Round 2, Vote 1 (HOH Top Goaltenders)

[Canadiens1958]

Terry Sawchuk

Most of Sawchuk's support came in the midseason voting for the first half.

1956-57: A close third in midseason voting (Beliveau 51, Howe 43, Sawchuk 35.) Zero points in the end-of-season voting, because he didn't play in the second half. Probably no Hart support in a full-season voting system.

1958-59: Third place in midseason voting (Bathgate 67, Howe 36, Sawchuk 31.) Only 3 points in end-of-season voting.

1962-63: First place in midseason voting (Sawchuk 37, Mikita 35, Howe 30, Hall 21, Mahovlich 16.) Only seven points in the end-of-season voting (Howe 81, Hall 21, Mikita 19, Mahovlich 7, Sawchuk 7.)

This raises two questions. First, would Sawchuk have received as much voting support if all voting was done at the end of the season? It seems unlikely. Though it is interesting to see the first half results, which we don't see today.

Second, did Sawchuk have a stamina problem? Did he have a career-long pattern of fading over the regular season? If so, what are the implications for his ranking?

1962-63 second half injury limited Terry Sawchuk's play. 1958-59. both Rangers and Red Wings fell apart after the February 1, 1959 fight between Howe and Fontinato.

The basic issue during Sawchuk's second Red Wing stint was that the team had an elite six - Sawchuk, Howe, Delvecchio, Ullman, Kelly later replaced by Gadsby in 1961, Marcel Pronovost. Rest of the team was a patchwork collection of journeymen AHL/NHL types, suspects and over the hill types.

With good health, the team would start strong until the patches started falling off. Their Hart voting reflects this.

 

[Nalyd Psycho]

I'm still struggling with how much of a benefit to give Brodeur and Plante for their strong puck handling skills.

(And also how I'm going to compare Plante and Hasek)

i think roy for sure broke his opponents psychologically. the cockiness, the talking (on and off the ice), the showboating (including when that backfired in game 6, 2002), and of course the amazing goaltending. i think it all added up to an aura not only of invincibility, which he certainly had, but also that he was laughing at you as he was beating you.

I somehow completely forgot about the mouth on that guy.

If Roy his high end at both psychological offense and defense. Then, is he the strongest goalie psychologically. And if so, how much of a boon is that.

Second, did Sawchuk have a stamina problem? Did he have a career-long pattern of fading over the regular season? If so, what are the implications for his ranking?

Conversely, how much of a benefit would a decent back-up have been to him? A luxury available to Roy, Hasek, Dryden and Brodeur.

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

For this type of this discussion, I'm not sure it matters where a goaltender's goal-support is coming from - just that they have it, and that its existence lowers the win-threshold.

I agree with this statement, but it is also important to note that shots against has an impact on the win threshold as well. Arguments in favour of Roy's 1986 run typically never mention his very low level of shots against (25.0 shots against per 60 when league average was 30.5 in the regular season and 29.6 in the playoffs), while team support arguments for Hasek are incomplete without pointing out the high number of shots against he typically was facing in the late '90s. For example, the Dallas Stars allowed 24.0 SA/60 compared to the Buffalo Sabres' 28.9 in the '99 playoffs.

Um... what is the statistical outlier in the 1987 and 1988 playoffs? That most goaltenders keep their job after one loss after they've respectively swept and built up a 3-0 series lead, but the Canadiens didn't let Roy keep his?

Now this doesn't really sound all that convincing to me when you have been spending the rest of this thread blaming Dominik Hasek whenever his team didn't play him in Chicago or Buffalo. Roy might have got a quick hook in 1987 but he didn't outplay Hayward in those playoffs, and Roy deservedly lost his job against Hartford in 1988 because he let in 3, 3, 3 and 7 goals against the second-worst offensive team in the NHL. If the Canadiens didn't give him terrific goal support (4, 7, 4 and 5 goals in his starts) the team would either have lost that series or Roy might have been yanked even sooner.

Good for him that he came back strong against Boston, and he was certainly in no way at fault for that series loss at all, but I'm not sure there's a parallel for Hasek winning a series when he played poorly, at least not in Buffalo. I think a bad performance is a bad performance whether or not the team wins the series at the end of it, so absolutely there is a reasonable comparison between Roy's 1988 first round and Hasek's 1995 first round.

Note that it was a similar story for Roy against Buffalo in 1991, where he had an .852 save percentage through the first five games yet found his team leading the series 3-2, and took advantage by closing out the series in six. Montreal scored 29 goals in 6 games in that series. The Montreal Canadiens of that time period weren't playing too many top-5 teams in the first round (as Buffalo did in '95), and they were good enough to overcome it even if their goalie did struggle a bit.

Finally, it is very unclear to me why certain playoff series should be considered more significant than others. If this is the top 60 best two playoff runs of all time, then I would agree that Roy beats Hasek, but then we should also be discussing Bernie Parent and Billy Smith right now, shouldn't we? There seems to be a consistent framing bias in favour of Roy against other goalies in that often instead of comparing playoff records some posters like to compare Roy's Cup runs against the other goalies' series losses as if they were representative of each goalie's entire playoff performance level or team support.

I think we need to be a bit careful as every discussion of a goalie's playoff record that does not focus on the entire picture or at the very least some consistently chosen larger sample is always in danger of quickly descending into bias.

 

[steve141]

Finally, it is very unclear to me why certain playoff series should be considered more significant than others. If this is the top 60 best two playoff runs of all time, then I would agree that Roy beats Hasek, but then we should also be discussing Bernie Parent and Billy Smith right now, shouldn't we? There seems to be a consistent framing bias in favour of Roy against other goalies in that often instead of comparing playoff records some posters like to compare Roy's Cup runs against the other goalies' series losses as if they were representative of each goalie's entire playoff performance level or team support.

I think we need to be a bit careful as every discussion of a goalie's playoff record that does not focus on the entire picture or at the very least some consistently chosen larger sample is always in danger of quickly descending into bias.

I agree with this. Also, I think this project will be more enjoyable for all of us if it does not disintegrate into bashing of the candidates that are not your favourites. I'd be much more interested in hearing why Roy is the best goalie of all time than why Hasek was such an awful goaltender.

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

This raises two questions. First, would Sawchuk have received as much voting support if all voting was done at the end of the season? It seems unlikely. Though it is interesting to see the first half results, which we don't see today.

Another possibility is that season-end voting is more based on stats than midseason voting. I think Sawchuk still may have got some votes though, because Hart voting in the 1950s was all about rewarding a goalie on one of the league's weaker teams. In that entire decade no goalie on a first-place team ended up as the top Hart candidate among goalies, and only one managed it even a second place team.

Here are the ranks of the top-voted goalie and their team's finish in the league:

1950: Rayner, NYR, 4th
1951: Rollins, TOR, 2nd
1952: Henry, BOS, 4th
1953: Rollins, CHI, 4th
1954: Rollins, CHI, 6th
1955: Lumley, TOR, 3rd
1956: Worsley, NYR, 3rd
1957: Sawchuk, BOS, 3rd
1958: Hall, CHI, 5th
1959: Sawchuk, DET, 6th
1960: Hall, CHI, 3rd

If we keep going, it looks like the voter criteria changed. I'm not sure whether Jacques Plante may have helped cause the shift or whether he was merely a beneficiary of it.

1961: Bower, TOR, 2nd
1962: Plante, MTL, 1st
1963: Sawchuk, DET, 4th
1964: Hodge, MTL, 1st
1965: Crozier, DET, 1st
1966: Hall, CHI, 2nd
1967: Giacomin, NYR, 4th

Second, did Sawchuk have a stamina problem? Did he have a career-long pattern of fading over the regular season? If so, what are the implications for his ranking?

I looked up the team data for Sawchuk's teams because it was easy to get, excluding 1956-57 because he didn't play the second half. Note that he was pretty much platooning for 1960-61 onwards, although it's possible that he played more games in the first part of the season I don't know.

1950-51: 72 GA first half, 67 GA second half
1951-52: 63 GA first half, 70 GA second half
1952-53: 69 GA first half, 64 GA second half
1953-54: 64 GA first half, 68 GA second half
1954-55: 69 GA first half, 65 GA second half
1955-56: 96 GA first half, 89 GA second half
1957-58: 104 GA first half, 103 GA second half
1958-59: 89 GA first half, 129 GA second half
1959-60: 89 GA first half, 108 GA second half
1960-61: 101 GA first half, 114 GA second half
1961-62: 112 GA first half, 107 GA second half
1962-63: 86 GA first half, 108 GA second half

Sawchuk definitely started letting in more goals in the second halves of 1958-59 and 1962-63, but I'm not sure that the record suggests it was a constant pattern. There clearly was not a second half dropoff during his first stint in Detroit.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

IT IS SIGNIFICANTLY MORE DIFFICULT TO REPEAT AS THE TOP GOALIE IN THE LEAGUE IN THE MODERN LEAGUE THAN IN THE ORIGINAL 6

I. It is more difficult to win a starting job in a 6 team league than a 30 team league, but once a goalie becomes an entrenched starter, it is much easier to rack up awards recognition.

