Round 2, Vote 1 (HOH Top Goaltenders)

[quoipourquoi]

I also don´t understand why we are only looking at "trailing in a series"? Is it not as important to be stable when tying or leading? Is it then ok to relax? If those numbers show no difference I think you could question the deduction from the trailing numbers even more. Perhaps we are looking at only them because it holds Roy in the best of lights? What do I know but they would be interesting to se.

It's in post #102.

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=54937061&postcount=102


Roy is more consistent than Hasek in general. The difference happens to get extremely wide when they are trailing in a series, which backs up the evidence of Roy's disproportionate amount of playoff success and tendency not to lose a short series.

 

[BM67]

Didn't Plante see mostly home games and Hall road games during this time?

I think a big part of Hall's Conn Smythe was that he went above and beyond for a first year expansion team. By the following season (when Plante started in the playoffs), St Louis was in its second year, so the media story wasn't as great.

This is not entirely accurate. Hall and Plante were in a platoon situation, and Hall usually got the tougher starts - against better teams and on the road. It's why Hall was a 1st Team All Star in 1968-69, despite Plante's better numbers.

Plante did get the easier games in the regular season, but you can't say the same in the playoffs.

Hall won the Conn Smythe because all 4 finals games were 1 goal losses. Plante didn't keep the 69 final as close, and only played 2 games, while Hall played the other 2. The biggest difference comes in the first two rounds, where Hall won two 7 games series, while Plante swept his way to the final.

The comparison was regular season and playoffs. Hall's play from 1967-68 through 1969-70 vs Plante's 1968-69 through 1970-71. Hall has a 1st team all-star and a Conn Smythe. Plante has a 2nd team-all-star. Plante's 3 years are better than Hall's 3 years, but the awards tell a different story.

seems unfair to say voters underappreciated plante b/c of harvey, but also that plante did not show very well with NYR b/c harvey was gone.

and as importantly, i don't think we can assume harvey was a great defensive player in '63 and '64. in '63, harvey was the highest scoring d-man (and had a fairly large lead in points over his rivals for norris) and missed only 2 games, but fared poorly in norris (6th) and AS voting (10th).

I doesn't really matter if Harvey is still Harvey the Great or Harvey the Good as Harvey the Good is still much better than Don Johns, who got the bulk of the playing time Harvey received the year before.

The Rangers' GF dropped by 25, and their GA went up by 9, but they only dropped 2 points.

How much is that Harvey 62-63 better than Johns 63-64, rather than Worsley 62-63 better than Plante 63-64?

 

[overpass]

The '97 playoffs is the real black mark IMO. To just take himself out in the middle of a game without explanation and seemingly not even attempt to come back over the next couple weeks is really strange.

2006 is a bit mysterious, but his injury came during the first game of the Olympics, and I don't see him faking injury at that time. It is not in his favor that Ottawa, a strong Cup contender, whose only other option in goal was Emery (who saw his first significant NHL action in 2006), decided not to bring back Hasek. However, maybe they decided he was too prone to injury, esp. at his age and given his acrobatic style, to rely on him.

Detroit is the least suspicious. They had other quality goalies and later brought Hasek back.

According to the Ottawa media, the Senators locker room and front office weren't impressed by Hasek's season shutdown and there was zero chance he would come back. Yeah, the Ottawa media are a bunch of hacks, but I'm pretty sure I remember some interviews with members of the Ottawa org to that effect. Hasek burned his bridges in Ottawa.

 

[Ohashi_Jouzu*]

Ugh. I'm not even Canadian.

Yeah, it's great that he would self-sacrifice (which protects his averaging-stat based numbers from being hurt, by the way), but Patrick Roy didn't exactly stink out the joint when he came out of the hospital in 1994 - or out of the dressing room in 1993.

That's right, good ol' Canadian boy thought he could persevere, and he was right. Dom didn't think the team should lean on him at a certain point in what would be his final playoff, though, and what happened in '08?

But it's not about you being Canadian, it's about who exactly these past role models of "persevering" are that Hasek was supposed to emulate by "toughing it out". Are you sure the list isn't going to be a bunch of Canadian goalies? I'm just saying that it's a romanticized image that no one who isn't privy to injury report details can fairly use in a comparison/critique.

Personally, I think a goaltender's ability to show up to his job is a pretty important part of winning championships.

Well, in one case of Hasek's inability to step between the pipes in the playoffs, his backup stepped in and helped them win a championship, so... genius?

 

[nik jr]

nice column about plante's innovative style and importance to habs' transition game. it also mentions a change of rules regarding freezing the puck behind the net.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...AAIBAJ&pg=6001,4649686&dq=plante+harvey&hl=en

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Well, when everyone around him refers to him as a hard worker, fierce competitor, and diligent about his preparation, then you're basically forced to come up with another reason as to why he "quit" (in the absence of an "accepted" explanation), and the onus certainly isn't on any of us to defend that aspect of Dominik Hasek.

