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HOH Top Goaltenders of All Time Preliminary Discussion Thread

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NHL All Star Teams 1930-2012

Name|1st Teams|2nd Teams|Total
Glenn Hall|7|4|11
Frank Brimaek|2|6|8
Terry Sawchuk|3|4|7
Jacques Plante|3|4|7
Martin Brodeur|3|4|7
Bill Durnan|6|0|6
Dominik Hasek|6|0|6
Ken Dryden|5|1|6
Patrick Roy|4|2|6
Tony Esposito|3|2|5
Ed Giacomin|2|3|5
Charlie Gardiner|3|1|4
Tiny Thompson|2|2|4
Turk Broda|2|1|3
Ed Belfour|2|1|3
Tom Barrasso|1|2|3
Chuck Rayner|0|3|3
Harry Lumley|2|0|2
Bernie Parent|2|0|2
Tim Thomas|2|0|2
Dave Kerr|1|1|2
Gump Worsley|1|1|2
Mike Liut|1|1|2
Grant Fuhr|1|1|2
John Vanbiesbrouck|1|1|2
Roy Worters|0|2|2
Wilf Cude|0|2|2
Charlie Hodge|0|2|2
Rogie Vachon|0|2|2
Don Edwards|0|2|2
Glenn Resch|0|2|2
Roberto Luongo|0|2|2
John Ross Roach|1|0|1
Lorne Chabot|1|0|1
Normie Smith|1|0|1
Johnny Bower|1|0|1
Billy Smith|1|0|1
Pete Peeters|1|0|1
Pelle Lindbergh|1|0|1
Ron Hextall|1|0|1
Jim Carey|1|0|1
Olaf Kolzig|1|0|1
Miikka Kiprusoff|1|0|1
Evgeni Nabokov|1|0|1
Ryan Miller|1|0|1
Henrik Lundqvist|1|0|1
Earl Robertson|0|1|1
Paul Bibeault|0|1|1
Mike Karakas|0|1|1
Jim Henry|0|1|1
Gerry McNeil|0|1|1
Mario Lessard|0|1|1
Roland Melanson|0|1|1
Pat Riggin|0|1|1
Bob Froese|0|1|1
Darren Puppa|0|1|1
Kirk McLean|0|1|1
Chris Osgood|0|1|1
Byron Dafoe|0|1|1
Roman Turek|0|1|1
Roman Cechmanek|0|1|1
Jose Theodore|0|1|1
Marty Turco|0|1|1
Steve Mason|0|1|1
Ilya Bryzgalov|0|1|1
Pekka Rinne|0|1|1
Jonathan Quick|0|1|1
 
Embarking in a completely different direction -- anyone have thoughts on how to rank goalies from the 1980s? I know Smith and Fuhr have been the source of a lot of discussion here, and Liut seems to kind of hover in the background. And then there's Lindbergh, who is a completely unique case, and guys like Hextall and Vernon who were only partially of that generation.
 
tarheelhockey said:
Embarking in a completely different direction -- anyone have thoughts on how to rank goalies from the 1980s? I know Smith and Fuhr have been the source of a lot of discussion here, and Liut seems to kind of hover in the background. And then there's Lindbergh, who is a completely unique case, and guys like Hextall and Vernon who were only partially of that generation.
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My list which needs a little revision has the 80s goalies as such:

Billy Smith
John Vanbiesbrouck
Grant Fuhr
Tom Barrasso
Mike Richter
Mike Vernon
Ron Hextall
Mike Liut
Pete Peeters


Lindbergh didn't crack my top 60.
 
From what I can tell they had a similar peak, but Peeters has a half decade as a starting goalie tacked on the end. For career value I have to take Peeters.
 
If you don't count Roy an 80s goalie, then the best goalies of the 80s are typically Smith and Fuhr, with three all-star teams between them. It seems so.... "default-y". They had the best teams, they won the most cups. Were they actually the best goalies? The narratives appear to say so, but in more recent times we have seen goalies get a disproportionately high share of the credit for being on a good team (Osgood, Fleury being great examples, and of course Brodeur has been overrated to a degree that no one can really settle on). So can we really be sure?