A. Why goalies are different - each team only gets 1 starter

I know that most of us think a Norris in the Original 6 is about equal to a Norris in a 30 team league, once you take competition into account. The rational is this - any defenseman who was good enough to compete for the Norris would be in the league whether there were 6 teams, 30 teams or 100 teams. Adding 24 teams worth of AHL talent isn't going to increase the number of players competing for the Norris.

Goalies are different though. Each team in the O6 had 4 regular defensemen and regularly had space to try out new defensemen as a #5. So every worthy defenseman from the AHL was likely to get a shot at some point to make the roster, then move up the depth chart if he excelled.

But in goal? Until platooning started in the mid 60s, every team essentially had one starter. And if that starter met expectations, he stayed, and nobody else got a chance. Just look at how long it took Johnny Bower (3 AHL MVPs) to get his shot in the NHL.

Considering the fact that goalies who miss the playoffs rarely get awards recognition, one could argue that in the Original 6, there were really only 4 goalies with a chance at 1st Team All Star in any given year. If you played for the Rangers (who were terrible during the entire O6 period), you just didn't have a shot at 1st Team All Star or the Vezina.

B. The hot-and-gold nature of goaltending lends itself to one-year wonders. There is a much greater chance for a one-season wonder in a 30 team league than a 6 team league.

Look at the list of goalies who have won a single Vezina since the mid 90s:

• Jim Carey in 1996
• Olaf Kolzig in 2000
• Jose Theodore in 2002
• Miikka Kiprusoff in 2006
• Ryan Miller in 2010
• Henrik Lundqvist in 2012

How many of these guys would even have gotten a chance at a starting job if there were only 6 teams in the league?

Conclusion: Even with an equal talent pool, a larger league provides more competition for awards recognition when it comes to goalies. But of course, the talent pool isn't equal, which brings us to:

II. The European (and American) factor

This is quite simple; over the last 2 decades, Europeans have made an tremendous impact on the league in terms of goaltending. In 2011-12, 30 goalies played at least half the schedule. 13 of them (43%) were born in Europe. This is a talent pool that just didn't exist in the Original 6 NHL. 3 of them (10%) were born in the United States. While a few American goalies (namely Brimsek and Karakas) were influential in the 30s and 40s, but the time Sawchuk/Plante/Hall played, the goaltending competition was essentially Canadian-only.

A. Simply removing Europeans (and Americans) from the voting records.

Here are the actual All-Star teams for Roy, Hasek, and Brodeur, and what the records look like if you remove all Europeans, and if you remove all Europeans and Americans. For Hasek, I removed all Europeans but himself.

1. Patrick Roy

Roy actual All-Star Teams = 4 First Team, 2 Second Team
Roy no Europeans = 4 First Team, 5 Second Team
Roy no Euros or Americans = 5 First Team, 4 Second Team

Roy finished behind only Hasek (European) and Vanbiesbrouck (American) in 1994 and only Hasek (European) and Brodeur in 1997. He finished behind Hasek and Cechmanek (European) and Brodeur in 2001.

2. Dominik Hasek

Hasek actual All-Star Teams = 6 First Teams.
No changes if you remove Europeans or Americans.

Hasek finished 4th in All Star voting in 2000 and 3rd in All Star voting in 2007, the only times he received significant votes other than when he actually won. But he was behind only Canadians both times.

Hasek did finish 2nd in Hart voting in 1994, behind only fellow European Sergei Fedorov.

3. Martin Brodeur

Brodeur actual All-Star Teams = 3 First Teams, 4 Second Teams.
Brodeur no Europeans = 9 First Teams, 1 Second Teams.
Brodeur no Europeans or Americans = 10 First Teams, 1 Second Teams.

Brodeur 3rd in 1996 behind 2 Canadiens.

Brodeur was 4th in Hart voting in 1998 behind 3 Europeans (Hasek, Jagr, and Selanne) and 3rd in Hart voting in 2003 behind 2 Europeans (Forsberg and Naslund).

The large effect of Europeans on Brodeur's All Star nods deserves its own post, which I will get to shortly.

 

[quoipourquoi]

I agree with this statement, but it is also important to note that shots against has an impact on the win threshold as well. Arguments in favour of Roy's 1986 run typically never mention his very low level of shots against (25.0 shots against per 60 when league average was 30.5 in the regular season and 29.6 in the playoffs), while team support arguments for Hasek are incomplete without pointing out the high number of shots against he typically was facing in the late '90s. For example, the Dallas Stars allowed 24.0 SA/60 compared to the Buffalo Sabres' 28.9 in the '99 playoffs.

I'm working on every playoff series they've played, including win-thresholds. It'll be up in a few days (19th?)

Now this doesn't really sound all that convincing to me when you have been spending the rest of this thread blaming Dominik Hasek whenever his team didn't play him in Chicago or Buffalo. Roy might have got a quick hook in 1987 but he didn't outplay Hayward in those playoffs, and Roy deservedly lost his job against Hartford in 1988 because he let in 3, 3, 3 and 7 goals against the second-worst offensive team in the NHL. If the Canadiens didn't give him terrific goal support (4, 7, 4 and 5 goals in his starts) the team would either have lost that series or Roy might have been yanked even sooner.

Simply listing his GA in each game isn't really the best method...

21/24; .875
28/31; .903
30/33; .909
36/43; .837

The league average save percentage was .880, so that's a 2-2 split of quality games.


As for Hayward, he had a good playoff in 1987 (he was a good goalie then), but there's nothing to suggest that Patrick Roy wouldn't have had a better playoff had they not stuck with him instead. He was the defending Conn Smythe winner, and he was pulled for having lost one game despite besting Boston four times in five days.

If you're seeing a Hasek parallel here, you're missing the fact that Roy was a league champion in the two years preceding 1987 - not a goalie showing up unprepared in October and November.

Good for him that he came back strong against Boston, and he was certainly in no way at fault for that series loss at all, but I'm not sure there's a parallel for Hasek winning a series when he played poorly, at least not in Buffalo. I think a bad performance is a bad performance whether or not the team wins the series at the end of it, so absolutely there is a reasonable comparison between Roy's 1988 first round and Hasek's 1995 first round.

League Average: .880
Roy: 21/24; .875
Roy: 28/31; .903
Roy: 30/33; .909
Roy: 36/43; .837

League Average: .901
Hasek: 27/31, .871
Hasek: 21/24, .875
Hasek: 18/19, .947
Hasek: 23/27, .852
Hasek: 24/30, .800


I'm really not seeing it. Roy has a better raw save percentage in a league with a lower average.

Note that it was a similar story for Roy against Buffalo in 1991, where he had an .852 save percentage through the first five games yet found his team leading the series 3-2, and took advantage by closing out the series in six.

Another way to say that would be that he had a really good Games 5 and 6 with the series split at two (.929) - or a really good second-half of the series (.907), or a strong final foul (.891), or an above-average final five (.884) - and followed it up with a .918 series against Boston (Neely goal; Moog's net).

It's all a bit of a cherry-pick only looking at a handful of games in the series and summing up his 23/24 (.958) road win as no more than "closing out the series in six."

 

[quoipourquoi]

I'd be much more interested in hearing why Roy is the best goalie of all time than why Hasek was such an awful goaltender.

Bit of a hyperbole.


Working on Roy though. I thought I'd do Hasek first since he was the one up for discussion in three threads.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Dump and Chase / Back-up

I'm still struggling with how much of a benefit to give Brodeur and Plante for their strong puck handling skills.

If Roy his high end at both psychological offense and defense. Then, is he the strongest goalie psychologically. And if so, how much of a boon is that.

Conversely, how much of a benefit would a decent back-up have been to him? A luxury available to Roy, Hasek, Dryden and Brodeur.

Ability to counter the dump and chase is the major benefit of a puck handling goalie, especially on the smaller rinks - Boston, Chicago, Buffalo.Canadiens with Plante were never really challenged by the Bruins who used a Boston Garden version of the dump and chase. On the other hand, Detroit without a good puck handling goalie was upset twice by Boston after two firat place finishes in the fifties. Brodeur in a more sophisticated game due to the emphasis on systems, simply facilitated the transition aspect of the game.Getting the puck up ice, reducing the number of defensive zone faceoffs, facilitates defense.

Is Roy the strongest psychologically is open to debate. The value of a strong psychologically make-up for a goalie is priceless especially in terms of maintaing performance levels and bouncing back from bad experiences on the ice.