Having said that, here comes a Ken Holland anecdote in Dom's defense here:

"We played Colorado, outshot them badly, 40-something to like 16, and we lost 4-1. Dom didn't have a very good game that night. I went home and came back to the rink in the morning and the guy at the security gate told me that Hasek's car was in the parking lot all night. When I went in the building, I found out that Dom had spent the night sleeping on a cot in the stick room. He was punishing himself because he didn't play to the level he expected of himself.

"I'd always heard he was a difficult guy, different guy to have on teams and not necessarily a popular player, but I haven't known many competitors like him. That year, we beat Colorado in seven games in the Conference final and Dom outplayed Patrick Roy and we went on to win his first Stanley Cup."

And from the same link, here's another of his coaches, John Muckler:

"He used to scare the hell out of me because he didn't play by the book," said Muckler, who was his coach and general manager, first with the Buffalo Sabres, later with the Ottawa Senators. "I knew he stopped pucks. But I didn't know how he stopped them. That's what bothered me. He had a sense for the game like no one I've ever seen in goal and a tremendous competitive spirit.

"I remember one time we played New Jersey in the first round of the playoffs. The series went seven games. There was one game that went about four overtime periods. (Martin) Brodeur was in goal for Jersey. Dom was in goal for us. I think they each faced about 70 shots, first time in hockey history that happened in a game. (Dave) Hannan scored for us and we forced a Game 7. We lost 2-1 in the seventh game. They went on to win the Cup that year."(link)

Still think it's too far-fetched to think he reached a couple of points in time along the way where he knew he was expected to pull off miracles night after night, felt unable to perform to those standards, and just felt that it would be best if the team went with someone else he had more confidence in for a few games? Kind of eccentric for a guy to just pull that and make a coach deal with it, but this is Hasek we're talking about. And, didn't Bryzgalov basically say the same kind of things about himself when he hit that small rough patch? Goalies are harder on themselves than I think you might realize.

Not the best on the memory front was Muckler, but he was close.

Game 6 in 1994 first round went 4 OTs, Sabres outshot by Devils 70-50, win 1-0.

Game 7 Devils win at home 2-1, outshoot Sabres 46-18.

Devils win the Cup the next season.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

The following presents an overview of the 1995-96 to 2000-01 Sabres. First complete post 1994-95 partial season thru the end of Hasek's tenure with the Sabres. The focus is on the eastern conference, looking at the competition to make the playoffs and reach the Stanley Cup Finals.

Coaching and Management featured John Muckler,Ted Nolan, Lindy Ruff. In terms of the eastern conference the Sabres were consistently within the top three coaches and management, up there with the Devils - Lemaire and Lou L centric without Robbie Ftorek like stumbles.

Defense two elite internationals anchored the Sabres defence - Richard Smehlik and Alexei Zitnick. Not Ray Bourque, Brian Leetch or Eric Desjardins caliber but ideal for Hasek's game and defending against the European influences that changed NHL offences. Also Michael Peca was the perhaps the top defensive NHL center during the 1995-96 to 1999-2000 era. One Selke.

Offense Front line offense 20 + goal scorers and support scoring 10-19 goals define offense. Teams with balanced offence enjoy great success - late forties Leafs, sixties Canadiens and Leafs, post 1995 Red Wings are just some examples. Teams with limited elite offence - sixties Hawks, nineties Penguins tend to underachieve if not supported with balanced depth offence.

For the era under consideration:

20+ Goal Scorers

Pittsburgh 27
New Jersey 25
Philadelphia 24
Buffalo 22

10 - 19 Goal Scorers

Buffalo 32
New Jersey 31
Philadelphia 28
Pittsburgh 24

Combined

New Jersey 56
Buffalo 54
Philadelphia 52
Pittsburgh 51

At all levels, the Buffalo Sabres were in the solid to elite levels in the eastern conference for the era in question. Pretending they were a weak, non-playoff team without one player simply does not hold upon examination.

True they had the goaltending but it was very well supported by Michael Peca and his ability to shutdown the opposing #1 center. Supported by a forward group and defensemen that could take advantage and generate offence to win. A defensive group appropriate for the team. Coaching and management that sustained the team building and balance with excellent pre game and in game adjustments/strategies. Plus management with excellent additions and acquisitions.

Eastern conference - goals per game by team, 1996-2001

Franchise|GP|GF|GF/gp
Pittsburgh Penguins | 492 | 1639 | 3.33
Philadelphia Flyers | 492 | 1506 | 3.06
Toronto Maple Leafs | 246 | 746 | 3.03
New Jersey Devils | 492 | 1465 | 2.98
New York Rangers | 492 | 1412 | 2.87
Boston Bruins | 492 | 1388 | 2.82
Ottawa Senators | 492 | 1367 | 2.78
Montreal Canadiens | 492 | 1335 | 2.71
Buffalo Sabres | 492 | 1333 | 2.71
Florida Panthers | 492 | 1332 | 2.71
Washington Capitals | 492 | 1327 | 2.7
Carolina/Hartford | 492 | 1302 | 2.65
New York Islanders | 492 | 1254 | 2.55
Tampa Bay Lightning | 492 | 1190 | 2.42
Atlanta Thrashers | 164 | 381 | 2.32
TOTAL | 6806 | 18977 | 2.79

Please help me understand your suggestion that the Sabres were anywhere close to the Penguins, Flyers or Devils offensively given that those are three of the top four teams in the East, offensively, while the Sabres are below average? I reject the notion that balanced offense is more important than high-end, game-breaking talent, or else we'd see Pittsburgh try to trade Crosby and Malkin for six or seven 20 goal scorers.