The decade seemed to just be a crapshoot as far as predicting which goalie was going to have the best season. I am not sure of the exact figures, but the 80s have to have the most individual AST members among goalies, and the weakest list of leaders (Roy, Liut, Fuhr, Barrasso, 2 apiece, 12 once each)

No one really seemed to carry their 1970s dominance into the 80s (Parent, Dryden and Esposito all saw their careers end within a few years), no one who was considered good in the 80s and was playing in the 70s really did anything then (Smith, Liut) and not many who were considered any good in the 80s did much in the 90s (obviously Roy, but then who? Barrasso? Fuhr? Beezer? Vernon?). Within a few short years, a whole new generation of elite goalies had taken over - Joseph, Belfour, Hasek, Brodeur - with Roy just getting a few years headstart on them all. Indications are that it was a pretty weak era for goalies. Forwards were ahead of the curve and that was probably part of why scoring spiked.
 
seventieslord said:
If you don't count Roy an 80s goalie, then the best goalies of the 80s are typically Smith and Fuhr, with three all-star teams between them. It seems so.... "default-y". They had the best teams, they won the most cups. Were they actually the best goalies? The narratives appear to say so, but in more recent times we have seen goalies get a disproportionately high share of the credit for being on a good team (Osgood, Fleury being great examples, and of course Brodeur has been overrated to a degree that no one can really settle on). So can we really be sure?

The decade seemed to just be a crapshoot as far as predicting which goalie was going to have the best season. I am not sure of the exact figures, but the 80s have to have the most individual AST members among goalies, and the weakest list of leaders (Roy, Liut, Fuhr, Barrasso, 2 apiece, 12 once each)

No one really seemed to carry their 1970s dominance into the 80s (Parent, Dryden and Esposito all saw their careers end within a few years), no one who was considered good in the 80s and was playing in the 70s really did anything then (Smith, Liut) and not many who were considered any good in the 80s did much in the 90s (obviously Roy, but then who? Barrasso? Fuhr? Beezer? Vernon?). Within a few short years, a whole new generation of elite goalies had taken over - Joseph, Belfour, Hasek, Brodeur - with Roy just getting a few years headstart on them all. Indications are that it was a pretty weak era for goalies. Forwards were ahead of the curve and that was probably part of why scoring spiked.
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Yeah in that regard, do we think that Barrasso with his two Cups in the early 90s is the strongest post-80s career? Beezer and Fuhr piled up some counting stats with middling teams, Vernon got onto a strong team and won that weak Smythe in 1997 with the Wings while splitting those seasons with Osgood. If you take out their 80's accomplishments (which for most aren't that strong to begin with), I have no idea who has the best supporting resume. Alas, the problem has arisen with the run and gun 80's. I feel like part of the issue is the way that the 80s were played it was nearly impossible to look consistent in net for a three season peak consecutively.
 
The difference between the modern game and the 80s game makes it especially hard to judge goalies.

Consider: 1989-90: GAA: 3.56 SV%: .881 2011-12: GAA: 2.54 SV%: .914

Only 5 goalies in 11-12 have a GAA 3.56 or higher, and they played a total of 690m32s.

Add in playing for mediocre to terrible teams, and Glenn Resch and Gilles Meloche look too bad to make a top 80s goalies list.

Resch might have been as good or better in Col/NJ than he was for the Isles, but he wasn't going to get the same award recognition.

Resch swept the Devils' team awards in 82-83. He received multiple Hart and Vezina votes, and even stole 2 1st place all-star votes from Pete Peeters, but didn't even get into the all-star game.
 
For all intents and purposes, the earliest that the "80's" ended was 1993...due to similar play style and goaltending style at the time...

Just speaking for Barrasso, he wasn't terribly good after the Cups...while he put together a near-Conn Smythe performance the year before, he might have gone a long way to preventing a dynasty in 1993 and once again in 1996 - the latter wasn't totally his fault as the Pens were grounded by the defensive-minded Panthers, but conventional wisdom suggests that Wregget probably gets that team to the Finals...