Back-up. Decent is not the issue. Appropriate back-up is the issue. Once the two goalie system became rule, Bower / Sawchuk, Hall / Plante, Hodge /Worsley were appropriate pairings that produced better than anticipated results.

Both goalies have to match to make it work, Acting as another coach, sounding board, second pair of eyes, etc. Some match, some do not. Belfour was toxic.

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

I'm working on every playoff series they've played, including win-thresholds. It'll be up in a few days (19th?)

Great, looking forward to it.

If you're seeing a Hasek parallel here, you're missing the fact that Roy was a league champion in the two years preceding 1987 - not a goalie showing up unprepared in October and November.

Either what a team does with its goalies matters or it doesn't. Hasek way outplayed Jimmy Waite prior to October 1991 as well. It's just as easy to say that the team should have stuck with him then based on his prior performance, but you still want to make a big deal about the fact he was demoted to Indianapolis.

To be clear, I'm quite willing to overlook what teams do with their goalies if there are reasons. I agree that the 1987 hook does seem harsh, and I'm not going to criticize Roy for it. I'm not sure you're being equally consistent though.

League Average: .880
Roy: 21/24; .875
Roy: 28/31; .903
Roy: 30/33; .909
Roy: 36/43; .837

League Average: .901
Hasek: 27/31, .871
Hasek: 21/24, .875
Hasek: 18/19, .947
Hasek: 23/27, .852
Hasek: 24/30, .800

I'm really not seeing it. Roy has a better raw save percentage in a league with a lower average.

Yes, but he was playing against a much worse team behind a significantly better defence. League average is one crude way of establishing context, but matchups are also extremely important in any playoff analysis. The more relevant factor is the Hartford Whalers vs. Montreal Canadiens and Buffalo Sabres vs. Philadelphia Flyers, and taking all that into account Roy looks equal or worse to Hasek.

In 1987-88, all NHL goalies combined for a .901 save percentage against the Hartford Whalers. In 1994-95, all NHL goalies combined for a .886 save percentage against the Philadelphia Flyers. Evidence from the player personnel, backup goalies and number of penalties taken suggests a likely additional shot quality affect for Montreal's defensive play relative to Buffalo's.

Not to mention Hayward immediately came in and put up 26/28 and 19/20 against the same Hartford team that Roy was struggling against. The shots against numbers suggest that the rest of the team played better defensively in front of Hayward, but it's clear that Roy was not good at all against a weak team.

That said, I don't think save percentage is representative of performance over a single playoff series, so these estimates are at best approximate. And the comparison is not important at all because it's one bad series for each of these two goalies who were usually great in the postseason. However, I do think consistency is important, and criticizing Hasek in 1995 but not Roy in 1988 is demonstrably inconsistent.

It's all a bit of a cherry-pick only looking at a handful of games in the series and summing up his 23/24 (.958) road win as no more than "closing out the series in six."

No it's not, because the point of comparison is Hasek in 1995, whose team was eliminated in five games because they were unable to overcome Hasek having a few off games. The same thing would have happened to Roy in 1991 with equivalent goal support, and similarly if the Sabres had outscored two more of his bad games in 1995 then Hasek would have had the chance to play great in game six.

The overall point is that the rest of the team can pick up a goalie playing poorly or it can let down a goalie playing great. Accounting for team support is crucial in properly evaluating a goalie's playoff record.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Hasek way outplayed Jimmy Waite prior to October 1991 as well.

And then failed to capitalize on the opportunity by posting this when Chicago had Hasek and Waite splitting starts in the first four games:

31/35 (.886) vs. Minnesota
28/34 (.824) vs. Vancouver

The more relevant factor is the Hartford Whalers vs. Montreal Canadiens and Buffalo Sabres vs. Philadelphia Flyers, and taking all that into account Roy looks equal or worse to Hasek.

In 1987-88, all NHL goalies combined for a .901 save percentage against the Hartford Whalers. In 1994-95, all NHL goalies combined for a .886 save percentage against the Philadelphia Flyers. Evidence from the player personnel, backup goalies and number of penalties taken suggests a likely additional shot quality affect for Montreal's defensive play relative to Buffalo's.

Not to mention Hayward immediately came in and put up 26/28 and 19/20 against the same Hartford team that Roy was struggling against. The shots against numbers suggest that the rest of the team played better defensively in front of Hayward, but it's clear that Roy was not good at all against a weak team.

And even with using team-dependent save-percentage we're still at 2-2 quality games prior to Roy getting pulled out of a 3-1 series, with Hasek having 1-4 quality games in a 1-4 series.

However, I do think consistency is important, and criticizing Hasek in 1995 but not Roy in 1988 is demonstrably inconsistent.

I don't find it to be a similar situation.

The overall point is that the rest of the team can pick up a goalie playing poorly or it can let down a goalie playing great. Accounting for team support is crucial in properly evaluating a goalie's playoff record.

Give me a few days to get that breakdown up. I'm trying to balance this and law school.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Martin Brodeur's awards recognition in a league without Europeans

Brodeur is the goalie affected most by the European influence on awards. Here's a closer look at him season by season to figure out how many of those 9-10 hypothetical 1st Team All Star nods he's actually likely to get.

1997
VEZINA: Dominik Hasek 120 (22-3-1); Martin Brodeur 73 (3-18-4); Patrick Roy 25 (1-3-11); Guy Hebert 10 (0-2-4); Curtis Joseph 2 (0-0-2);
ALL-STAR: Dominik Hasek 237 (40-12-1); Martin Brodeur 174 (13-35-4); Patrick Roy 47 (0-5-32); John Vanbiesbrouck 4 (0-1-1); Jeff Hackett 4 (0-0-4);

1998
VEZINA: Dominik Hasek 126 (24-2-0); Martin Brodeur 57 (2-14-5); Tom Barrasso 26 (0-7-5); Ed Belfour 10 (0-1-7); Patrick Roy 5 (0-1-2);
ALL-STAR: Dominik Hasek 259 (50-3-0); Martin Brodeur 159 (3-47-3); Ed Belfour 40 (0-2-34); Tom Barrasso 15 (0-1-12); Olie Kolzig 3 (0-0-3)

1997 and 1998 were Hasek first, a gap to Brodeur in second, then a gap to the field. Brodeur wins the 1997 and 1998 Vezina and 1st Team nods if it weren't for Hasek's two Hart-winning seasons

2000
VEZINA: Olaf Kolzig 110 (14-13-1); Roman Turek 79 (9-9-7); Curtis Joseph 23 (2-3-4); Ed Belfour 14 (2-0-4); Martin Brodeur 8 (0-1-5);
ALL-STAR: Olaf Kolzig 197 (29-14-10); Roman Turek 186 (23-21-8); Martin Brodeur 48 (2-9-11); Ed Belfour 42 (1-7-16); Curtis Joseph 32 (2-5-7);

2000 was Kolzig, then Turek, then the Joseph/Belfour/Brodeur trio. It's uncertain which of those three finished first without the European Turek. Kolzig was trained in Canada like Stan Mikita. It's possible that Brodeur picks up a 2nd Team All Star without Turek, but it's not certain.

2001
VEZINA: Dominik Hasek, BUF 85 (9-12-4); Roman Cechmanek, PHI 65 (7-9-3); Martin Brodeur, N.J. 42 (7-2-1); Evgeni Nabokov, S.J. 29 (3-3-5); Patrick Roy, COL 19 (2-1-6);
GOALTENDER: Dominik Hasek, BUF 160 (19-18-11); Roman Cechmanek, PHI 154 (19-17-8); Martin Brodeur, N.J. 143 (18-15-8); Patrick Roy, COL 46 (3-7-10); Sean Burke, PHX 20 (2-1-7)

There is a fairly big gap between Brodeur and the 2nd best Canadian (Roy) in both Vezina and All-Star voting in 2001. It's more likely than not that he wins the 2001 Vezina and 1st Team All-Star in a European-only league.