Also, could you please provide backup for the assertion that Smehlik and Zhitnik are elite? Please reconcile this with the fact that Smehlik never received a single vote for the Norris in his entire career, and Zhitnik only received two (one 4th place vote in 1998 and one 5th place vote in 2007).

You make a good point about Hasek benefiting playing behind Peca (though I'd rank him the second best defensive forward of his era, behind Lehtinen). That being said, Hasek won three of his six Vezina trophies (1994, 1995 and 2001) without Peca.

 

[Canadiens1958]

1957 & 1958 Playoffs - Jacques Plante

Detailed look at Jacques Plante's 1957 - 1960 playoff performance, the last four of five consecutive SC Montreal Canadiens teams. Data culled from the HSP project and reference to BM67 post #123 this thread.

1957 Semi Final vs NEW YORK
Introductory note. Scheduled circus at MSG caused the series to change format. Canadiens had finished 2nd, Rangers had finished 4th. Traditional H/H/A/A/H/A/H format favouring the 2nd place team was changed to A/A/H/H/H/A/H - first two games were played at MSG in New York.

Game 1 - Away, MTL 4 NYR 1, (25/26) (10/10/6), First goal 17:01 (1-1).
Game 2 - Away, MTL 3 NYR 4 OT, (34/38) (10/13/7/8) First goal 21:35.(1-1)
Game 3 - Home, MTL 8 NYR 3, (19/22) (2/12/8) First goal 18:59.(2-1)
Game 4 - Home, MTL 3 NYR 1, PLANTE (30/31) (9/11/11), First goal 6:42.(0-1)
Game 5 - Home, MTL 4 NYR 3 OT (28/31) (4/6/11/0), First goal 45:28 (3 - 1).

Jacques Plante SV%

1st period .914 32/35
2nd period .923 48/52
3rd period .907 39/43
Overtime .875 7/8
Away .922 59/64
Home .917 77/84
Series .919 136/148

Notes,2 PPG allowed 1 each 2nd and 3rd period.


1957 Final vs BOSTON

Game 1 - Home, MTL 5 BOS 1,(22/23) (9/8/6), First goal 27:37 (0 - 1).
Game 2 - Home, MTL 1 BOS 0, (24/24) (7/9/8) Shutout
Game 3 - Away, MTL 4 BOS 2, (25/27), (8/10/9) First goal 26:16 (3-1).
Game 4 - Away, MTL 0 BOS 2, (27/29) (6/8/15) First goal 2:56 (0 - 1).
Game 5 - Home, MTL 5 BOS 1, (26/27) (13/7/7) First goal 53:43 (3 - 1).

Jacques Plante SV%

1st period .977 42/43
2nd period .952 40/42
3rd period .933 42/45
Away .929 52/56
Home .973 72/74
Series .954 124/130

Notes. 2 PPG 1st and 2nd period,1 ENG allowed.

Jacques Plante 1957 playoff - overall SV% .935 240/278

1958 Semi-Final vs Detroit

Game 1 - Home, MTL 8 DET 1,(39/40) (12/16/12), First goal 32:19 (6 - 1).
Game 2 - Home, MTL 5 DET 1, (25/26) (7/12/7) First goal 33:39 (1 - 1)
Game 3 - Away, MTL 2 DET 1 OT, (36/37), (12/9/9/7) First goal 34:07 (1-1).
Game 4 - Away, MTL 4 DET 3, (32/35) (9/18/8) First goal 25:45 (1 - 1).

Jacques Plante SV%

1st period 1.000 40/40
2nd period .891 49/55
3rd period 1.000 36/36
Overtime 1.000 7/7
Away .948 68/72
Home .970 64/66
Series .957 132/138

Notes - only 2nd period goals allowed.

1958 Final vs Boston

Game 1 - Home, MTL 2 BOS 1,(28/29) (12/8/9) First goal 25:54 (1 - 1).
Game 2 - Home, MTL 2 BOS 5, (27/32) (10/11/11), First goal 0:20
Game 3 - Away, MTL 3 BOS 0, (18/18) (8/4/6) Shutout
Game 4 - Away, MTL 1 BOS 3, (27/30) (11/10/9) First goal 5:35 (0 - 1).
Game 5 - Home, MTL 3 BOS 2 OT, (38/40) (14/10/11/4) First goal 18:43 (0 - 1).
Game 6 - Away, MTL 5 BOS 3, (31/34) (14/7/13) First goal (2-1)

Jacques Plante SV%

1st period .913 63/69
2nd period .940 47/50
3rd period .913 52/57
Overtime 1.000 4/4
Away .927 76/82
Home .921 93/101
Series .923 169/183

Notes 5 PPG allowed, 4 - 1st period and 1 - 2nd period.

