HOH Top 60 Goaltenders of All Time (2024 Edition) - Round 2, Vote 9

[rmartin65]

No, we need to account for everything. We can't just ignore that he gave a ton of goals.

We absolutely should be taking into account that he was scored on a lot... but I'd argue the context behind those numbers is more important.

If we aren't applying that context, I'm sure Tom Paton ranked really highly on your preliminary list, right?

Like MAF? Not really. But can you imagine him making the list if he NEVER beat his backup? We compare people to backups all the time.

Ah, sorry, I must have mixed you up with someone else.

But, it would help if you were factually accurate; using the Wiki stats you provided earlier, Moran had a 3.7 GAA while Harry Rochon had a GAA of 8.0. Small sample size, of course, but Moran blew his backup out of the water there.

We compare people to their backups all the time, but again, there is a context required. In 10-22 game seasons, sample sizes are so incredibly small. A bad game has a much more dramatic impact on averaging stats over 10 games than it does over 60 games.

@seventieslord used an even smaller sample in a Mike Liut playoff post earlier - where were the complaints then?

I must have missed that.

This is an irrational argument of a point you (possibly) don't support. The argument seems to be going to an unnecessary extreme (goals allowed don't matter at all!) to prop up Moran.

I'd like to see where I said goals allowed don't matter. I'm merely arguing that starting goalies are statistically outperformed by their backups at times. That doesn't make them any less great, it doesn't make the backups particularly special, it just means that, statistically, wacky things happen over small sample sizes.

No one is saying GAA is precise. A backup having a small advantage over a starter doesn't usually win you the Vezina. All those clever writers and GMs seem to know this based on voting.

Right... so Moran having a backup outperform him over a massive 1-4 game sample size shouldn't mean that Moran was not a historically great goalie, since just about all the hockey observers of the time considered Moran to be either the best or one of the best goalies of his era. It's literally the argument I am making.

Again, showing that someone was marginally ahead of someone else proves nothing. The goalies we like tend to be good at preventing goals. We can and have looked at team situations and accounted for players who had a higher degree of difficulty.

Yep- that's my point.

We're not arguing that he didn't belong in the league, just that he isn't more impactful all-time than a lot of great goaltenders.

But in the opinions of those who saw him and his contemporaries play, he was. It just goes back to what you trust here- an averaging stat over a small sample size that you even admit has it's flaws, or countless newspaper reports and eyewitness observations?

Surely we have to account for it. Why is Paddy Moran the one goalie in history for whom we throw out the metrics we use for everyone else?

Where has someone used GAA as the sole reason to denigrate a player's career during this project? It's definitely possible I skimmed over it.

It's a garbage stat. We should look at it, because it is a data point, but it is something I don't think we should be putting a lot of stock in... for any goalie, not just for Moran.

What's your opinion of say, Mike Richter? And if it's low, are you holding him accountable for things Paddy Moran gets a free pass for?

I'm not sold on Richter, at all. Contemporary opinion does not seem to hold him in near the same regard as Moran was held. Moran makes all star teams, gets called the best goalkeeper in the league over about a decade, later great goalies are compared to Moran, Moran was one of the first 3 living goalies (we'll say Connell counts) inducted into the HoF (Connell, Lehman, and Moran all made it in 1958), etc. Richter has next-to-no Vezina support, no post-season all star teams, and I think he's on the outside looking in when it comes to the HoF.

I'm definitely not down on Richter because of his GAA or save percentage or whatever. As I have stated numerous times, I personally don't care for goalie stats.

Or take it all into account. The man gave up a TON of goals relative to his peers. If we didn't have stats and were going by newspaper accounts alone, we might think Pavel Bure was more impactful than Wayne Gretzky.

I highly doubt a comprehensive review of post-game summaries, all star/awards voting, and the opinions of those that played with/against them would give us the impression that Bure was a more impactful player than Gretzky.

Anyway, again, no one is saying throw the stat out. All I'm doing is saying it is garbage and shouldn't be valued much.