The only year that Barrasso really re-emerges, per se, is late in his career when the very defensive-minded, bordering on drill instructor, Kevin Constantine took over...which, if memory serves, didn't serve Jagr very well and he was quickly dispatched...

I don't want to drag Barrasso through the mud or anything, he was a really good goalie and the two goals that he is best known for giving up were 2-on-1's (Volek's in 1993, Fitzgerald's in 1996), if he stops them both, he might be in the HHOF - perhaps (though, it's a touch presumptious with Fitzgerald's, as it put the Panthers up 3 to 1 very late in the 3rd and the Pens likely would have had a lot of trouble with the Avs in the Finals anyway).

It's just very interesting that Barrasso is seemingly remembered for being victimized in 1993 and 1996 and the most famous save of the Penguins would-be dynasty was by Frank Pietrangelo...

Barrasso was top-notch in the late 80's and early 90's though...his prime is a) rather early in his career b) very good vs. goalies of the same era
 
vecens24 said:
Yeah in that regard, do we think that Barrasso with his two Cups in the early 90s is the strongest post-80s career? Beezer and Fuhr piled up some counting stats with middling teams, Vernon got onto a strong team and won that weak Smythe in 1997 with the Wings while splitting those seasons with Osgood. If you take out their 80's accomplishments (which for most aren't that strong to begin with), I have no idea who has the best supporting resume. Alas, the problem has arisen with the run and gun 80's. I feel like part of the issue is the way that the 80s were played it was nearly impossible to look consistent in net for a three season peak consecutively.
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Good point.

Playing for the best teams in the 80s meant playing for the best offensive teams. Fuhr's ability allowed the Oilers to play their wide-open style. Smith stepped up his play in the playoffs perhaps more than any goalie ever. They were the class of the 80s along with Roy.
 
One could argue that Tretiak was the best goalie of the 80s. I think there's a good case that his true peak was in the first half of the 80s
 
International and European Domestic Accomplishments

USSR

Nikolai Khabibulin
•Olympics Best Goalie (2002)

Viktor Konovalenko
•Soviet League All Star (1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1970)
•Soviet Player of the Year (1970)
•World Championships All Star (1970)

Vladimir Myshkin
•Soviet League All Star (1985)
•Canada Cup All Star (1984)

Nikolai Puchkov
•Soviet League All Star (1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1962)
•World Championships Best Goalie (1959)

Vladislav Tretiak
•Soviet League All Star (1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984)
•Soviet Player of the Year (1974, 1975, 1976, 1982, 1983)
•World Championships Best Goalie (1974, 1979, 1983)
•World Championships All Star (1975, 1979, 1983)
•Canada Cup All Star (1981)
•Canada Cup MVP (1981)

CSSR

Note: not including Golden Stick finishes after NHL players became eligible

Vladimir Dzurilla
•CSSR Golden Stick 1st Among Goalies (1969, 1970, 1972, 1977)
•World Chanpionships Best Goalie (1965)
•World Championships All Star (1965, 1969)

Dominik Hasek
•CSSR Golden Stick Winner (1987, 1989, 1990)
•CSSR Golden Stick 1st Among Goalies (1986, 1987, 1989, 1990)
•World Championships Best Goalie (1987, 1989)
•World Championships All Star (1987, 1989, 1990)
•Olympics Best Goalie (1998)

Jiri Holecek
•CSSR Golden Stick Winner (1974)
•CSSR Golden Stick 1st Among Goalies (1971, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1978)
•World Chanpionships Best Goalie (1971, 1973, 1975, 1976, 1978)
•World Championships All Star (1971, 1972, 1973, 1976, 1978)

Jiri Kralik
•CSSR Golden Stick winner (1985)
•CSSR Golden Stick 1st Among Goalies (1979, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1985)
•World Championships Best Goalie (1982, 1985)
•World Championships All Star (1982, 1985)

Tomas Vokoun
•World Chanpionships Best Goalie (2005)
•World Chanpionships All Star (2005)

Sweden

Leif Holmqvist
•Golden Puck winner (1968, 1970)
•World Championship Best Goalie (1969)

Peter Lindmark
•Golden Puck winner (1981)
•World Championships Best Goalie (1981, 1986)
•World Championships All Star (1981, 1986)

