie we've all seen play -- Quick in this case -- can have such wildly varying opinions. It's another reason for all of us to at least try to participate in discussions (something I'm trying to do better about myself). If you have a take, air it. Otherwise, your opinion won't have as big of a sway as it might otherwise. The votes aren't public yet, so while votes are what matter in the end, you can help affect how we get there.

Quick is a weird case.

He got a lot of mileage from those 2 cups and rightfully so. But what jumps at me is him constantly ranking among the top-10 in GAA while only having a single season with an elite SV%. I know SV% is generally brought up by facing more shot but still, I find it suspicious that those two stats don't show more correlation given that he played his peak behind that good of a defensive squad. As someone said, he probably had the perfect team for him to thrive but how much of a motor was he over there? Do those Kings have lesser results with let's say Pekka Rinne or Tuukka Rask? I'm not sure about that.

I also agree that the downfall of Esposito begins to look like character assassination. At what point the over-analysis of single games results and playing style 50 years after the facts stops outweighing the overwhelming amount of positive opinion from his contemporaries? I feel like people clearly having him as a NR this round may be swinging the pendulum too far in the opposite direction. I feel the same about Fuhr to a lesser extent. We're at a stage where it starts to look more like ''making a point'' than ''having a point''...

As for my personal lack of participation in the discussions, I'll wait for the next thread to tackle on that.

 

[Dr John Carlson]

Apologies for a late response...

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

Thank you for putting these together. A difference I'd have here is that I'm looking less at just raw seasons and more at meaningful seasons. As in, I don't know how much stock to put into LeSueur's OHA time, since it was not a strong league when he played, nor do I know how much stock to put into his last two years in the NHA with Toronto, when I don't believe he was all that good - though if that's not the correct reading of his performance there then obviously I'm willing to hear otherwise.

Holmes's first meaningful season IMO would be 13-14, and his last 27-28, so 15 years. 9 for LeSueur from 1906-1914. That's more where I'm looking at.

Definitely worse. Again, you aren't exactly breaking my heart here.

I'm not trying to ask 'gotcha' questions here, just trying to contextualize how LeSueur stacked up with contemporaries. So if we include Nicholson in the group above of LeSueur's contemporaries, it probably looks like this for meaningful length of career, right?

Lehman
Nicholson/Moran

Hern/LeSueur

Hutton

And then for Holmes, this is what I'd say it looks like:

Hainsworth

Lehman
Vezina (some grace allowed here for, you know, dying)
Holmes/Benedict (am I underrating pre-NHA Benedict?)

Hmm... looking at it in this way, we have two big outliers in Hutton and Hainsworth, and maybe not so much difference between the rest of the group.

You may be right in that I'm overrating Holmes's longevity here.

Whose career length was more out of the norm, LeSueur, or Kiprusoff?

Good question, and I had to think about it, but you're probably right in implying it's Kiprusoff.

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?

I think that's a point that you could take or leave and I wouldn't be offended either way. To me, it's a mark in his favour because it's tangible proof that teams were willing to pay him to give technical advice, which says that he knew what he was doing technically when he was actually playing. The same reason why I'm interested in how present Jacques Plante was after his playing career was over, the same reason why I put Wilf Cude on my initial list, who was somebody in the 30s/40s that was capable of offering technical feedback on goaltenders in newspapers. You don't want a guy as your goalie coach who, when he played, flopped around and hoped for the best, know what I mean?

"Penalized" and "this late" implies that there's a place that he belongs? But that's not how it should work. THIS is the ranking. Other rankings have no bearing.

I'm not referring to other rankings when I make that statement. What I meant was that Esposito's rep, award voting, statistics, longevity all paint a picture of a guy who should go higher than wherever he's about to end up.

 

[The Pale King]

You don't want a guy as your goalie coach who, when he played, flopped around and hoped for the best, you know what I mean?

Minor point here, but this is probably as good a chance as I'll get to mention that Robb Stauber runs a seemingly very successful goalie academy in Minneapolis. Has coached with the USA women's national team.

One of the most entertaining goalies to ever make the NHL, completely unconventional technique when he played though. Doesn't mean he can't be an excellent coach.