It was something they had to get away with. Not an approved tool of the trade.

Wasn't that the case with Benedict for a long while as well? Isn't that part of the myth surrounding Benedict, that he was this pioneering rule-breaker?

Jan. 9: Boucher earns NHL-record fifth straight shutout | NHL.com (EDIT: It's a Today in NHL History thing, it makes sense, I swear!)

I'm definitely tracking that it was illegal and was eventually made legal. I'm arguing that Benedict wasn't special in this regard, that plenty of goalies dropped to their knees to stop the puck, risking a penalty to do so.

It's a good thing we have a non-garbage stat like Wins to show us what's what. And we're going the (technically correct) way of only counting the Cup games Moran played against the overmatched Maritimes teams and ignoring the games where he played for the "World Championship" and they beat the pants off of him, scoring at a level they couldn't achieve against the New Westminster Royals. That's not ALL on Moran, but we seem to be holding these newspaper accounts up as a significant accomplishment for reasons that escape me.

Wins is a garbage stat! Just like GAA. Just like save percentage. But hey, if people are posting GAA, why shouldn't we post Cup-deciding games as well? You argued that Moran "wasn't as impactful as he looked when it came to helping a team win"; that table shows that Moran helped his team win the Cup just as much than any other goalie eligible this round, and more than quite a few of them. We have his teams winning. We have quotes of Moran helping his teams win/lose less badly. If we put our hands together...

But hey, "While he was letting ten go through, there were ten hundred he didn’t let slip in." So long as you use that standard for everyone else too.

I sure do- I take game reports and contemporary opinions into account for each and every goalie eligible.

Unless you think that everyone else here is gullible enough to believe that Moran faced 1010 shots in the game and stopped 10 of them, I think we can all be trusted enough to recognize hyperbole like this. Have fun throwing this quote around, I don't think it's changing hearts and minds the way you think it is, though.

 

[rmartin65]

I'd feel better about the KHL years if I knew how it compares in strength to the old AHL. Bower and Lumley played in an era where AHL goaltending could be stronger because there were so few spots up for grabs in the NHL. I know that politics are a problem for Russian players in recent years and that it's not so easy for young players to get to North America, but I'm not sure that I see the KHL as being that much stronger than the AHL now. And there are 64 active goalie spots in the NHL today. I don't want to punish players for what politicians do, but I'm just not convinced that short of total dominance, a player in the KHL is proving much.

I think it's definitely worse than the AHL (on a relative basis). I didn't mean to give off the impression that the two were equal, just that we have been giving consideration to leagues outside of the NHL.

I don't think Shestyorkin was in the KHL because he couldn't handle the NHL; if we look at his play once he got to North America, he pretty much hit the ground running. To me, his KHL time shows that he was a quality goaltender for a good 3-4 years before he made the NHL, not that his KHL time shows that he was one of the best in the world for those years.

In other words, the KHL time doesn't bring his peak from 4 years to 9 years, it just extends his relevant career from 4 years to 9.

He's definitely still on the short end of the career length ruler (again, relative to his peers), but it's not prohibitively short, in my opinion. I don't think he's particularly high on my list this time around, but he's definitely above more than just 1-2 guys.

Unless future discussion changes my opinion, of course- @Michael Farkas , I know you said earlier in the thread that you didn't feel compelled to make a big public case for him this round, but I'd be really interested to read such an argument if you had the time over the next couple of days.

 

[seventieslord]

I highly doubt a comprehensive review of post-game summaries, all star/awards voting, and the opinions of those that played with/against them would give us the impression that Bure was a more impactful player than Gretzky.

Anyway, again, no one is saying throw the stat out. All I'm doing is saying it is garbage and shouldn't be valued much.

Also, it's not an equivalent situation at all. For two reasons. First of all, for forwards, The amount of offense that they generate that shows up on the score sheet is considered to be a huge part of their value as players, significantly more than goals against average has mattered historically for goaltenders. Secondly, we're being asked to imagine what we would think if we didn't have the stats for Gretzky and Bure. But the people who watched Moran play did have his stats, And still rated him that highly regardless. They had the opportunity to look at those numbers and ask themselves, are we wrong about how good he is? And largely did not do that.