Jacques Plante 1958 playoff - overall SV% .938 301/321

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Its been mentioned a few times that Plante may have been somewhat short-changed because he was on such a great team.

But how about Dryden?

In 7 full seasons he was a first team all-star 5 times (one second team all-star).

Led the league in goals against 4 times, second once.

8 years in the playoffs, 6 Cups.

In 397 regular season games he lost 57 times.

In the playoffs he was 80-32.

Yet the first impression from many voters was, "no question, Dryden's 7th out of these 7".

 

[Hockey Outsider]

As for the career adjusted playoff save percentage, as much as I appreciate HockeyOutsider's work, I would have preferred he adjusted to the league average save percentage and not the playoff average save percentage for reasons I have expressed in that thread and elsewhere.

I've given it some thought and I agree that this is probably the better approach. If you (or someone else) has the average save percentage by year going back to 1983, I can post the revised numbers sometime over the next few days.


Excellent analysis - save percentage is an averaging statistic which, by its nature, fails to show the (in)consistency in each goalies' performance.

Have you considered breaking the data into "good", "neutral" and "bad" rather than simply "good" and "bad"? For example, in a league with a 91% save percentage, we might assume that a goalie who stops anywhere between 90% and 92% of the shots gives his team a reasonable chance to win. The statistic would thus show which goalies have a lot of solid, dependable performances, in addition to who had great/poor games. I doubt it changes the results significantly, but it would be interesting to consider.

====

Here's something of a junk statistic, but it may be interesting.

Goalie Hart shares

Goalie|HS
Hasek|2.89
Brodeur|1.99
Hall|1.26
Roy|0.96
Sawchuk|0.79
Dryden|0.72
Plante|0.60

Hart Shares represent the amount of Hart votes goalies receive over the course of their career; a unanimous Hart is worth 1.0; a goalie earning half of the maximum available votes if worth 0.5; etc. Note that I have data until 2009 - not sure if Brodeur got any votes over the past three seasons.

Hasek dominates this statistic - subjectively I think that Hasek was the most important of these seven goalies to his team's success, and this metric supports that. There's another way to interpret this - at least some of Hasek's Hart voting success is explained by the fact that high-end talent in the NHL in the late nineties is somewhat weak by historical standards (aside from Jagr).

Interestingly, Plante is the only other netminder on this list to win the Hart (1962), but he received virtually no votes for the rest of his long career.

Again, this is a bit of a junk statistic (goalies are typically underrepresented in Hart voting and the extent varies by era; some players (ie Hasek) competed with less high end talent who could steal away Hart votes) - but some may find it interesting.

====

A thought about Hall. The biggest takeaway from the above metric is the fact that Hall was clearly regarded as the best goalie of his era if we look at Hart voting. Additionally, if we look at his all-star voting record (7 first all-star selections and 11 total; Sawchuk and Plante both have 3 first and 7 total), Hall again distinguishes himself from his peers. Eleven all-star nods in fourteen seasons is a staggering level of high-quality consistency, almost on par with Howe and Bourque (the epitome of high quality consistency at their respective positions). This presents a strong prima facie case that Hall should be ranked higher than Sawchuk and Plante.

However, this assumption could be overcome if we demonstrate that 1) the Hart and all-star voters ranked Hall too high and/or 2) Hall has a weaker playoff resume than the others. I haven't seen any support for the first point (in fact, there's an interesting link suggesting that Hall is really the only goalie from 1935 to 1970 to beat the "best GAA = best goalie" mindest which shows that, if anything, the people who watched Hall play looked deeper than the conventional statistics). Overpass had a great post showing that Hall was a fairly weak playoff performer*. Is that enough to offset Hall's clearly superior regular season performance? I'm not sure, that's why I'm throwing the question out there.

* For what it's worth, Hall actually has a 91.3% career playoff save percentage, as documented in Klein & Reif's "The Hockey Compendium" (2001 edition), compared to Plante's 92.2% and Sawchuk's 91.4%. Statistically he's the weakest of the three, as we'd expect, but he's much closer to Plante and especially Sawchuk that I anticipated. Insert standard disclaimer about the limitations of the save percentage statistic here.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Playing the Sabres

Eastern conference - goals per game by team, 1996-2001

Franchise|GP|GF|GF/gp
Pittsburgh Penguins | 492 | 1639 | 3.33
Philadelphia Flyers | 492 | 1506 | 3.06
Toronto Maple Leafs | 246 | 746 | 3.03
New Jersey Devils | 492 | 1465 | 2.98
New York Rangers | 492 | 1412 | 2.87
Boston Bruins | 492 | 1388 | 2.82
Ottawa Senators | 492 | 1367 | 2.78
Montreal Canadiens | 492 | 1335 | 2.71
Buffalo Sabres | 492 | 1333 | 2.71
Florida Panthers | 492 | 1332 | 2.71
Washington Capitals | 492 | 1327 | 2.7
Carolina/Hartford | 492 | 1302 | 2.65
New York Islanders | 492 | 1254 | 2.55
Tampa Bay Lightning | 492 | 1190 | 2.42
Atlanta Thrashers | 164 | 381 | 2.32
TOTAL | 6806 | 18977 | 2.79

Please help me understand your suggestion that the Sabres were anywhere close to the Penguins, Flyers or Devils offensively given that those are three of the top four teams in the East, offensively, while the Sabres are below average? I reject the notion that balanced offense is more important than high-end, game-breaking talent, or else we'd see Pittsburgh try to trade Crosby and Malkin for six or seven 20 goal scorers.