Henrik Lundqvist
•Golden Puck winner (2005)
•World Championships All Star (2004)

Tommy Salo
•Olympics All Star (1994)
•World Chanpionships Best Goalie (1997, 1999)
•World Chanpionships All Star (1997, 1998, 1999)

Finland

Antero Niitymaki
•Olmypics Best Player (2006)
•Olympics Best Goalie (2006)
•Olympics All Star (2006)

Canada

Martin Brodeur
•World Cup All Star (2004)

Seth Martin
•World Chanpionships Best Goalie (1961, 1963, 1964, 1966)
•World Chanpionships All Star (1961, 1964, 1966)

Bill Ranford
•Canada Cup All Star (1991)
•Canada Cup MVP (1991)
•World Championships Best Goalie (1994)

Rogie Vachon
•Canada Cup All Star (1976)

USA

Roy Leblanc
•Olmypics All Star (1992)

Ryan Miller
•Olympics Best Player (2010)
•Olympics Best Goalie (2010)
•Olympics All Star (2010)

Mike Richter
•World Cup All Star (1996)
•World Cup MVP (1996)
•Olympics All Star (2002)
 
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Does Seth Martin have a case for our list? He didn't turn pro because he'd lose his pension. Instead he became Canada's starter in International Tournaments in the 1960s and has a better record than any European goalie of the time. The two great European goalies of the next generation (Holecek and Tretiak) are both said to have modelled their games on Martin.

I have a hard time ranking Konovalenko over Martin, when the later is so much more decorated in international tournaments.

Perhaps Tretiak really was the only truly great Soviet goalie. On the other hand, I'm going to give serious consideration to both Dzurilla and Kralik.
 
Konovalenko is typically overrated. It seems to have been glossed over that Tarasov blamed goaltending for their occasional international failures.
 
seventieslord said:
Konovalenko is typically overrated. It seems to have been glossed over that Tarasov blamed goaltending for their occasional international failures.
Click to expand...

I agree with you here. The awards data backs it up too - never selected best goalie at the WCs by the directorate, only once selected WC All Star by the media.
 
TheDevilMadeMe said:
One could argue that Tretiak was the best goalie of the 80s. I think there's a good case that his true peak was in the first half of the 80s
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Please make the argument then.

If Tretiak was the best goalie of the 80s, how come both Kralik, Lindmark and Hasek got more international awards during the decade? If Tretiak is the 8th best goalie ever (2009 HOH list) I would expect him to separate himself a bit more from his competition during his peak.

I know that awards are not everything, but Tretiak does not seem to have dominated his competition in international play (which was the top level he was able to play at) during neither the 70s nor the 80s.

One can either explain this as some sort of voter bias against Tretiak. Without something concrete to support this stance I find this a farfetched explanation though.

I think the more reasonable explanation is that the quality of Tretiak's competition (Holecek, Lindmark, Kralik) was higher than we give them credit for. The quality of play in the World Championship was at its peak in the 80s, with the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Sweden all sending most of their best players. All three countries produced elite defencemen and forwards during this time. It's only reasonable to assume that the quality of the goaltenders was at the same level.

I think the moderators should be very sceptical of any submitted top 60 list that has Tretiak as the only non-NA league goalie.
 
steve141 said:
One can either explain this as some sort of voter bias against Tretiak. Without something concrete to support this stance I find this a farfetched explanation though.
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This is not a farfetched assumption.

Here are the team rankings of the best goaltender at the world championships from 1954 to 1983:

Gold medal: 7
Silver medal: 11
Bronze medal: 4
4th place: 6
5th place: 1

In addition to that, between 1962 and 1985 Tretiak and Holocek were the only two goalies to be voted best goalie on a gold medal winning team.

Holocek was named best goalie five times, but only one of those came in the three tournaments where he helped the Czechs to the gold medal. That's about the same ratio as Tretiak (3 best goalies on 10 gold medal teams).

That doesn't necessarily mean that the voters were wrong or that Holocek wasn't better than Tretiak, but it's certainly possible that he (and some of the other goalies that you mentioned) simply seemed more valuable, and subjective considerations become very important when evaluating performances in short tournaments.