 

[overpass]

Here's a fun story I found about Paddy Moran. In 1926, Canadiens and Maroons held an exhibition game at the Forum for their substitute players. The purpose was to gauge support for a possible minor pro league, and to give their substitutes more playing time.

Canadiens had Frenchy Lacroix in goal, who played several regular season games for them. But the Maroons had no backup goaltender, as Clint Benedict played every minute of that season for them. The 48 year old Paddy Moran donned the pads nearly a decade after his retirement and played in goal.

The Montreal Gazette commented on Moran's playing style and how the game had changed since his day.

Holway and Kitchen were sturdy on the Maroon defence, Holway in particular playing an aggressive game. But it was Paddy Moran, the former Quebec Bulldogs' goalkeeper, who provided the tense moments for the fans through his work in the Maroon net. Paddy gave a perfect demonstration of how the net guardians of old used to tend their citadels. In Moran's day the defence played further back and the goalkeeper was forced to rush from his net frequently to check onrushing opponents. Moran found it hard to stay in his goal last night. Frequently he brought the crowd to its feet cheering as he rushed out ten or fifteen feet and batted the puck out of harms way. But with the present style of attacks whirling in, goalkeepers are better off in the nets, which was demonstrated last night when Canadiens scored their last two and deciding goals into an open Maroon mesh.

Here are a few other articles about Moran.

D.A.L. MacDonald, who pored through the newspaper archives of early hockey in the 1930s, wrote a piece on Moran for the Gazette in 1934. MacDonald said of Moran: "At his peak, he was perhaps the best goaler of his time for when Paddy was "on" his game, he was well nigh unbeatable." But he also noted that Moran had a terrible temper. Opposing players like Newsy Lalonde and Russell Bowie could "get his goat", and "the wild Irishman chased forwards up the ice when they tantalized him with biting remarks, for Paddy wouldn't be ragged by anyone."

MacDonald remembers old-time hockey players in a 1948 column: "Moran was a really great goaler, one of the best that ever drew on the pads, but they tell that he had one great weakness and that was that his temper was short."

I think this one was posted already. In 1912, Moran, Lesueur, Morrison, and Merritt were named as the four greatest hockey goalkeepers. "Paddy Moran is perhaps the one best bet of the four...Paddy at times was backed by a team of indifferent merit, but his work did not suffer as a consequence." This was just before he won back-to-back Stanley Cups with Quebec.

In 1912, Paddy Moran was voted most popular player by Quebec fans. Moran and Joe Malone received the vast majority of votes.

Lester Patrick was believed to be the man responsible for presenting Moran's case to the Hall of Fame governors. Link.

 

[jigglysquishy]

I had previously done Chuck Rayner's Cup games, but now I'm including every playoff game.

1948 Playoffs
Detroit beats New York 2-1
Rangers 0 Red Wings 1

The Windsor Daily Star · ‎Mar 25, 1948

Rated as one of the weakest defensive clubs in the National League, the Gotham Blue Shirts crossed up everyone - including themselves - by electing to sit back on their haunches in the first period and wait for the breaks.

On several occasions in the first period they made Goalie Chuck Rayner come up with brilliant saves.

If Lumley appeared uncertain, Chuck Rayner, New York twinetender, was equally so, although it must be admitted that he made a number of fine saves from close in. It was when the Red Wings blasted away from long range that he didn't look so good.

Strictly on the basis of the way the rival goalies looked last night it wouldn't be surprising if it turned into a high scoring series.

Red Wings win 5-2
Rangers 0 Red Wings 2

The Windsor Daily Star · ‎Mar 27, 1948

The Rangers, although outplayed and outskated by a wide margin need offer no alibis. Defensively they were, and are, in bad shape.

Although Wings beat Ranger for two goals, enough to take the series opener, [Johnny] Walker [NY scout] was pleased with his performance.