Also, could you please provide backup for the assertion that Smehlik and Zhitnik are elite?[/B] Please reconcile this with the fact that Smehlik never received a single vote for the Norris in his entire career, and Zhitnik only received two (one 4th place vote in 1998 and one 5th place vote in 2007).

You make a good point about Hasek benefiting playing behind Peca (though I'd rank him the second best defensive forward of his era, behind Lehtinen). That being said, Hasek won three of his six Vezina trophies (1994, 1995 and 2001) without Peca.

Your bolded comment explains my point rather well. Name a team that has six or seven twenty goal scorers to trade for Crosby and Malkin. No such team around and if there was how much salary would they have to fill out the remaining forward positions?

We are talking about playing the Sabres of the era as opposed to rankings within the Eastern Conference. Lehtinen was not a center, Peca was a RHS center. Defensively solid center that neutralizes the oppositions #1 center/ line creates a tremendous offensive advantage. Specifically a #1 line would max out at app 25:00 per game. If the defensive center's team - Buffalo, has balanced and deep scoring to go with defense, then they may have at least a 35:00 to 25:00 offensive advantage. Peca's line was solid offensively. Peca himself was +50 +/- during his stay with Buffalo playing against the oppositions #1 center and line.This was in a low scoring era. The Peca effect was huge. Further evidence of the Peca effect is that Hasek won his two Harts and three Vezinas with Peca, zero Harts without.

Richard Smehlik and Alexei Zhitnik were elite.

Smehlik = 3 time Czech Olympic team, 1 Canada Cup, 2 WHC national team. Including 1998 gold medal Olympic Team

Zhitnik = 2 time Russian Olympic Team, 1 each Canada and World Cup Team, 4 Time WHC Russian Team.

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

I've given it some thought and I agree that this is probably the better approach. If you (or someone else) has the average save percentage by year going back to 1983, I can post the revised numbers sometime over the next few days.

I'm not convinced that is the best approach. I'm actually pretty sure that using regular season save percentages it is not the best approach for the 21 team league where 16 of those teams made the playoffs.

Here are the average save percentages for those seasons, and the early years of further league expansion:

1984: .873 regular season, .897 playoffs
1985: .875 regular season, .882 playoffs
1986: .874 regular season, .895 playoffs
1987: .880 regular season, .899 playoffs
1988: .880 regular season, .869 playoffs
1989: .879 regular season, .893 playoffs
1990: .881 regular season, .890 playoffs
1991: .886 regular season, .896 playoffs
1992: .888 regular season, .896 playoffs
1993: .885 regular season, .896 playoffs
1994: .895 regular season, .908 playoffs

Overall: .881 regular season, .893 playoffs

I think this is the result of obvious shot quality effects impacting the playoff sample. There was little incentive for most teams to try hard during the regular season. For example, Edmonton Oilers goalies saw their numbers drop late in the year as their teammates went all-out for offence with the division long-since clinched. When the playoffs started they tightened up again, and their goalies' numbers bounced back up. The playoffs were a different game in the 1980s, I'm sure all observers would agree with that, and that's why the numbers increase so much, particularly when defensive teams went deep in the postseason.

Looking at the period from 1995 to 2004, the gap between regular season and playoff drops to .009 (.905 regular season vs. .914 playoffs). This likely reflects the fact that there was more competition for the playoffs, but the league was still fairly unbalanced between the weak teams and expansion franchises and the teams that were well-managed or well-financed. Note that quite a large part of the playoff sample in those years would be great goalies like Roy, Hasek, Brodeur and Belfour, yet the gap is still smaller than it was in the late '80s.

Since 2006, with the salary cap increasing the level of parity and teams having to play hard just to make the playoffs, the difference between regular season and playoff save percentages is just .005 (.909 vs. 914).

The goalies in the playoffs are generally better, but this effect has been pretty consistent all the way along (around .005-.006 per season). Counterbalancing that is the fact that shooters are better in the playoffs as well. The fact that the playoff sample size is heavily impacted by a few teams and goalies is a problem, but I think less of one than the fact that there were such differences in the way teams played in the regular season and postseason. Maybe another option would be to combine the two of them, maybe take an average of the two, to adjust for both of these factors? I'm not sure, just felt it was important to point out the evidence here.

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

Peca himself was +50 +/- during his stay with Buffalo playing against the oppositions #1 center and line.This was in a low scoring era. The Peca effect was huge. Further evidence of the Peca effect is that Hasek won his two Harts and three Vezinas with Peca, zero Harts without.