Brodeur probably (but not definitely) picks up the 2001 Vezina/1st Team nod if it weren't for Hasek and Cechmanek. It's uncertain who picks up the 2000 2nd Team instead of Ture
2003&2004
Brodeur actually won the Vezina/1st Team combo

2006
VEZINA: Miikka Kiprusoff, CGY 140 (25-5-0); 2. Martin Brodeur, NJD 48 (2-10-8); 3. Henrik Lundqvist, NYR 41 (2-9-4); 4. Tomas Vokoun, NAS 15 (1-1-7); 5. Manny Legace, DET 6 (0-1-3)
All-Star: Kiprusoff - 599 (113-11-1); Brodeur - 232 (6-59-25); Lundqvist - 128 (5-27-22); Turco - 47 (1-7-21); Vokoun - 44 (2-5-19)

2006 is tougher than it looks, because Kiprusoff was much better than any other goalie, and Brodeur probably got a lot of reputation second place votes since everyone knew it was "Kiprusoff then the field." Still, the guys close to him in "the field" are almost all Europeans, especially in Vezina voting. Brodeur wins the 2006 Vezina without Europeans, and has a good shot at 1st Team All Star

2007
Brodeur won both the Vezina & 1st Team All Star nod

2008
VEZINA: 1. Martin Brodeur, N.J. 113 {15-12-2}; 2. Evgeni Nabokov, S.J. 106 {13-13-2}; 3. Henrik Lundqvist. NYR 13 {1-0-8); 4. J.S. Giguere, ANA 11 {0-1-8); 5. Miikka Kiprusoff, CGY 7 {1-0-2)

ALL-STAR: EVGENI NABOKOV, S.J. 523 (71-55-3); Martin Brodeur, N.J. 475 (56-61-12); J.S. Giguere, ANA 82 (3-8-43); Henrik Lundqvist, NYR 74 (1-6-51); Roberto Luongo, VAN 12 (1-1-4)

2008 was Brodeur and Nabokov, the the field. Brodeur picks up the 2008 1st Team nod to go with his Vezina without Nabokov

2010
VEZINA: Miller Ryan BUF 126 (23, 3, 2); Bryzgalov Ilya PHO 79 (5, 16, 6), Brodeur Martin 32 (1, 6, 9); Nabokov Evgeni 9 (1, 1, 1); Anderson Craig COL 9 (0, 2, 3)

ALL-STAR: Miller Ryan BUF 598 (105 24 1); Bryzgalov Ilya PHO 371 (20, 85, 16); Brodeur Martin NJ 136 (6, 16, 58); Nabokov Evgeni SJ 13 (0, 2, 7); Kiprusoff Miikka CGY 12 (0, 0, 12)

2010 was clearly a case of Ryan Miller, then Bryzgalov, then Brodeur. Brodeur was the only Canadian Top 5 in voting for either category. Brodeur likely is a 2nd Team All Star without Bryzgalov, and a 1st Teamer without any Americans

Conclusions

• Brodeur won 4 Vezinas and 3 First Team All Stars.
• He was clearly #2 behind Hasek in 1997 and 1998. Without Hasek's Hart-winning seasons, Brodeur wins 6 Vezinas and 5 First Team All Stars
• Brodeur is almost certain to win the 2006 Vezina and 2008 First Team without any Europeans. In a Euro-less league, Brodeur wins at least 7 Vezinas and 6 First Team All Stars.
• Brodeur probably wins both the 2001 Vezina and First Team and the 2006 First Team without any Europeans. In a Euro-less league, Brodeur probably wins 8 Vezinas and 8 First Team All Stars.
• Brodeur has a chance at picking up a 2nd Team All Star in 2000 without any Europeans.
• Brodeur is probably a 2nd Team All Star in 2010 without any Europeans. Without any Americans either, he is probably the Vezina winner and First Team All Star. In a Euro-less league, Brodeur adds a 2nd Team All Star in 2010 to his 6-9 First Teams. In a league with no Euros or Americans, adds another Vezina, giving him at most 9 Vezinas and 9 First Team All Stars.
• Brodeur was also the leading Canadian in Hart voting by fairly wide margins in both 1998 and 2003, but it's always possible that a Canadian forward who finished well below him wins the award if you just remove all the European forwards, given the preference for forwards.

Conclusion: If you remove all Europeans, Brodeur likely wins 7-8 Vezinas and 6-8 First Teams. Remove all Americans and he likely wins 8-9 Vezinas and 7-9 First Teams. He also has a shot at both the 1998 and 2003 Hart trophies.

Standard disclaimer: This entire study is about who would have won, and is making no judgments about who should have won.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Conclusion: If you remove all Europeans, Brodeur likely wins 7-9 Vezinas and 6-9 First Teams. Remove all Americans and he likely wins 8-10 Vezinas and 7-10 First Teams. He also has a shot at both the 1998 and 2003 Hart trophies.

Standard disclaimer: This entire study is about who would have won, and is making no judgments about who should have won.

I love that we have this broken down, and I look forward to thumbing through it closely. The one issue I think will come under scrutiny is in the years in which Brodeur was behind high-SPCT European goaltenders. When we remove the leaders in save percentage, do the 1st Place votes default to Brodeur or do they fall to the next high-SPCT North American goaltender? For instance, we talked about 2000-01 earlier: Sean Burke's .922 in 62 games (a higher rate than Hasek or Cechmanek) might start to look really good to the voters. Some might argue (and I might be one of them) that some of those runner-up and third place votes were the result of GMs and Writers only getting to select a 1-2-3 and not wanting to leave off the Wins leader.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I love that we have this broken down, and I look forward to thumbing through it closely. The one issue I think will come under scrutiny is in the years in which Brodeur was behind high-SPCT European goaltenders. When we remove the leaders in save percentage, do the 1st Place votes default to Brodeur or do they fall to the next high-SPCT North American goaltender? For instance, we talked about 2000-01 earlier: Sean Burke's .922 in 62 games (a higher rate than Hasek or Cechmanek) might start to look really good to the voters. Some might argue (and I might be one of them) that some of those runner-up and third place votes were the result of GMs and Writers only getting to select a 1-2-3 and not wanting to leave off the Wins leader.

This is a good point and I look forward to what you can come up with. I did something similar with Hart voting, where Brodeur was easily the leader among Canadians in 1998 and 2003, but I think a lot of the votes ahead of him would have gone to the highest scoring Canadian forwards rather than Brodeur.

A couple of comments:

1) I don't think the exact number of awards Brodeur lost to Europeans matters so much as the fact that he did lose a lot to them.

2) Keep in mind that the analysis I did doesn't include the effect of "one-season wonders" from Canada like Theodore who may not have had jobs to begin with in a 6 team league. That may or may not counteract the number of voters who would look to the next best save percentage guy if you removed the Euros.

Consider this as the main part of my answer as to how I can consider Brodeur to be Hall's equal in the regular season, despite Hall's greater number of All-Star nods.

 

[overpass]

Here's a look at Terry Sawchuk, Jacques Plante, and Glenn Hall from the pages of Sports Illustrated over the years. It includes a lot of subjective detail that the statistical record doesn't show - filling out the bones of the statistical record, as it were.

I don't plan to look at the four more modern goaltenders in the same way, because many of us have experienced their careers as they happened and because there's a lot more material to dig through.

Terry Sawchuk

January 28, 1957 - Boston Nightmare: Exit Sawchuk

The Boston Bruins, surprise team of the National Hockey League (see story page 30), got a shock themselves last week. Terrance Gordon Sawchuk, their remarkable but moody goalie who had squired the team to an early-season lead in the NHL, decided abruptly that he was through with hockey. With a hare and hound act that would do justice to the creakiest class B movie, Sawchuk disappeared from sight, popped up once to say, "I quit," promptly disappeared again, and in Boston was last seen boarding a train for Detroit and home. He announced, "I am through with hockey."

A cloud of uncertainty continues to hover heavily over the hockey future of Terry Sawchuk, but the past presents no such problem. Sawchuk is manifestly the best goalie of his day, and there are some, including Frank Boucher, the former general manager of the New York Rangers, who have called him the greatest in history. In Sawchuk's amazing record there is ample evidence to bear them out.

January 18, 1960 - The Best Goalie On Ice

Even if the octopus were hostile, there are two men who would be relatively safe from it in Detroit. One, of course, is Gordie Howe, that marvelous old lamplighter who this season passes even Maurice Richard as top scorer in National Hockey League history. The other is Terry Sawchuk, who quit the Boston Bruins three years ago because his nerves, he said, were shattered. He rested for half a season, and now he is the goalie for the Wings and probably the finest goalie playing hockey today.

Sawchuk is a marvelous goaltender to behold. Perhaps you saw him on television last Saturday against the Rangers, exhibiting the special pride which makes him a hated figure in many cities but a hero in Detroit: he guards his net not merely as an object four feet high and six feet wide, but as if it were a precious tapestry that only he could protect. In pre-game warmups when his teammates are firing at him, he seems to enjoy catching the puck with his mitt, then inspecting it casually with the nonchalance you affect when looking over fruit at the market.

November 12, 1962 - Young Blood Sets The Red Wings Flying High

At least a partial explanation was the marvelous goal work of oldtimer Terry Sawchuk. Once the outstanding goalie of the league, Sawchuk had declined in recent years to the point where he seemed overdue for the minors. But this year, wearing a mask (� la Montreal's Plante) for the first time in his 13 years in the NHL nets, Sawchuk was leading the league with a goals-against average of only 1.3 goals per game and batting away pucks so skillfully that he already has scored a remarkable total of three shutouts.