The other problem with awards voting is that you either win best goalie or you don't, whether you were the second-best goalie or the worst one there. If there were second and third All-Star teams, it is virtually certain that Tretiak's name would have been all over them. Some of Tretiak's most brilliant performances internationally also came outside of the world championships, including the '72 Summit Series and the '81 Canada Cup (where he was tournament MVP), so simply comparing world championship all-star team nominations is certainly incomplete at best.

All that said, I do think that Tretiak's competition was probably much closer than given credit for, and that Tretiak may still be overrated by some. I just frankly do not consider world championship awards voting to be a particularly valuable piece of information in terms of evaluating goalies, and feel that much more importance should be put on whatever domestic league information is available.
 
ContrarianGoaltender said:
Here are the team rankings of the best goaltender at the world championships from 1954 to 1983:

Gold medal: 7
Silver medal: 11
Bronze medal: 4
4th place: 6
5th place: 1

In addition to that, between 1962 and 1985 Tretiak and Holocek were the only two goalies to be voted best goalie on a gold medal winning team.
Click to expand...

To be fair, only two countries won in that timespan, and Holecek and Tretiak were the goaltenders for these countries for most of that time, making it only natural that they were the gold-winning award winners.

I'm sure it's not a coincidence that if you expand that timespan you selected one year in each direction you can add Lennart Haggroth and Jiri Kralik to your list.

ContrarianGoaltender said:
All that said, I do think that Tretiak's competition was probably much closer than given credit for, and that Tretiak may still be overrated by some. I just frankly do not consider world championship awards voting to be a particularly valuable piece of information in terms of evaluating goalies, and feel that much more importance should be put on whatever domestic league information is available.
Click to expand...

You are right of course that WC awards give a very limited understanding of the greatness of different goaltenders.

My point was simply that the World Championship awards don't support the prevalent NA view that Tretiak stood head and shoulders above all the other European goaltenders. By all acounts he was an elite goaltender, but I'm not convinced that the distance between a guy like Holecek and Tretiak is as huge as many would say.
 
Steve, I basically agree with you. I think Tretiak gets a lot of mileage out of being a 5 time "Soviet MVP" but I've long speculated that maybe he got so much domestic recognition in part because none of the other Soviet goalies were that great. If you look at international recognition, you see this bear out - konovalenko was never selected best goalie at the WCs by the directorate and was only a WC All Star once, while Seth Martin, Jiri Kralik, and Peter Lindmark were selected best goalie more than once each.

As for Tretiak vs Holecek, the one thing Tretiak has on his side (other than being more familiar to North Americans) is longevity as an elite player. It looks like everything Holecek accomplished was from 1971-1978, a period of 9 years, while Tretiak seems to have been a top goalie from 1971 to 1984, a period of 15 years.

I agree with you that Holecek was probably a better goalie than Tretiak for the 9 years they both played, but does that outweigh Tretiak'a greater longevity as an elite player? I don't know. Ken Dryden is another 70s goalie ranked very highly despite lack of longevity; maybe Holecek should be too.
 
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I really wish we had access to the full voting records for the Izvestia Golden Stick, which was awarded to the best player in Europe during the late 70s until the fall of the Iron Curtain. Before the website that had the voting records went down, I looked at the voting and remember that Kralik and Lindmark were both ranked consistently highly. Seventieslord could back me up on that one.

I'm going to try to find space for both of them on my list (well below Holecek and Tretiak though of course).
 
Another thing to remember for Holecek vs Tretiak, Czechoslovaia of Holecek's time bascially had a 0.500 record vs the Soviets, despite the fact that the Soviets had a better and far deeper group of skaters, especially forwards. Some of that is coaching - the Soviet coaching situation was a mess between Tarasov and Tikhonov and the Czechoslovaks pioneered the left wing lock specifically to counter the Soviets. But some of the credit has to go to goaltending - and both the Directorate who selected the best goalie of the tournament and the media that selected all star teams agreed, selecting Holecek 5 of 9 years each (and not the exact same years for both).
 
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