Rangers win 3-2
Rangers 1 Red Wings 2

The Windsor Daily Star · ‎Mar 29, 1948

Chuck Rayner performing goal-tending miracles.

The Montreal Gazette · ‎Mar 29, 1948

Harry Lumley, who made a total of 13 saves compared to 22 for Chuck Rayner

Rangers win 3-1
Rangers 2 Red Wings 2

The Montreal Gazette · ‎Mar 31, 1948

Rayner Plays Standout Game

Claude Rayner made 31 saves for New York compared to 20 for Harry Lumley.

Red Wings win 3-1
Rangers 2 Red Wings 3

The Windsor Daily Star · ‎Apr 2, 1948

The battle-scarred Mr. Rayner, whose goal-tending has been the outstanding feature of an otherwise drab series, was well nigh invincible in kicking aside 36 shots to the 13 handled by his opponent, Harry Lumley.

Red Wings win 4-2
Rangers 2 Red Wings 4

The Calgary Herald · ‎Apr 7, 1948

Phil Watson was named by the Hockey Writers' Association as the outstanding Ranger player in the playoffs. Watson... more first-place ballots after finishing in a tie in points with Tony Leswick. Goalie Charles Rayner was third.

Three Rangers get any real praise this series: Rayner, Phil Watson, and Tony Leswick. The media is pretty harsh in the criticism of the team, particularly defensively. Rayner is the most praised Ranger though and maybe the most praised player overall. For Detroit, Ted Lindsay gets the most praise of any single player, followed closely by Red Kelly and Harry Lumley. You get a good sense of Lindsay being able to throw the Rangers off their game with his violence, but his costly penalties lose them game 4.

It's interesting how the NY media have Rayner third, but the Detroit media have Rayner first by quite a bit.


1950 Playoffs
Rangers beat Habs 3-1
Rangers 1 Habs 0

The Montreal Gazette · ‎Mar 30, 1950

The Rocket and Doug Harvey had several shots on Rayner, but he came up with some beautiful saves, particularly on Harvey's effort which was screened most of the way.

The Calgary Herald · ‎Mar 30, 1950

In all, Rayner made 30 stops while Durnan, the Vezina Trophy winner, chalked up 23.

Rangers win 3-2
Rangers 2 Habs 0

No relevant comments

Rangers win 4-1
Rangers 3 Habs 0

The Montreal Gazette · ‎Apr 3, 1950

Charlie Rayner shared honors with [Pentti]Lund by giving one of his finest exhibitions of puck-stopping, turning back the Habitant snipers time after time. He had 23 saves to Bill Durnan's 25, but Rayner had more tough chances than Bill.

Habs win 3-2 in OT
Rangers 3 Habs 1

Toledo Blade · ‎Apr 5, 1950

Rayner, who suffered a three-stick cut on his lip during the game, admitted that "it was the toughest game I've played in yet". Rayner turned aside 36 shots.

Rangers win 3-0
Rangers 4 Habs 1

The Pittsburgh Press · ‎Apr 7, 1950

Goalie Chuck Rayner was treated with praise aplenty today

The usually reticent [Monreal coach Dick] Irvin was lavish in his praise of Rayner, point out that "if they get the same sensational goal tending they got in this series, the Rangers surely will win the Stanley Cup"

For sure the most praised Ranger this series.


1950 Finals
Red Wings win 4-1
Shots: Rangers 25 Red Wings 26
Rangers 0 Red Wings 1

The Leader-Post · ‎Apr 12, 1950

The New York goalie had the tougher evening as most of the New York shots gave the Red Wing netminder little difficulty.

Rangers win 3-1
Rangers 1 Red Wings 1

The Windsor Daily Star · ‎Apr 14, 1950

With both Rayner and Lumley performing brilliantly there was no further scoring in the middle period.

Testing Rayner with several tough shots.