Along with Young's spectacular recklessness, Sawchuk's new infallibility and Barkley's grateful and confident determination, there is a spirit of infectious success in Detroit this season that has touched every Red Wing player, from the incomparable Gordie Howe to newly elected Captain Alec Delvecchio. This spirit stems directly from a new deal on the coaching-management level that was inaugurated last April when the Detroit owners fired their crusty and outspoken general manager, 67-year-old Jack Adams. Adams had held his job for 35 years, and he had spent much of that time interfering with Red Wing Coach Sid Abel's decisions on tactics and personnel. Promoted to coach and manager in one, Abel, a tall, silver-haired 44, began a series of trades, drafts, purchases and farm club changes that resulted in a total of eight new names on the 18-man Red Wing roster.

May 15, 1967 - Beware The Watchdogs At Old Folks Home

But Terry Sawchuk and Johnny Bower, the goalies who had done the most to make the celebration possible, were by themselves, dragging deeply on cigarettes and grappling silently with the frayed nerves and many physical ailments that are an inescapable part of life for aging men who insist on enduring in a young man's game.

Sawchuk, 38, had played one of the best games of his 20-year pro career that night to beat the Montreal Canadiens 3-1, as the Maple Leafs clinched the Stanley Cup in the sixth game. Bower, who claims he is 42 but is probably older, had put in two big games the week before; now he had trouble walking because of a pulled groin muscle. But he had been in uniform on the end of the Leafs' bench all night, because Imlach said he deserved to be there.

Sawchuk, who changed his style dramatically between his bad fourth-game defeat and his brilliant victories in the fifth and sixth, said he hadn't even thought about any such change. Bower thinks constantly of his style and his errors: "I don't care how long I've played. I still can improve on things like cutting down a shooter's angle or clearing the puck around the boards." Sawchuk believes in pacing himself carefully in practice, while Bower is probably the hardest-working member of hockey's hardest-working team.

Jacques Plante

February 17, 1958 - The Habs Have Put It On Ice

This swashbuckling offense tends to becloud the fact that the defense is far and away the best in the league and probably the best of all in the 28 years since the advent of forward passing in the offensive zone—a change of rules which radically altered the role of the defenseman. In goal, Jacques Plante, who crouches alertly on this week's cover, is a sharp-eyed, courageous and original gardien de buts who has been well-blooded in his difficult profession, having had both cheekbones and his nose broken by the puck.

"But see here," someone says, "with the high-scoring forwards the Canadiens have, a good offense is the best defense."

Not true. "We're a freewheeling team," says the Canadiens' managing director, Frank Selke. "We're not. spoilers. We don't try to keep the other team from playing hockey. If we just win the game that doesn't please us. We want to put on a good show for the fans. As a result there is plenty of pressure on the defense, and Plante gets a lot of work."

The defense corps is nobly aided in the elemental job of keeping the puck out of the Montreal filets by Jacques Plante, the gardien himself.

On a recent Saturday before a Chicago-Montreal game, Kenny Reardon fired up a pipe in his office at the Forum and talked about Plante:

"The way he moves away from the goal to set up a loose puck for the defensemen may revolutionize goalkeeping. I'd say he saves them 15% of the work of clearing the puck.

"I'll admit I didn't like it at first. A goaler just didn't move away from the goal like that. It just wasn't done. Well, you'll notice that some of the other goalers are beginning to do it, too. Another thing, Plante's quick. That's why the fans called him Jake the Snake when he was with our Buffalo farm club."

Frank Selke said: "The Canadiens have had some great goalkeepers: Vezina, whose name is on the trophy for goalers; Hainsworth, who had 22 shutouts in a 44-game season; Durnan—he had to be good—six years on the all-stars. Plante hasn't been with us very long, but he has played very well. I wouldn't trade him for any goaler in the league."

Harvey talked about Planter "If the goaler makes a mistake everybody's watching, everybody sees it, you know. If a defenseman makes a mistake it's not as noticeable. And he can say, 'Let's go, now. Let's get that one back.' All Jack can do is stand there and burn.

"Jack saves us a lot of trouble by going after the puck when they dump it into our end. We'd really get reefed in the corners if he didn't do it. He's a good fast skater—as fast as some forwards—and I've only seen it backfire twice."

November 07, 1960 - Can The Habs Be Had?

At the other end of the rink, the Habs' defensemen Doug Harvey and Tom Johnson would be keeping the enemy honest, while the Montreal goalie, Jacques Plante, was stopping enough shots to win the Vezina Trophy (fewest goals against) five years in a row.

But this year the Canadiens' defense has begun to melt like ice under a hot torch. More pucks have been rammed past Plante than any goalie in the league. Harvey is showing his years (35), and Johnson, who usually starts fast, has slowed considerably. The forwards, always in a friendly fight among each other for the top places in league scoring, have once again made more goals than any other team, but in the process they seem to have forgotten all they ever knew about back-checking and poke-checking. Says Kenny Reardon, vice-president of the club: "We're suffering from an inclination to let George do it when it comes to checking and hard defensive work."

Depending on his mood, Coach Toe Blake puts the blame for the Habs' hard times on 1) poor checking by forwards, 2) the fact that the league has tightened up all around, 3) the demoralizing loss of Maurice (The Rocket) Richard, who retired at the start of the season, and 4) on Plante's use of a face mask. "I never was for that mask," says Toe Blake. "Since Plante has been wearing it I don't think he's been playing as well. Other players take chances. Take the catcher in baseball. You don't see him leave his mask on when he's trying to catch a foul ball. Why should Plante?"

Blake neglects to mention that there is a lot of difference between a foul pop-up and a blue-line slap shot by Bobby Hull streaking at the goal, but Jacques Plante knows it. "The mask gives me confidence," he says. Despite 44 goals scored against him in 13 games, the Canadiens' goalie plans to keep the mask on. Blake will frown, but he will issue no ultimatum. "I'm afraid if he takes it off he may be worse than ever," Blake says.

February 06, 1961 - Hero's Humiliation In Montreal

Montreal is a hybrid, often confusing town where an elevator is an ascenseur and a good cigar is a fum�e. But until recently there was no confusion, linguistically or otherwise, about Jacques Plante. No matter how you pronounced it, he was simply the best goal tender in hockey. Then suddenly, two months ago, he wasn't. Jacques Plante, Vartiste of the nets, the goalie saws peur et sans reproche, the winner of his craft's Oscar for five straight years, the perennial, irreplaceable bulwark of the top team in hockey, went down to a third-rate club in a minor league. His place in the Canadiens' nets was taken by a nice little guy named Charlie Hodge.

Plante opened the current season by announcing that he didn't care if he ever won the Vezina again: "It is too much strain on me." He said he would be happy merely if the Canadiens won the league race and the Stanley Cup playoffs. The statement had a sour sound to the other Canadiens' players. What better way to win the league championship than to keep the other teams from scoring; in a word, to try to win the Vezina? Already some of the more temperamental of his teammates were nursing injured feelings about Plante. They resented his habit of throwing his hands in the air at the end of winning games. It almost seemed, they thought, as though he were saying, "Look at me, I did it again!" His income, upwards of $20,000, rankled players who were making downwards of $10,000. Among some Canadiens, there was a distinct feeling that Jacques Plante was getting more attention than any single player deserved.

The Canadiens' defense, hampered partially by key injuries, began collapsing in front of Plante. To make matters worse, an old knee injury flared up. "I would be all right at the beginning of a game," he recalls, "but if I had to fall on the knee or make a split, it would begin to pain." At the end of 21 games, Plante and the Canadiens had lost seven and tied two, a horrible record for the New York Yankees of hockey. The great Jacques, whose lifetime "goals-against" average was a phenomenal 2.1, had let 3.2 goals slip by per game.

As the season advanced, the internal dissension grew worse. On dining cars one would see Plante alone at a table for four, while the other Canadiens cliqued off together. Coach Hector (Toe) Blake became openly critical of Plante, said he would be a better goal tender if he would take off his mask and not worry so much about facial injuries. Club Director Frank Selke specifically ordered Plante to abandon his flamboyant sorties away from the goalmouth, to cut down on his ex-hortatory shouting at other players, to desist from raising his hands in victory; in other words, to stop being Plante.

November 25, 1968 - Those Uppity Blues

1) St. Louis has the best pair of goaltenders ever to play on the same team, 39-year-old Jacques Plante and 37-year-old Glenn Hall. Hall is the gentleman of delicate digestion but ferocious determination who used to keep 'em out for Chicago and who was voted the outstanding player in the Stanley Cup, even in defeat. Plante, coming off a three-year retirement, is the famed asthmatic who played for Montreal and New York, and was the first goalie to wear a mask and the first to ramble away from the goal to stop the puck for his defensemen.