Team save percentage with Mike Peca:

In Buffalo, Dominik Hasek in net: .927
In Buffalo, another goalie in net: .904
On a team other than Buffalo: .902

Definitely a case of Peca carrying Hasek. Gee, I wonder if that .927 save percentage just might have helped somebody's plus minus totals?

Richard Smehlik and Alexei Zhitnik were elite.

Smehlik = 3 time Czech Olympic team, 1 Canada Cup, 2 WHC national team. Including 1998 gold medal Olympic Team

Zhitnik = 2 time Russian Olympic Team, 1 each Canada and World Cup Team, 4 Time WHC Russian Team.

The Czech Olympic team, led to the gold medal by Jaromir Jagr, Dominik Hasek and Richard Smehlik. Learn something every day.

 

[kmad]

Richard Smehlik and Alexei Zhitnik were elite.

This is wrong.

 

[seventieslord]

This is wrong.

It really depends what one means by "elite". Zhitnik was played as #1 defenseman for nearly a decade but probably should have been a #2. Smehlik was most often a #2 for Buffalo behind Zhitnik, but scouting reports from that time said he was better off as a #5 and was being miscast. I think that's overly harsh, but it's safe to say he wasn't regarded as a "classic" #2 defenseman.

by my definition, neither would be "elite". Others are free to claim that the 30th and 50th-100th best defensemen in the NHL were in fact elite.

 

[Hawkey Town 18]

by my definition, neither would be "elite". Others are free to claim that the 30th and 50th-100th best defensemen in the NHL were in fact elite.

I have to agree with this, when I hear elite Dman, I think at least top 10 in the league (during that time period).

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Your bolded comment explains my point rather well. Name a team that has six or seven twenty goal scorers to trade for Crosby and Malkin. No such team around and if there was how much salary would they have to fill out the remaining forward positions?

We are talking about playing the Sabres of the era as opposed to rankings within the Eastern Conference. Lehtinen was not a center, Peca was a RHS center. Defensively solid center that neutralizes the oppositions #1 center/ line creates a tremendous offensive advantage. Specifically a #1 line would max out at app 25:00 per game. If the defensive center's team - Buffalo, has balanced and deep scoring to go with defense, then they may have at least a 35:00 to 25:00 offensive advantage. Peca's line was solid offensively. Peca himself was +50 +/- during his stay with Buffalo playing against the oppositions #1 center and line.This was in a low scoring era. The Peca effect was huge. Further evidence of the Peca effect is that Hasek won his two Harts and three Vezinas with Peca, zero Harts without.

Richard Smehlik and Alexei Zhitnik were elite.

Smehlik = 3 time Czech Olympic team, 1 Canada Cup, 2 WHC national team. Including 1998 gold medal Olympic Team

Zhitnik = 2 time Russian Olympic Team, 1 each Canada and World Cup Team, 4 Time WHC Russian Team.

I don't want to derail this thread, but I'll say this. As you know, the generally accepted measure of how well a team performs offensively is the number of goals scorer. If you're telling me that depth is critical, then the Penguins should simply trade Crosby and Malkin to the Bruins for their six twenty goal scorers (Seguin, Marchand, Lucic, Krejci, Bergeon and Kelly). Cap considerations or not, it would be one of the worst trades in NHL history. By any reasonable measure, the Sabres were weaker offensively than the Devils, Flyers and (especially) the Penguins. If you want to explore further maybe start a thread about whether it's more beneficial to have gamebreaking offense vs lots of depth?

Smehlik and Zhitnik are not elite in any meaningful useage of the word.

Other posters have responded to the other points already.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Regular Season vs Playoffs

(in)consistency[/B] in each goalies' performance.

Have you considered breaking the data into "good", "neutral" and "bad" rather than simply "good" and "bad"? For example, in a league with a 91% save percentage, we might assume that a goalie who stops anywhere between 90% and 92% of the shots gives his team a reasonable chance to win. The statistic would thus show which goalies have a lot of solid, dependable performances, in addition to who had great/poor games. I doubt it changes the results significantly, but it would be interesting to consider.
====

A thought about Hall. The biggest takeaway from the above metric is the fact that Hall was clearly regarded as the best goalie of his era if we look at Hart voting. Additionally, if we look at his all-star voting record (7 first all-star selections and 11 total; Sawchuk and Plante both have 3 first and 7 total), Hall again distinguishes himself from his peers. Eleven all-star nods in fourteen seasons is a staggering level of high-quality consistency, almost on par with Howe and Bourque (the epitome of high quality consistency at their respective positions). This presents a strong prima facie case that Hall should be ranked higher than Sawchuk and Plante.

However, this assumption could be overcome if we demonstrate that 1) the Hart and all-star voters ranked Hall too high and/or 2) Hall has a weaker playoff resume than the others. I haven't seen any support for the first point (in fact, there's an interesting link suggesting that Hall is really the only goalie from 1935 to 1970 to beat the "best GAA = best goalie" mindest which shows that, if anything, the people who watched Hall play looked deeper than the conventional statistics). Overpass had a great post showing that Hall was a fairly weak playoff performer*. Is that enough to offset Hall's clearly superior regular season performance? I'm not sure, that's why I'm throwing the question out there.