Red Wings win 4-0
Rangers 1 Red Wings 2

Saskatoon Star-Phoenix · ‎Apr 17, 1950

Although Lumley got the shutout, Rayner was the busier goalie. The NHL champions drove 33 shots at the New York goal.

Rangers win 4-3 in OT
Rangers 2 Red Wings 2

The Windsor Daily Star · ‎Apr 19, 1950

Goalie Harry Lumley, who has been the outstanding Detroit performer in this series.

Rangers win 2-1 in OT
Rangers 3 Red Wings 2

The Lewiston Daily Sun · ‎Apr 21, 1950

[OT goal scorer] Raleigh had to share the hero's role with New York goalie Chuck Rayner

Red Wings win 5-4
Rangers 3 Red Wings 3

Red Wings win 4-3 in double OT
Rangers 3 Red Wings 4
No post on Sundays because it's old-timey so both games are covered in the Monday paper

The Windsor Daily Star · ‎Apr 24, 1950

Rayner had to be at his brilliant best to hold them at bay.

Time and time again in the first overtime Rayner was all that saved the Rangers

Standout performances in a losing Ranger cause were undoubtedly Edgar Laprade and Goalie Chuck Rayner. Rayner played brilliantly all the way through. There were times, such as in last night's game and the one on Saturday, when he saves his team from being soundly time and time again.

Not a lot to take from this series. Lumley cleanly outplays him. The Rangers don't offer him much support throughout this series.


Overall, the Rangers just don't give him anything. He only plays in three playoff series, and in both Detroit series the Red Wings thoroughly outplay the Rangers. Rayner is generally spoken of positively in these playoffs, but I can't stress how poor the Rangers defense is spoken of time and again.


I will say, the "Gotham City Blue Shirts" is a tremendous nickname.

 

[blogofmike]

We absolutely should be taking into account that he was scored on a lot... but I'd argue the context behind those numbers is more important.

If we aren't applying that context, I'm sure Tom Paton ranked really highly on your preliminary list, right?

Paton? No. Jacques Plante did, even though he had no playoff success after the dynasty until expansion teams appeared, and the fact that Gump Worsley was a better goaltender behind the sad-sack Rangers.

Ah, sorry, I must have mixed you up with someone else.

I like Fleury over Liut. Not by a lot, but there's upside there.

But, it would help if you were factually accurate; using the Wiki stats you provided earlier, Moran had a 3.7 GAA while Harry Rochon had a GAA of 8.0. Small sample size, of course, but Moran blew his backup out of the water there.

We compare people to their backups all the time, but again, there is a context required. In 10-22 game seasons, sample sizes are so incredibly small. A bad game has a much more dramatic impact on averaging stats over 10 games than it does over 60 games.

Yes, but in pre-NHL hockey, it's the sample we've got. A 6-4 split in a 10 game season is as good as we're going to get.

I'd like to see where I said goals allowed don't matter. I'm merely arguing that starting goalies are statistically outperformed by their backups at times. That doesn't make them any less great, it doesn't make the backups particularly special, it just means that, statistically, wacky things happen over small sample sizes.


Right... so Moran having a backup outperform him over a massive 1-4 game sample size shouldn't mean that Moran was not a historically great goalie, since just about all the hockey observers of the time considered Moran to be either the best or one of the best goalies of his era. It's literally the argument I am making.

His career is a sequence of small samples. I don't know if anyone made a case for best goalie in the world when their backup was 2.2 goals per game better.

Yep- that's my point.

How many goals is Quebec knocking off the scoreboard by having Paddy Moran in nets, compared to say, John Ross Roach?

But in the opinions of those who saw him and his contemporaries play, he was. It just goes back to what you trust here- an averaging stat over a small sample size that you even admit has it's flaws, or countless newspaper reports and eyewitness observations?

Both, although most decent metrics use goals. We have Goals Saved Above Average, and have yet to generate Compliments Above Average.

Where has someone used GAA as the sole reason to denigrate a player's career during this project? It's definitely possible I skimmed over it.