But beyond doubt Bowman's chief coup has been the care and feeding of Hall and Plante. After last season Seth Martin, who had alternated with Hall, decided to retire, and Hall thought he might retire, too. Now Bowman has this belief that the fate of all expansion teams for the next few years is going to be determined by the performance of their goaltenders. The new teams, he reasons, cannot match the total offensive strength of the established clubs. Each Western team has one or two goal-scoring threats at most, while every East team has half a dozen or more. St. Louis may have Berenson, but Chicago, for example, merely starts off the scoring with Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita.

To begin to compensate for this imbalance, Bowman has looked for defensive-minded players. His defensemen rarely lead a rush up the ice; they take their sweet, safe time and wait for solid openings. This style of play has enabled such veterans as Doug Harvey, 43, and Al Arbour, 36, to play regularly for the Blues long after the old six-team NHL discarded them to the minors.

Still, the hub of a sound defense is in goal, and last June the Blues faced the disturbing prospect of losing both their goaltenders. Bowman learned that Plante, who had retired in 1965 when his wife fell ill, wanted to make a comeback, so he drafted Jacques from the Rangers. "We both knew he could still play goal," Bowman said. "After all, he hadn't quit because he couldn't do the job. I told him what we would pay him. I told him he would play no less than 30 games and probably no more than 40. And I told him we always had a job for him in the St. Louis organization. He's an intelligent person, a good speaker, an excellent teacher. All this impressed him, and he signed immediately."

A few weeks later Bowman called Hall, who was painting the barn on his 480-acre farm in Stony Plain, Alta. Glenn's son Pat answered, and Bowman asked him, "How's your dad?" Pat said, "He's in great shape." When Glenn got to the phone, Bowman said to him, "So you're returning, eh?" Hall: "Who says?" Bowman: "Your son." Hall: "Oh!" Bowman flew up to see Glenn at the end of July and signed him then.

Hall and Plante are being platooned intelligently. Generally Hall will play two games, then Plante will play two. However, Bowman does not intend to play either goalie on successive nights. Bowman also has instituted a new spare-goalie system for them. Normally teams carry only two goaltenders on their roster. One goalie plays while the other sits at the end of the bench, ready to go on in an emergency. Bowman prefers to give one goalie the night off when the other is playing rather than subject him to a cold, hard bench to no purpose. "It would be an insult," he says. Instead, he dresses young Robbie Irons as his alternate, emergency goalie.

Last Wednesday in New York, Hall started in goal, so Plante sat in the Blues' broadcast booth. An attendant passed through and offered Jacques a soft drink. He declined politely. "I am not playing in the goal tonight," he said in his crisp, French-accented voice, "but in hockey you never know what will happen. While I may sit up here, I can't have the coffee, the hot dog, the mustard. Sorry. Thank you."

The beautiful thing for goalie connoisseurs is that the styles of Hall and Plante are totally different. Hall depends upon his reflexes. He moves back into his net, defying the shooter to beat him, and does a partial split, with his feet working toward the goalposts. He thinks the day of the reflex goalie is near an end, however, because of the curved sticks that most players now use. "Reflex goalies won't be able to survive against the curved stick," he said. "The puck comes twice as fast at times, and it rises or dips. It's brutal."

Plante works in the classic stand-up style. He rarely goes to the ice; instead, he moves out toward the shooter and tries to narrow the angles.

Both Plante and Hall have sons who play hockey. Would they want them to play the goal?

"Definitely," says Plante. "There's no other place."

"I'd discourage him," says Hall. "There are better spots to be in."

April 07, 1969 - An Icy Love-in With The Red-hot Blues

Dividing time equally this year, Hall and Plante became one of the finest goal-tending teams in NHL history. They each had a flock of shutouts and won the league's Vezina Trophy, awarded annually to the team giving up the fewest goals. Bowman refuses, by the way, to play Plante against his old team, Montreal, and Hall, a former Black Hawk, against Chicago. "Why give those clubs any reason to get fired up when they play us?" he says.

Yet perhaps Bowman's most significant job has been keeping both goalies—poles apart in style and temperament—operating compatibly. On a club with a less forceful coach their differences might have resulted in chaos. Hall is quiet and reserved, merely doing the job he is paid to do; Plante does his job, too—but he is a showman, even a ham at times, and he loves the fans' adulation. Bowman, by toning down Plante and building up Hall, has successfully exploited the competition between the two while keeping both men happy.

Berenson, Plante and Hall are the crowd pleasers on a team otherwise rather dull to watch—for two periods, anyway. Bowman has the Blues playing a highly disciplined, well-organized game, the wings going up and down the boards as if on a track, the defensemen careful not to be caught up ice. Most of the forwards are just good, cherub-faced youngsters who can skate and check. The defense, led by Doug Harvey (hurting), 44, Al Arbour, 36, and Jean Guy Talbot, 36, sets the tempo of the game—and racehorse hockey it isn't.

The Blues feel Hall or Plante can stop the initial shot of an attack—regardless of who shoots—so they concentrate on sweeping away the rebound. "We feel if we can go into the third period no worse than a goal behind, we have a pretty good chance to win," says Bowman. "So we play it cozy through the first two periods and—if necessary—take our chances in the third."

November 17, 1986 - A Brash Act 20 Years Ago Became A Tribute To The Late Jacques Plante

In the weeks after his death, I reflected on Plante's contributions to goaltending and on my long fascination with the man. Even without his introduction of the revolutionary roving style, or his popularization of the goalie mask, or his advocacy of goalie coaches—unheard of back then—Plante's records and statistics alone marked him as one of the greatest goalies ever. He won a record seven Vezina Trophies (then awarded to the goalie allowing the fewest goals). He was the only goalie in the last 32 years to win the Hart Trophy (1962) as league MVP. His name was inscribed six times on the Stanley Cup. He had a glittering 2.37 average in 837 regular-season games and an even better 2.16 in 112 playoff games. Only fellow Hall of Famers Terry Sawchuk (103) and Glenn Hall (84) had more career shutouts than Plante (82).

But Plante had more than talent. He had genius. He was a virtuoso and a stylist who, finding it insufficient to merely master one of the toughest positions in sport, went out and re-created it in his own flamboyant image.

Plante shattered what for decades had been the first commandment of goaltending—thou shalt not bother a puck that is not bothering you—in favor of leaving the net to intercept passes and gain possession of the puck for his defensemen. Goalies were supposed to wait for trouble, then try to deal with it as best they could. Thanks to Plante, goalies today can stop trouble before it happens. But, as with most innovations, it was not always well received.

With Montreal ahead three games to two in the best-of-seven series and with Penney playing spectacularly, I speculated (correctly, as it turned out) that Penney and Montreal would eliminate Quebec in the next game. "He'll wrap it up Friday," I said to Plante and then added—I don't know why, other than to make conversation—"if his friends don't let him down."

Plante said nothing. The elevator arrived at his floor. The door slid open and Plante put his arm in front of it, holding it back while his wife stepped off. Then Plante stepped out and, with his arm still holding the door, smiled and said, "A goalie has no friends. Good night." The door slid shut.

Glenn Hall

December 19, 1960 - Clay Pigeons And Cold Sweat

The goalie does have, of course, a few principles to guide him, the first of which is to keep his eyes firmly fixed on the puck every second it is in play, whether it is 60 yards down the ice or six inches off the tip of the nose. This unwavering concentration can generate an almost hypnotic trance when the goalie is a rink's length away from the game. Terry Sawchuk, the veteran who this year is sharing the Detroit Red Wings' net with red-hot newcomer Hank Bassen, compares watching the puck for 60 minutes to driving a car on a turnpike. "Pretty soon," he says, "you start to doze at the wheel. When you snap awake you realize all the awful things that might have happened." To keep alert at such times, Johnny Bower plays the opposing goalie's role by proxy, fending off each of his teammates' shots in imagination. Chicago's Hall becomes nervous if left out of the action for too long, but Montreal's Plante likes to relax and enjoy the game. "We don't score any goals when the puck's up in my end," he says blandly.

March 12, 1962 - A Sick Goalie Saves Chicago

Close behind Hull in the point parade were his teammates Hay and Mikita. When Hay, Hull, Mikita and the rest of the Hawks are playing as a team, as they have been recently, they are virtually unstoppable. But much of the time, particularly in the early months, they played like five strangers scrambling for the pot in a crap game when the cops walk in. The only thing that has saved them from a fate worse than Boston's during these periods was the virtually impassable fortress in their goal: 30-year-old Glenn Hall, a stoic family man whose major dream is to settle down and raise cattle.

Playing goal for the Chicago Black Hawks is a little like fielding bricks with an eye socket. The big, bruising, fast-skating muscular Hawk forwards are determined to beat the frozen inferno out of any team they can catch; the trouble is they can't always catch them. The result is that while Hawk forwards are milling malignantly around the other fellow's goal looking for somebody to bruise, the other fellow's forwards (particularly if they happen to be the fast-skating Montreal Canadiens) are more than likely at the Chicago end swarming all over Goalie Hall. "Only 10% of goals are the fault of the goalkeeper," he says without rancor. "The rest are the result of mistakes up the ice that let a guy get through to take a shot. The goalkeeper either makes the last mistake or makes the great save that wipes out the other mistakes."