* For what it's worth, Hall actually has a 91.3% career playoff save percentage, as documented in Klein & Reif's "The Hockey Compendium" (2001 edition), compared to Plante's 92.2% and Sawchuk's 91.4%. Statistically he's the weakest of the three, as we'd expect, but he's much closer to Plante and especially Sawchuk that I anticipated. Insert standard disclaimer about the limitations of the save percentage statistic here.

Still comes down to performance during the Regular Season which defines AST and Hart voting and results, and the Playoffs which disregards regular season performance other than generating the match-ups.

Let's look at another junk stat that is very interesting.

Pre 1967 expansion, Glenn Hall played on 11 teams that qualified for the playoffs. During 10 of the 11 Regular Seasons the teams GF > GA, total differential +387 GF. During the following playoffs Hall's team reversed. 9 of the 11 Playoffs GA > GF, total differential -37. During the stretch Hall had a losing playoff record 37W - 47L.

Terry Sawchuk during the pre 1967 era played on 13 teams that qualified for the playoffs. During 8 of the 13 Regular Seasons the teams GF > GA, total differential +373 GF During the Playoffs Sawchuk's teams trended differently - 5 GF > GA, 3 GF = GA, 5 GF< GA, total differential +21 GF, During the stretch Sawchuk had a winning playoff record, 52W - 44L.

The SV% makes the difference between the two very tight, yet the playoff results favour Terry Sawchuk by an 15 game differential in wins that suggests the 4SC to 1SC difference. Glenn Hall has to assume some of the team issues associated with a lack of playoff success.

 

[Czech Your Math]

There's another way to interpret this - at least some of Hasek's Hart voting success is explained by the fact that high-end talent in the NHL in the late nineties is somewhat weak by historical standards (aside from Jagr).

I would disagree with this interpretation. Besides the Gretzky-Lemieux period ('80 to '93), when was there substantially more high-end talent in the NHL than the mid-late 90s? There was Hasek, Jagr, Lindros, Sakic, Forsberg, Selanne, Kariya, Bure, Roy, Brodeur, Lidstrom, Pronger, Leetch, Stevens, MacInnis, etc.... along with older Messier, Lemieux, Gretzky, Yzerman, Fedorov, etc.

Perhaps because this talent wasn't concentrated on a couple of dynasties... or because Hasek, Jagr and Lemieux always took up 1 or 2 of the Hart finalist spots, the rest of the talent didn't appear as great as at some other times, but I think this is due in great part to the large amount of high end talent, much of it from overseas. I certainly don't see more high end talent in the decade or so since that time.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I don't want to derail this thread, but I'll say this. As you know, the generally accepted measure of how well a team performs offensively is the number of goals scorer. If you're telling me that depth is critical, then the Penguins should simply trade Crosby and Malkin to the Bruins for their six twenty goal scorers (Seguin, Marchand, Lucic, Krejci, Bergeon and Kelly). Cap considerations or not, it would be one of the worst trades in NHL history. By any reasonable measure, the Sabres were weaker offensively than the Devils, Flyers and (especially) the Penguins. If you want to explore further maybe start a thread about whether it's more beneficial to have gamebreaking offense vs lots of depth?

Smehlik and Zhitnik are not elite in any meaningful useage of the word.

Other posters have responded to the other points already.

In the regular season, yes. In the playoffs in the late 90s, the Sabres' offense tended to come alive, while the Devils' offense tended to stagnate.

1997:
Sabres 27 goals in 15 games (2.25 GPG) - Steve Shields plays most of the games.
Devils 27 goals in 10 games (2.70 GPG). 22 goals in 5 games in the first round (4.40 GPG). 5 goals in 5 games (1.00 GPG) while losing the 2nd round.

1998:
Sabres 46 goals in 15 games (3.07 GPG). 36 goals in 9 games (4.00 GPG) through 2 rounds. 11 goals in 6 games (1.83 GPG) in losing in the 3rd round - Washington actually scored 10 goals in those 6 games in regulation, but Kolzig beat Hasek 3 times in OT.
Devils 12 goals in 6 games (2.00 GPG)

1999:
Sabres 59 goals in 21 games (2.81 GPG). They score 50 goals in 15 games (3.33) in the three rounds they won. They score 9 goals in 6 games (1.50) in losing in the finals.
Devils 18 goals in 7 games (2.57 GPG)


Total:
132 goals in 51 games for Buffalo (2.59 GPG)
105 goals in 36 games for Buffalo in the 2 seasons with Hasek as a primary starter (2.92 GPG)
57 goals in 23 games for NJ (2.48 GPG)

Greater goal support is one reason why Buffalo advanced farther than NJ in the playoffs in the late 90s.

1996 (when both Hasek and Brodeur missed the playoffs) to 1999 is considered something of a "choking period" for NJ between their first 2 Cups, and lack of goal scoring was the primary reason (though Brodeur himself wasn't great in 1999).

