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HOH Top Goaltenders of All Time Preliminary Discussion Thread

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Dennis Bonvie said:
The fact that Luongo fell on his face in the finals and cost his team a Cup only a year ago for everyone to see certainly hurts his cause. Not redeeming himself this year also leaves a negative image.
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that's revisionist. Vancouver could have won that series.

Thomas pitched two shutouts; you can't fault him for losing those games; just by allowing one goal, he loses. He also pitched one shutout himself.
 
seventieslord said:
that's revisionist. Vancouver could have won that series.

Thomas pitched two shutouts; you can't fault him for losing those games; just by allowing one goal, he loses. He also pitched one shutout himself.
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Luongo gave up 4 goals on 20 shots in the first Thomas shutout and was yanked.

Luongo gave up 3 goals on 20 shots in the final game.

He didn't keep his team in either game.

In game 6, with a chance to win the Cup, Luongo gave up 3 goals in the first 8 minutes on 8 shots and was pulled again. Canucks clearly lost confidence in him.

Not to mention his silly critizism of Thomas on the carom-off-the-boards goal.

Revisionist? I think not.
 
Dennis Bonvie said:
Luongo gave up 4 goals on 20 shots in the first Thomas shutout and was yanked.

Luongo gave up 3 goals on 20 shots in the final game.

He didn't keep his team in either game.

In game 6, with a chance to win the Cup, Luongo gave up 3 goals in the first 8 minutes on 8 shots and was pulled again. Canucks clearly lost confidence in him.

Not to mention his silly critizism of Thomas on the carom-off-the-boards goal.

Revisionist? I think not.
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and if his team wasn't going to beat Thomas, what did it matter?
 
Dennis Bonvie said:
Not to mention his silly critizism of Thomas on the carom-off-the-boards goal.

Revisionist? I think not.
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That's pretty revisionist. Luongo's comment wasn't a criticism of Thomas' lack of ability to make a save. He was only saying that he would have been more inclined to make that save due to his playing style. Nothing more.
 
seventieslord said:
and if his team wasn't going to beat Thomas, what did it matter?
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There's a big difference between down 1-0 or down 3-0. You play with more energy in a one goal game. You can't simply say Thomas was going to have a shutout no matter what Luongo did. Clearly Luongo's poor play in the Vancouver losses had a negative affect on his team, not to mention the confidence it gave Boston.
 
Jagorim Jarg said:
That's pretty revisionist. Luongo's comment wasn't a criticism of Thomas' lack of ability to make a save. He was only saying that he would have been more inclined to make that save due to his playing style. Nothing more.
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It was a pretty big deal, even if it was media-hyped.

You can say it wasn't criticism, but it was still a really stupid thing to say in a really big situation. Why comment on the other goalie when you just won a 1-0 game in the Cup finals?
 
Dennis Bonvie said:
There's a big difference between down 1-0 or down 3-0. You play with more energy in a one goal game. You can't simply say Thomas was going to have a shutout no matter what Luongo did. Clearly Luongo's poor play in the Vancouver losses had a negative affect on his team, not to mention the confidence it gave Boston.
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That's speculative.

Dennis Bonvie said:
It was a pretty big deal, even if it was media-hyped.

You can say it wasn't criticism, but it was still a really stupid thing to say in a really big situation. Why comment on the other goalie when you just won a 1-0 game in the Cup finals?
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I fail to see how this affects his standing on the final list.
 
i'm actually mostly with bonvie here (except the postgame comments after burrows' OT goal, which is completely irrelevant in my opinion). while luongo no doubt was excellent in the three games the canucks won, he was mediocre-to-terrible in the four games they lost.

and, as happened in the three chicago series as well, when the team's wheels start falling off (usually the defense), so do luongo's. despite his very very good regular season record, that keeps him from being any higher than giacomin/vachon/beezer status despite the fact that he has had moments in the playoffs as good as almost any goalie of his generation ('07 against dallas, certain points in the '11 finals run).

i don't think it's quite as cut-and-dry as the team loses confidence in him, or that the team loses confidence in itself, when he falters. it's been, to this point, a mentally weak group and they all lose confidence collectively. but that's what you want your superstar goalie to do; you want him to be patrick roy and say, "i got this one, guys." if the team can only manage one goal on tim thomas, then luongo has to get a shutout. easier said than done, but we are talking about the greatest goalies of all time here.

all that said, i still think he's probably higher than giacomin given his longevity and otherwise nearly identical achievements. it's just that luongo's playoff failures are fresher in our minds than giacomin's were (i obviously didn't see them, but i understand that giacomin's were not pretty either).

depending on how the rest of luongo's career goes, and it's almost impossible to speculate what will happen at this point, i think he has a chance of catching cujo just by continuing to compile 30 win seasons. but he'd have to really put it together in the playoffs to get any higher than that. i foresee lively debates about luongo vs. thomas, actually. you'd want to go with luongo due to nearly as high of a peak and a much much much longer prime, but, as bonvie said, we all saw the '11 finals and after seeing that, luongo > thomas is pretty hard to accept.
 
Dennis Bonvie said:
There's a big difference between down 1-0 or down 3-0. You play with more energy in a one goal game. You can't simply say Thomas was going to have a shutout no matter what Luongo did. Clearly Luongo's poor play in the Vancouver losses had a negative affect on his team, not to mention the confidence it gave Boston.
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i also want to add that i don't think it's necessarily that the canucks play differently when luongo gives up the first, second, or third goal. in fact, it's the opposite; the problem is they don't play differently until he lets in the fourth one. that's when they start pressing, and before you know it, people are calling your goalie "7uongo."

i don't think that's luongo's fault, necessarily, though he's been there long enough to know his team and he was the captain, so he should feel a responsibility not to let in the first one under any circumstances. obviously, no goalie ever intends to let in a goal, but the team takes on the personality of its coach more than it does the sedins or luongo. that coach stresses patience, always playing the same smart safe hockey, saying that the chances and goals will find you, don't go out of your way to find them. it's been mostly successful, in the regular season at least. for two years, the team won the presidents trophy by playing rope-a-dope hockey, waiting and waiting and waiting until the five minute mark of the third when the opposition has been cycled into a daze and is tired, and then BOOM, two sedin/burrows goals. it was even working in the first two home games of the finals, but ultimately it's probably not a winning strategy if you're looking for the big prize.
 