Hall, who leads the league in shutouts with eight scoreless games to his credit, prefers to make the great save—and generally does—even though the effort makes him actively sick.

Behind Hall's easy malleability, however, lies a flinty sense of self-discipline and a determination to be his own man. Recently someone asked Hall what, if anything, he gets out of practice. "I'm really not supposed to talk about things like that," said the organization man in Hall, but then he talked anyway. "I really don't believe in practice," he said as firmly as an iconoclast entering a church. "It's all right for the players who aren't getting much time on the ice. But when you're playing three or 3� games a week you don't have much chance to get out of shape."

Hall's own style is as individualistic as an infant's ear. The majority of goalies use a semisplit in which one leg is locked vertically into place as a pivot while the other one is swung out wide to the left in a lopsided V. Hall meets the shot with his feet wide but his knees close together to form an inverted Y. Instead of throwing his whole body to the ice in crises, he'll go down momentarily to his knees, then bounce back to his feet, able to go in any direction. "In this way I'm always in position and ready for the next shot," he says.

On the ice Hall follows the puck with the concentration of a gem cutter. (He has 20/15 vision, which means that he can see at 20 feet what the normal eye can see at 15 feet.) "Sometimes I have to talk to myself to sell me on concentrating a little more," he says.

March 20, 1967 - No Foldo In Chicago

To many observers, of course, the Hawks have had the best team in the NHL for the last five years. After all, they had the top goal-scorer in Hull, the top defenseman in Pierre Pilote, the all-star goalie in Glenn Hall and the best forward line in the Scooters (see cover), a line consisting of Mikita, Kenny Wharram and, during the last three years, Doug Mohns. Yet every March, with the long-awaited championship in sight, the Hawks would collapse. Explanations for this phenomenon have ranged from the mythical Muldoon Jinx—a curse allegedly pronounced by the team's first coach, Pete Muldoon, when he was fired in 1927—to accusations of "choking," but the Hawks tend to explain their past failures in more basic, physical terms.

"There was a simple reason for those late slumps," says Pilote, the 35-year-old team captain. "We always depended too much on a few stars. We had to use them a lot and they got worn out. And when the stars got tired the team faded. This season the load is more evenly distributed, so the stars have stayed strong all year long."

It was probably more difficult—and certainly more expensive—to induce Hall to make a comeback. But Ivan did it, and now he has the best and the most unusual goaltending combination of all. Hall, 35, has the perpetually sour expression of a menial office worker who hates his job; actually he is a brilliant hockey player who hates his job. "Enjoy this?" he says. "Are you kidding? I'm around here for one reason and that's the money." He gets sick before each game and occasionally wakes up from naps to find himself kicking out at imaginary flying pucks. But now that he plays only half as much, he is even better than before.

See the Jacques Plante section for stories on Hall's St. Louis days.

October 27, 1992 - Iron Man Of The Ice

What particularly distinguishes Hall's iron-man mark was the quality of his play throughout it. In '55-56 he was NHL rookie of the year. In '60-61 he led the Hawks to an unexpected Stanley Cup championship. During those seven seasons Hall was named to the first or second All-Star team six times—a feat made more amazing by the competition. This was the golden era of the goalie (or the "goolie," as Hall was nicknamed). Five future Hall of Famers were manning the nets in the six-team NHL then: Terry Sawchuk, Johnny Bower, Jacques Plante, Gump Worsley and Hall. "You pretty much saw good goaltending every night," Hall says. "That was one of the great things about the old six-team league. You always wanted to force the guy in the other net to play well."

Hall loved the games, and he loved the subtleties of his position. "If you're not thinking three or four or five plays ahead, you're not finding goaltending interesting," Hall says. "And, jeez, it's an interesting position, isn't it?"

Certainly the way Hall played, it was. He pioneered the butterfly style that is routinely used by modern goalies. Instead of splitting to stop the low shot, or sprawling sideways and stacking the pads—which was the common style of his era—Hall dropped to his knees and fanned his feet out in a wide V. There were several advantages to this butterfly technique:

1) Hall was able to use his glove hand to catch almost any shot off the ice and, subsequently, kill the play.

2) Most of the bottom of the net was protected, guarding against a deflection. (When a goalie splits, much of the bottom of the net is vulnerable.)

3) It was an easier position to recover from than either the split or the sprawl.

4) Perhaps most important to Hall, his face was kept farther from the ice. "The butterfly was a move designed to keep the face away from the puck," says Hall. "It was just common sense. But it was only used when the puck was tight in. Today, with the masks, they're butterflying on shots taken all over the ice."

Hall was known as a reflex goalie, one who relied more on quickness of hand and foot than on angles and positioning. Playing most of his career for the run-and-gun Hawks of the Bobby Hull era, he was often left to fend spectacularly for himself. Opponents had no reliable book on how to beat him, except to keep gunning.

Hall appeared to be even quicker than he really was, because of his great anticipation. "There's a very fine line between anticipation and cheating," he likes to say. It is a line he often would tread. He would, for example, leave the left corner open to an opponent, perhaps a tantalizing six inches, then, when the player put his head down to shoot, Hall would slide over and take that corner away. "Reeling them in," he called it.

Expansion eventually ruined this ruse, however. Hall would give some no-name one side of the net and, when the head went down, move over to cover the corner. Then—bang!—the jerk would put a shot right where Hall had been standing, and it would get through his legs. "The guy would raise his stick and think he was a hockey player," Hall says in disgust. "We all had trouble with that at first."

He loved to play. The complexity of goaltending was mother's milk to him. It was the practices Hall hated. Loathed. He can't understand how modern goalies put up with them. "We didn't have these stupid practices they have today," he says, "where they come in and blast pucks at you, one after another. How often does a guy get that kind of time in a season? I counted the shots they took on our goalie one time in practice a couple of years back. It was something like 275. That was more shots than I saw in a month. What's the point? I've always believed if a forward can play every night, so can a goalie. But not if you practice like that. I know the greatest thing for me was a day off from practice. Once in a while the coach would ask if I could use one, and I had a standard two-word answer: 'Of course.' That's frowned on today. Coaches think you're not working hard enough if you take a day off."

For much of his career, Hall had to practice day after day against the likes of teammates Hull and Stan Mikita, who in the mid-'60s were among the first to use the curved stick. "Practices were sheer terror," recalls MacNeil. "Bobby had the hammer out all the time, and he had no compunction about trying to put it right through a guy's stomach. He just loved to hit guys with the puck."

"Stan and Bobby used the hook as a form of intimidation," says Hall. "There was no limit to the curve then, and they'd kind of cut their shot so it'd dip two feet on you. We weren't used to it, and we didn't like it."

Those Hull-Mikita-Hall-led Hawks were a thrilling team to watch, but despite their great talent, they only won the one Stanley Cup, in 1961. Hall believes that the Black Hawks' penchant for the offensive game—and a lust for goal scoring—may have been a factor. "They sacrificed passing the puck for the shot," he says. "Bobby just loved to shoot the puck more than anything."

"Those Hawk teams never paid much attention to defense," says Scotty Bowman, who coached Hall for four seasons with the St. Louis Blues. "One year Glenn was leading the race for the Vezina Trophy [which in those years went to the goalie who allowed the fewest goals against] by six goals with two games left in the season, and on the plane trip to Toronto all the Black Hawks were talking about was how many goals they needed to make their bonuses. Glenn never said a thing, which he wouldn't, knowing him. So Chicago ends up getting in a couple of shoot-outs, and Glenn lost the Vezina on the last day of the season. It tells you how well Glenn had to have played all season to even have been close."

"You know, today's goalies work harder in practice than we ever did," Hall says. "But I see a complacency—a lot of guys just happy being in the NHL. I'll never understand that complacency. Scotty Bowman used to say, just because you signed an NHL contract, doesn't mean you're a National Leaguer. That's the way I felt. God, I'd have hated to be an average goalie."

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

And then failed to capitalize on the opportunity by posting this when Chicago had Hasek and Waite splitting starts in the first four games:

31/35 (.886) vs. Minnesota
28/34 (.824) vs. Vancouver

Right. League average was .888, so Hasek had one bad game and the team went with someone else. An exact parallel to what you're griping with about Roy. And if you want to claim that .002 in single-game save percentage is somehow significant, then you're far too invested in your quality starts stat.

And even with using team-dependent save-percentage we're still at 2-2 quality games prior to Roy getting pulled out of a 3-1 series, with Hasek having 1-4 quality games in a 1-4 series.