It's a garbage stat. We should look at it, because it is a data point, but it is something I don't think we should be putting a lot of stock in... for any goalie, not just for Moran.

No it wasn't mentioned. It can be inferred as a major reason that (for me) Billy Smith and Grant Fuhr came in lower than they should, while we're swimming in goalies from the early 1910s and late 1920s and 1930s.

We're about to have the 5th goalie active from 1913-16 enter the list.

I'm not sold on Richter, at all. Contemporary opinion does not seem to hold him in near the same regard as Moran was held. Moran makes all star teams, gets called the best goalkeeper in the league over about a decade, later great goalies are compared to Moran, Moran was one of the first 3 living goalies (we'll say Connell counts) inducted into the HoF (Connell, Lehman, and Moran all made it in 1958), etc. Richter has next-to-no Vezina support, no post-season all star teams, and I think he's on the outside looking in when it comes to the HoF.

I'm definitely not down on Richter because of his GAA or save percentage or whatever. As I have stated numerous times, I personally don't care for goalie stats.

So you'd be higher on say, 2x Vezina winner Tim Thomas?

Wins is a garbage stat! Just like GAA. Just like save percentage. But hey, if people are posting GAA, why shouldn't we post Cup-deciding games as well? You argued that Moran "wasn't as impactful as he looked when it came to helping a team win"; that table shows that Moran helped his team win the Cup just as much than any other goalie eligible this round, and more than quite a few of them. We have his teams winning. We have quotes of Moran helping his teams win/lose less badly. If we put our hands together...

I sure do- I take game reports and contemporary opinions into account for each and every goalie eligible.

Unless you think that everyone else here is gullible enough to believe that Moran faced 1010 shots in the game and stopped 10 of them, I think we can all be trusted enough to recognize hyperbole like this. Have fun throwing this quote around, I don't think it's changing hearts and minds the way you think it is, though.

I'm entirely open to having someone explain to me how giving up all these goals is explained by context. I haven't seen it.

Also, it's not an equivalent situation at all. For two reasons. First of all, for forwards, The amount of offense that they generate that shows up on the score sheet is considered to be a huge part of their value as players, significantly more than goals against average has mattered historically for goaltenders. Secondly, we're being asked to imagine what we would think if we didn't have the stats for Gretzky and Bure. But the people who watched Moran play did have his stats, And still rated him that highly regardless. They had the opportunity to look at those numbers and ask themselves, are we wrong about how good he is? And largely did not do that.

Well how about this for an analogy?

Taking Paddy Moran over Mike Richter is akin to taking Paddy Driscoll over Eli Manning.

Hall of Famer Paddy Driscoll was named as the first 1st team All Pro Quarterback. However, he never completed a pass, as the forward pass wasn't popular yet (though technically legal). Eli Manning played in New York in a Golden Age of Quarterbacks and never came close to winning an award of any kind, but he had two great runs where he manages to slay the Patriots at the end.

And if Driscoll doesn't work for you, take just about any pre-Baugh QB who can lay claim to being the best. They hadn't quite figured out the basic principles of the position yet.

Or perhaps Paddy Moran was Ken Shamrock. He was around at the beginning of professional hockey and someone had to be one of the best of all time after a few years.


....Also, at this point I would like to say I like the Irish people....

The Montreal Gazette commented on Moran's playing style and how the game had changed since his day.

Holway and Kitchen were sturdy on the Maroon defence, Holway in particular playing an aggressive game. But it was Paddy Moran, the former Quebec Bulldogs' goalkeeper, who provided the tense moments for the fans through his work in the Maroon net. Paddy gave a perfect demonstration of how the net guardians of old used to tend their citadels. In Moran's day the defence played further back and the goalkeeper was forced to rush from his net frequently to check onrushing opponents. Moran found it hard to stay in his goal last night. Frequently he brought the crowd to its feet cheering as he rushed out ten or fifteen feet and batted the puck out of harms way. But with the present style of attacks whirling in, goalkeepers are better off in the nets, which was demonstrated last night when Canadiens scored their last two and deciding goals into an open Maroon mesh.