 

[quoipourquoi]

I've given it some thought and I agree that this is probably the better approach. If you (or someone else) has the average save percentage by year going back to 1983, I can post the revised numbers sometime over the next few days.

Thanks.

1984 0.873
1985 0.875
1986 0.874
1987 0.880
1988 0.880
1989 0.879
1990 0.881
1991 0.886
1992 0.888
1993 0.885
1994 0.895
1995 0.901
1996 0.898
1997 0.905
1998 0.906
1999 0.908
2000 0.904
2001 0.903
2002 0.908
2003 0.909
2004 0.911
2005
2006 0.901
2007 0.905
2008 0.909
2009 0.908
2010 0.911
2011 0.913
2012 0.914

The fact that the playoff sample size is heavily impacted by a few teams and goalies is a problem, but I think less of one than the fact that there were such differences in the way teams played in the regular season and postseason.

You think the change of style of play has a bigger impact on the differences in RS and Playoff save percentage than the fact that the distribution hovers around 50% for the four teams playing well enough to advance to the Conference Finals and 50% for twelve other playoff teams and 0% for five-to-fourteen other teams in the league?

 

[Canadiens1958]

Lemiux / Peca / Hasek

Team save percentage with Mike Peca:

In Buffalo, Dominik Hasek in net: .927
In Buffalo, another goalie in net: .904
On a team other than Buffalo: .902

Definitely a case of Peca carrying Hasek. Gee, I wonder if that .927 save percentage just might have helped somebody's plus minus totals?

Circumstances dictated that the Lemieux/Peca match-up with Hasek in goal happened only 5 times during the 1995-06/1996-97 seasons.Full games. Injuries and Hasek starting only 8 of 12 scheduled games vs Pittsburgh contributed to the situation.

1995-96. Buffalo 3, Pittsburgh 5, Pittsburgh 3 Buffalo 6. Two game combined Mario Lemieux ( 0 - 0 /-3), Mike Peca (0 - 0/ +1) Dominik Hasek .899 SV% 71/79.

1996-97 Pittsburgh 1 Buffalo 4, Buffalo 0 Pittsburgh 2, Pittsburgh 1 Buffalo 3. Three game combined Mario Lemieux (1 - 1/ -3), Mike Peca (2 - 0 / +1). Lemieux's was a PPG, One of Peca's was a SHG.
Dominik Hasek .951 SV % 77/81.

Original point considered coaching. Ted Nolan was the coach in 1996-97. Peca simply did the job against Mario Lemieux. How well did Hasek played against the other Penguin lines during the 1995-96 season? Results suggest that Peca and Nolan enhanced the circumstances for Dominik Hasek to excel.

 

[overpass]

I have never suggested any such thing. Just that we need to see both sides of the coin. I think you should reread what i wrote instead of putting words in my mouth. I even said it points to Roy being more stable.

I am not only responding to your words but to a specific philosophy articulated in your posts, MasterofDistrict's posts, and the article on consistency that MasterofDistricts linked to.

To attribute all variation in past performance to random chance when judging past performance is to give goaltenders all the agency of a hockey-playing robot of constant talent level. As the linked article says:

Bryzgalov's career is virtually identical to that of a .915-save-percentage puck-stopping robot.

The implication is that Bryzgalov is not responsible for any deviations from that 0.915 save percentage - no matter in what situation those deviations occurred. He has no possibility of changing his level of play.

When you post things like this:

I still think we should be careful with this particular sample size since studies of clutchness based on much much larger samples have questioned it´s very existence.

and suggest that clutch does not exist, what is the purpose of that post for this debate? Is it not to remove all responsibility from players for their performance in specific, important situations or "sample sizes", because they have zero ability to play any better or worse than their constant ability level? For that is the inevitable outcome of your philosophy.

I doubt very much that goaltenders themselves experience their career in this way. If they perform poorly in a big spot, you'd better believe they're going to regret that after their career is over. They're not just going to shrug and say "I randomly happened to have a bad game at a bad time. Not my fault."

 

[Canadiens1958]

Ken Dryden

Its been mentioned a few times that Plante may have been somewhat short-changed because he was on such a great team.

But how about Dryden?

In 7 full seasons he was a first team all-star 5 times (one second team all-star).

Led the league in goals against 4 times, second once.

8 years in the playoffs, 6 Cups.

In 397 regular season games he lost 57 times.

In the playoffs he was 80-32.

Yet the first impression from many voters was, "no question, Dryden's 7th out of these 7".

Question of overall strengths and weaknesses of the seven goaltenders under consideration.

Example Ken Dryden was a weak puckhandler for a goalie. There are other questions that will be asked and answered about all seven.

 

[pluppe]

It's in post #102.

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=54937061&postcount=102


Roy is more consistent than Hasek in general. The difference happens to get extremely wide when they are trailing in a series, which backs up the evidence of Roy's disproportionate amount of playoff success and tendency not to lose a short series.

No they are not unless I am blind. I am asking for the numbers when series are tied and when leading series. Do you have these?