As I see it, Roy probably had zero quality starts against Hartford. Maybe one, depending on the strength of the adjustment, but I'm not willing to assume no shot quality bonus for playing on the Montreal Canadiens in 1988. As it is, you are claiming that the fact he exceeded the threshold by .002 and .007 is relevant, and far from convinced that it is. Whether Roy was at .901 or .908, his team still loses the game unless they score 4 or more goals, which is an above-average level of scoring even for 1987-88. And when your team scores 7, then what the goalie does almost doesn't even matter.

Looking at the overall series results using the head-to-head numbers with no shot quality adjustment, Roy and Hasek are exactly the same, hence the comparison. They both faced 131 shots, and they were both 3 goals worse than expected.

Roy: 118 expected save, 115 saves
Hasek: 116 expected saves, 113 saves

I'd consider quality games as perhaps a useful indicator over a large sample size, although I would like to see more thresholds used as HockeyOutsider suggested earlier in this thread, because given a threshold of .901, .903 is not the same as .950, which is not the same as .899, which is not the same as .800.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Terry Sawchuk

I looked up the team data for Sawchuk's teams because it was easy to get, excluding 1956-57 because he didn't play the second half. Note that he was pretty much platooning for 1960-61 onwards, although it's possible that he played more games in the first part of the season I don't know.

1950-51: 72 GA first half, 67 GA second half
1951-52: 63 GA first half, 70 GA second half
1952-53: 69 GA first half, 64 GA second half
1953-54: 64 GA first half, 68 GA second half
1954-55: 69 GA first half, 65 GA second half
1955-56: 96 GA first half, 89 GA second half
1957-58: 104 GA first half, 103 GA second half
1958-59: 89 GA first half, 129 GA second half
1959-60: 89 GA first half, 108 GA second half
1960-61: 101 GA first half, 114 GA second half
1961-62: 112 GA first half, 107 GA second half
1962-63: 86 GA first half, 108 GA second half

Sawchuk definitely started letting in more goals in the second halves of 1958-59 and 1962-63, but I'm not sure that the record suggests it was a constant pattern. There clearly was not a second half dropoff during his first stint in Detroit.

Terry Sawchuk's stats:

http://www.hockey-reference.com/players/s/sawchte01.html

From HSP, Sawchuk's first half / second half splits

1960/61 19/35 , 18/35 basically managed with Bassen. Sawchuk tended to face Montreal, Toronto, Chicago.

1961-62 28/35, 15/35. injuries.

1962-63 32/35, 16/35, injuries explain Hart voting

1963-64 25/35, 28/35, injured game 16

Your 1962-63 conclusion does not hold.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Right. League average was .888, so Hasek had one bad game and the team went with someone else. An exact parallel to what you're griping with about Roy.

And yet by the grace of your suggested measure, we know that goalies facing the Minnesota North Stars and Vancouver Canucks are supposed to stop at least .900 and .893. He played poorly at a time when he was being tested for a job, because taking advantage of Ed Belfour's absence by making a statement would have been out of character; it was October.

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

And yet by the grace of your suggested measure, we know that goalies facing the Minnesota North Stars and Vancouver Canucks are supposed to stop at least .900 and .893. He played poorly at a time when he was being tested for a job, because taking advantage of Ed Belfour's absence by making a statement would have been out of character; it was October.

Sure, just like it would have been out of character for Roy to play poorly in the playoffs since we know he was always, always clutch, so therefore he must have been playing well and the team surely got it wrong and nothing was ever his fault.

How do you know Hasek played poorly? Because his save percentages say so in a two game sample? Hasek played a game in the 1992 Stanley Cup Finals, one of the games that is counted in your sample of playoff games of "below average" games where he was trailing in a series, posting an .840 save percentage. The newspaper accounts of the game credited him as playing "brilliantly", ""putting on a hit show", "breathtaking", "keeping his team in the game with acrobatics and breakaway saves", and pointed out that "he robbed Lemieux time and again". I'm sure we could easily find similar examples for Roy, and indeed any goalie who ever played in the NHL.

There is a quote from Patrick Roy after a game where he let in I think five goals, I wish I had kept it because I can't find it again, but when the reporters asked him why he played badly he told him that he pretty much didn't do anything wrong and the other team just made their shots. Any goalie knows that feeling. Save percentages do not tend to accurately reveal talent until a goalie has faced several thousand shots. Relying on single-game save percentages is extremely problematic.

I don't know for sure if Roy played badly against Hartford in 1988. The evidence suggests that, but maybe he was unlucky, maybe his team let him down. Maybe he was even worse than the stats show. All those possibilities apply equally to Hasek in 1995. I wish I had never gotten into this argument because we're just playing guessing games with numbers. It's definitely time to start looking at larger sample sizes again so we can actually get somewhere useful.

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

Terry Sawchuk's stats:

http://www.hockey-reference.com/players/s/sawchte01.html

From HSP, Sawchuk's first half / second half splits

1960/61 19/35 , 18/35 basically managed with Bassen. Sawchuk tended to face Montreal, Toronto, Chicago.

1961-62 28/35, 15/35. injuries.

1962-63 32/35, 16/35, injuries explain Hart voting

1963-64 25/35, 28/35, injured game 16

Your 1962-63 conclusion does not hold.

Good catch. Although HSP also gives Sawchuk as .917 in his first 32 starts compared to .900 in his last 16. Let's say that both injuries and perhaps declining play would together have accounted for the lack of second-half Hart votes in '62-63.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Thanks.

Please take a look at the adjusted save percentage thread - I've posted the all-time leaders using the revised methodology (adjusting to the regular season, rather than playoff average). The differences are, for the most part, quite small. It primarily benefits goalies from the 1980s when there was often a large difference between RS and PO save percentage - interested in if anybody has theories why.

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.

From 1956 to 1963 (when Hall, Plante and Sawchuk essentially rotated spots on the two year-end all-star teams each year), the following players ranked in the top five in Hart voting:

- Gordie Howe x7
- Doug Harvey, Jean Beliveau, Andy Bathgate x4
- Bobby Hull, Frank Mahovlich x2
- Bernie Geoffrion, Bert Olmstead, Dickie Moore, Gump Worsley, Henri Richard, Johnny Bower, Red Kelly, Stan Mikita, Tod Sloan x1

The remainder of the eight spots were held by the trio of aforementioned goalies. I don't want to turn this into a "which era was tougher" discussion, but I feel that the three Original Six netminders had more competiton for the Hart than Hasek.

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.

Yes, that's a fair point. The Sabres' offense was notoriously streaky (the fact that Buffalo averaged 2.81 goals per game in the 1999 postseason means little given that they scored just 6 goals over the last 5 games of that postseason, including the infamous triple-OT game) but they performed better than expected in the playoffs.

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.

If two goalies (from the same era) stop the puck at virtually the same rate, but one of them wins more games, that tells me that he's either very clutch (having a bad performance when the game's outcome is essentially decided and playing well in critical situations) or he plays on a much stronger team, or he's very lucky. How much is dependent on the goalie, the team and luck is up for discussion.

Also - in case my first post wasn't clear, I wasn't suggesting that Hall was better than (or equal to) Sawchuk in the postseason. I agree that Sawchuk was superior in that regard. I was simply noting that, given the vast difference in their reputations, their effectiveness at stopping the puck was remarkably similar. Does anybody have any theories as to why?

 

[Canadiens1958]

Hand Sliced

Good catch. Although HSP also gives Sawchuk as .917 in his first 32 starts compared to .900 in his last 16. Let's say that both injuries and perhaps declining play would together have accounted for the lack of second-half Hart votes in '62-63.

From memory that was the season his catching hand was accidently sliced by a skate.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

We are comparing the full careers of players here. Can we PLEASE stop focusing on cherrypicked individual playoff series? Thanks. This doesn't just apply to any one poster.

All seven goalies here have a fairly large sample of playoff games to look at, there is no need to pick and choose individual series or games.

 

[Ohashi_Jouzu*]

Um... what is the statistical outlier in the 1987 and 1988 playoffs? That most goaltenders keep their job after one loss after they've respectively swept and built up a 3-0 series lead, but the Canadiens didn't let Roy keep his?

List the playoffs where either guy let in over 3 GPG and had a SV% <0.900. Even accounting for era and small sample size (part of these being "outliers"), 46 goals against in under 14 game/800 total mins of work is a lot more than Roy allowed in any other post season I can think of. Similarly, Hasek only has a combined 8 games of 3+ GAA coupled with <0.900 SV% on his resume between '92 and '95. And those years look totally out of place next to the rest of either guy's complete playoff resume, like I said earlier.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

From memory that was the season his catching hand was accidently sliced by a skate.

I went to confirm this, and just noticed that on my Sawchuk page, the "injuries" section is blank.

Looks like I've got some things to add once the database work is completed.