Jagorim Jarg said:
It was a big deal because it was media hyped out of context.
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The media took the words in the context in which they were spoken - one goaltender in the Cup Finals commenting on the other goaltender. What other context could there be for Luongo's words under the circumstances? It wasn't as if they were pulled from his teenage diary or something.

In fact Luongo spoke out of context. He made an observation that would be innocuous coming from an outside observer. But he forgot that he was Thomas's opponent and a participant in the action. It wasn't the right context for him to comment as an observer.
 
vadim sharifijanov said:
and, as happened in the three chicago series as well, when the team's wheels start falling off (usually the defense), so do luongo's. despite his very very good regular season record, that keeps him from being any higher than giacomin/vachon/beezer status despite the fact that he has had moments in the playoffs as good as almost any goalie of his generation ('07 against dallas, certain points in the '11 finals run).
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That being said, Giacomin ought to be in the top 40 and Vachon and Beezer should be in most top 60s.
 
Luongo wasn't even on the margins of my top-60 list. A regular season workhorse with little actual greatness. He's more of a high expectations disappointment than anything; that's the story of his career. (He's a clear step down from the Beezer, no doubt.)

Lundqvist, Miller, Khabibulin, Thomas make my top-60 because they have shown greatness multiple times, have peak and career impressiveness and most have been spectacular at key times in the playoffs or tourney play.

By the way, I like Luongo very much. He just hasn't taken his game to the next level. Luongo's the best goalie the Canucks franchise has ever had imo, and I loved King Richard to death!!! But he ain't top-60 all-time imo, from what I've ever seen. Top-100 definitely. But others push him out of top-60 and certainly top-40 contention. I'd rather put in the 50-60 range a possible top-40 all-time guy with question marks than a guy I definitely think below the level of play of guys in the 40-60 range.
 
overpass said:
Think about all the hockey games in which the losing coach could have said this.
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But that's how close it was. Three or four bounces going the other way would have changed the hands that raised the Cup.

Given that I don't see how the Canucks' strategy could decisively be called one that doesn't win you the big prize.
 
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vadim sharifijanov said:
i also want to add that i don't think it's necessarily that the canucks play differently when luongo gives up the first, second, or third goal. in fact, it's the opposite; the problem is they don't play differently until he lets in the fourth one. that's when they start pressing, and before you know it, people are calling your goalie "7uongo."
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TBH I'm not sure it makes that much difference whether his play affects his teammates.

The important thing in those specific games was that he was giving a Claude Julien coached team with Tim Thomas in net, Zdeno Chara at defense and a Krejci-Bergeron-Kelly-Campbell center group a multiple-goal lead in a Finals game. At that point it doesn't really matter what the Canucks do, it's what the Bruins do that counts -- tighten the screws, clear the lanes, and give Thomas the comfort of knowing he can battle for every save and not get burned by letting in a game-tying goal. Spotting a team like the 2011 Bruins a 2 or 3 goal lead is like starting a round of golf by hitting your ball into quicksand.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that Luongo could or couldn't have won those games, but it's definitely true that Tim Thomas is will find it easier to shut the Canucks out 4-0 than 1-0.
 
tarheelhockey said:
TBH I'm not sure it makes that much difference whether his play affects his teammates.

The important thing in those specific games was that he was giving a Claude Julien coached team with Tim Thomas in net, Zdeno Chara at defense and a Krejci-Bergeron-Kelly-Campbell center group a multiple-goal lead in a Finals game. At that point it doesn't really matter what the Canucks do, it's what the Bruins do that counts -- tighten the screws, clear the lanes, and give Thomas the comfort of knowing he can battle for every save and not get burned by letting in a game-tying goal. Spotting a team like the 2011 Bruins a 2 or 3 goal lead is like starting a round of golf by hitting your ball into quicksand.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that Luongo could or couldn't have won those games, but it's definitely true that Tim Thomas is will find it easier to shut the Canucks out 4-0 than 1-0.
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good point.

i will go to my grave believing that these current canucks' achilles heel isn't luongo (though he has admittedly been terrible at many key moments) but the complete inability/unwillingness to adapt when circumstances change (which isn't only why a 4-0 game stays a 4-0 game, but also how a 1-0 game turns into a 4-0 game in the blink of an eye). but i think you're right: against that particular bruins team, you spot them any more than a one goal lead and it's probably game over no matter how well you adapt.


Nalyd Psycho said:
That being said, Giacomin ought to be in the top 40 and Vachon and Beezer should be in most top 60s.
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i don't know much about giacomin beyond received opinions, reading bios, and looking at his hockey-reference page. can you make an argument?
 
vadim sharifijanov said:
i don't know much about giacomin beyond received opinions, reading bios, and looking at his hockey-reference page. can you make an argument?
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Twice a 1st team all-star. Three time second team all-star. Only 10 players ever have better finishes than that. Even factoring in that he was the best goalie in between the Plante/Sawchuk/Hall generation and Esposito/Dryden/Parent emerging, that there are goalies ahead of him that were not eligible for either and a sub par playoff record, there is no way to have 30 goalies surpass that.
 
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