Assuming that the author is correct about how they played in the old days, I stand by Paddy Moran having a crowd pleasing style that wasn't the most efficient at goal prevention. If that's the way he played, I can see him giving back a few from time to time, especially against good teams (even pre-forward-pass).

 

[rmartin65]

Paton? No.

Why not? His GAA on Wiki looks pretty great. In 1887 he had a 2.0 GAA while the other goalie on the team had a 3.0. In 1888 he had a 1.0 GAA while the other goalie on the team had a 2.00. In 1889 he led the league in GAA. In 1890 he led the league in GAA. In 1891 he led the league in GAA. In 1892 he had a GAA of 2.2 while the other goalie on the team had a 10.0. In 1893 (his last season) he led the league.

That's an amazing GAA record.

Yes, but in pre-NHL hockey, it's the sample we've got. A 6-4 split in a 10 game season is as good as we're going to get.

You know what they say, though- garbage in, garbage out. Just because it's as good as what we are going to get doesn't mean we should be putting a whole lot of value on that particular metric.

His career is a sequence of small samples.

I mean, yeah, any sample size is just a sequence of small samples.

1907 was a bad year for Moran, no doubt. I don't think he was a top 3 goalie in the world that year- I don't care about the stats, but the game summaries make that pretty clear. However, that doesn't mean he was a bad goalie over the balance of his career. Quebec HC kept going back to him. Observers kept calling him the best goalie around, kept naming him to all star teams.

I don't know if anyone made a case for best goalie in the world when their backup was 2.2 goals per game better.

People were literally doing it for Moran. Moran was being called by many the best goalie around for over a decade, and later goalies were measured up to Moran.

Many of the people who saw him and his competition play considered Moran the best goalie in the world, regardless of the win/loss record and the goals given up. This isn't me trying to read between lines, they are literally naming him to all star teams and praising him profusely.

How many goals is Quebec knocking off the scoreboard by having Paddy Moran in nets, compared to say, John Ross Roach?

This feels like a weird question. I think Moran was greater relative to his peers than Roach, but I'm not going to put a number on it.

Both, although most decent metrics use goals. We have Goals Saved Above Average, and have yet to generate Compliments Above Average.

Why are numbers and averages so important to you? We have pages of game summaries and observations from people who actually watched the players play. Why does that need to be quantified? Not to pull from an old example, but I guess Cheechoo was the guy you want shooting the puck if you needed a goal in the 2005-2006 season. Not Jagr, not Kovalchuk, not Ovechkin, Cheechoo is your man because he scored the most goals. Who cares what the eye-test says, right?

No it wasn't mentioned. It can be inferred as a major reason that (for me) Billy Smith and Grant Fuhr came in lower than they should,

Sure, one could infer that. Or one could infer that people listened or made other arguments for why they went where they did.

while we're swimming in goalies from the early 1910s and late 1920s and 1930s.

I posted this earlier in the thread:

Decade	Calendar Years Active	Percent	% of Average	% of Average w/out 1800s
1880s	0	0.00	0.00	N/A
1890s	0	0.00	0.00	N/A
1900s	10	1.29	19.40	16.82
1910s	48	6.21	93.14	80.72
1920s	62	8.02	120.31	104.27
1930s	44	5.69	85.38	74.00
1940s	47	6.08	91.20	79.04
1950s	63	8.15	122.25	105.95
1960s	74	9.57	143.60	124.45
1970s	83	10.74	161.06	139.59
1980s	67	8.67	130.01	112.68
1990s	82	10.61	159.12	137.90
2000s	89	11.51	172.70	149.68
2010s	76	9.83	147.48	127.81
2020s	28	3.62	54.33	47.09

Yeah, the 1920s look pretty well covered, but not as much as the 70s, 90s, 2000s, or 2010.

I also looked at this group of players in comparison to other players born around their birth years-

Name	Birth Year	Number of Players on List Born within 5 Years of Birth Year	Players on List Born within 5 Years of Birth Year
Mike Richter	1966	7	Dominik Hasek, Patrick Roy, Ed Belfour, Grant Fuhr, Curtis Joseph, John Vanbiesbrouck, Tom Barrasso
Marc-Andre Fleury	1984	5	Henrik Lundqvist, Roberto Luongo, Carey Price, Jonathan Quick, Sergei Bobrovsky
Tuukka Rask	1987	4	Henrik Lundqvist, Carey Price, Jonathan Quick, Sergei Bobrovsky
Pekka Rinne	1982	4	Henrik Lundqvist, Roberto Luongo, Carey Price, Jonathan Quick
Gerry Cheevers	1940	4	Bernie Parent, Jiri Holecek, Tony Esposito, Rogie Vachon
Alec Connell	1902	3	Charlie Gardiner, Roy Worters, Tiny Thompson
Lorne Chabot	1900	3	Charlie Gardiner, Roy Worters, Tiny Thompson
John Ross Roach	1900	3	Charlie Gardiner, Roy Worters, Tiny Thompson
Igor Shesterkin	1995	2	Andrei Vasilevsky, Connor Hellebuyck
Ed Giacomin	1939	2	Jiri Holecek, Tony Esposito
Chuck Rayner	1920	2	Bill Durnan, Johnny Bower
Dave Kerr	1910	2	Frank Brimsek, Turk Broda
Mike Liut	1956	1	Vladislav Tretiak
Paddy Moran	1877	1	Percy LeSueur

Again, the guys who seem to be in "over-served" eras are the guys from the 70s, 90s, and 2010s.

We're about to have the 5th goalie active from 1913-16 enter the list.

We have 10 goalies active in 2010 alone already added (and are talking about MAF, Shestyorkin, and Rinne). 10 goalies active in 2002. 11 in 2000, 1970, and 1969.

Looks like we are undervaluing the 1913-1916 bracket if anything.

So you'd be higher on say, 2x Vezina winner Tim Thomas?

Higher than Richter? He wasn't on my preliminary list, but having looked at Richter some more, yeah, I'd have Thomas ahead.

I'm entirely open to having someone explain to me how giving up all these goals is explained by context. I haven't seen it.

When his teams were bad, his GAA was bad. When his teams were good, his GAA was good.

Well how about this for an analogy?

Taking Paddy Moran over Mike Richter is akin to taking Paddy Driscoll over Eli Manning.

Hall of Famer Paddy Driscoll was named as the first 1st team All Pro Quarterback. However, he never completed a pass, as the forward pass wasn't popular yet (though technically legal). Eli Manning played in New York in a Golden Age of Quarterbacks and never came close to winning an award of any kind, but he had two great runs where he manages to slay the Patriots at the end.

And if Driscoll doesn't work for you, take just about any pre-Baugh QB who can lay claim to being the best. They hadn't quite figured out the basic principles of the position yet.

I don't really have a problem with that kind of logic. It sounds like Driscoll was a better QB based on the understanding and responsibilities of the position than Eli Manning was.

I don't care that the basic principles of the position hadn't been figured out, because all the players in that era were on a level playing field in that regard. As I've said a couple times, I value a players' standings relative to his peers more than how much a player plays the position according to how we understand how it should be played today.

Or perhaps Paddy Moran was Ken Shamrock. He was around at the beginning of professional hockey and someone had to be one of the best of all time after a few years.

For sure that's part of the deal. You'll notice I'm not putting Moran up with Hasek, Plante, Roy, etc- I'm not making that argument. I'm saying he was historically greater than the other players we are debating this round because he was better in comparison with his peers than the other goalies eligible this round were/are.

Assuming that the author is correct about how they played in the old days, I stand by Paddy Moran having a crowd pleasing style that wasn't the most efficient at goal prevention.

There is no evidence of this.

If that's the way he played, I can see him giving back a few from time to time, especially against good teams (even pre-forward-pass).

That quote says that's how the position was played in Moran's day, not that Moran was unique in that style of play.