Round 2, Vote 1 (HOH Top Goaltenders)

[Ohashi_Jouzu*]

Does anyone have the list of international goaltenders Hasek was competing against for his All-Star World Championships and the list of international goaltenders Salo was competing against for his?

Like BBS suggested, go to eliteprospects at click on the blue arrow to the left of the league/tournament you wish to check out in a player's stats area. It will take you to the stats list for that tournament, and you'll typically see everyone's contribution (but like BBS also said, some players - typically European - have incomplete records ). Even better, all the awards/recognition at the bottom of a player's profile are hot links to list of players to have won that same award in the past. Anyone who has ever been voted "top 3 player on team" in an international tournament should be linked through their profile to everyone who has ever received the same honour, for example.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Even better, all the awards/recognition at the bottom of a player's profile are hot links to list of players to have won that same award in the past. Anyone who has ever been voted "top 3 player on team" in an international tournament should be linked through their profile to everyone who has ever received the same honour, for example.

I have the award winners; I wanted to see who they were winning against, as Tommy Salo was a starter in the NHL win he won his three WC All-Star selections without ever being a top-ten save percentage goalie in the NHL. So if he's winning those against better competition than the goalies who won theirs when 16/21 NHL teams were sending their goaltenders to the playoffs instead of the World Championship, then on top of being a less-than-ten-game tournament, it's not exactly the most quality award to win.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Uhm, were exactly did I argue against different arenas having different shot counting methods. Please don't jump to radical conclusions about what people are saying, it only hurts discourse.

Sorry if there was a misunderstanding. You quoted a post of mine where I said that I wasn't sure how (the Devils discipline) would have an effect (on why both teams had reduced SOG and increased shooting percentages in NJ), so I thought you were disagreeing with the idea.

Again, sorry for the misunderstanding.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Why?

Why exactly are we dismissing Hasek's accomplishments at the World Championships?

TCG raised the issue of his international play. Then there is the issue of his CEL play.

Hasek's WHC accomplishments,no gold medals, were replicated by various other goalies and surpassed by a fair number - Seth Martin 1961 - Canada Gold Medal, Holecek a few times.

Internationally you have the 1998 Olympics Gold Medal. Jim Craig 1980, Jack McCartan 1960 achieved the same with little prep time.

What do you have besides the what ifs, the maybes?

A chronological analysis shows a goalie after app eight seasons in NA, mainly the NHL, had the experience, skills, data bank to face NHL players in a winner take all shoot out.He won - congratulations. Congratulations to McCartan, Craig who won under normal game conditions. Congratulations to Nikolay Puchkov who shut out Canada in the deciding 1956 Olympic gold medal game.

Hasek's WHC accomplishments and other international accomplishments are simply being viewed in context of other goalies with similar achievements.

 

[Nalyd Psycho]

Sorry if there was a misunderstanding. You quoted a post of mine where I said that I wasn't sure how (the Devils discipline) would have an effect (on why both teams had reduced SOG and increased shooting percentages in NJ), so I thought you were disagreeing with the idea.

Again, sorry for the misunderstanding.

No worries. I'm just paranoid about how easily discourse falls apart in online forums.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

To me his non-NHL career is pretty obviously better than anybody not named Tretiak or Holecek. I don't know if it's OK to bring up Hasek vs. Holecek at this point since only one of them is up for debate, but I think it might be an interesting question as to which one of them should be considered better based entirely on European and international games played. If the answer is Hasek, or even if the conclusion is that they are close, then it seems that would have pretty strong implications for Hasek's overall career value given that I think many would have rated Holecek in their top 20 or 25.

I don't see Hasek as close to Holecek at all if we just look at their non-NHL accomplishments. Holecek was named best goalie in the World Championships 5 times. Hasek was named best goalie twice, the same number of times as Jiri Kralik and Peter Lindmark (both of whom made my list, but towards the bottom). Holecek won 3 gold medals at the World Championships, Hasek none. Hasek's 1998 Olympics were outstanding, but I just can't see them closing the gap that much.

I think there is a good case Hasek is the 3rd best European non-NHL European goalie ever behind Tretiak and Holecek even without his NHL career. But I don't know how close he'd be to either .

 

[Ohashi_Jouzu*]

TCG raised the issue of his international play. Then there is the issue of his CEL play.

Hasek's WHC accomplishments,no gold medals, were replicated by various other goalies and surpassed by a fair number - Seth Martin 1961 - Canada Gold Medal, Holecek a few times.

Internationally you have the 1998 Olympics Gold Medal. Jim Craig 1980, Jack McCartan 1960 achieved the same with little prep time.

What do you have besides the what ifs, the maybes?

A chronological analysis shows a goalie after app eight seasons in NA, mainly the NHL, had the experience, skills, data bank to face NHL players in a winner take all shoot out.He won - congratulations. Congratulations to McCartan, Craig who won under normal game conditions. Congratulations to Nikolay Puchkov who shut out Canada in the deciding 1956 Olympic gold medal game.

Hasek's WHC accomplishments and other international accomplishments are simply being viewed in context of other goalies with similar achievements.

I kind of have an issue with considering international achievements before the 80s as "similar", considering the overall calibre, depth, and quality of competition from the 90s onward.

 

[quoipourquoi]

A chronological analysis shows a goalie after app eight seasons in NA, mainly the NHL, had the experience, skills, data bank to face NHL players in a winner take all shoot out.He won - congratulations. Congratulations to McCartan, Craig who won under normal game conditions. Congratulations to Nikolay Puchkov who shut out Canada in the deciding 1956 Olympic gold medal game.

I've broken it down before: Starting in 1994, the Olympics abandoned the round-robin final round for a more exciting single-game elimination tournament that contained shootouts, and it's been mixed results ever since.

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=42968469&postcount=43

In Hasek's defense, he won the official Gold Medal game in a shutout (20/20), but like in 1994 and 2010, it was against a team that had already beaten his team earlier in the tournament. Every game in the Olympics used to matter; that's not the case in the post-1994 tournaments.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Career

Save Percentage
(1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8*, 14, 19*)
*Conn Smythe Season

Save Percentage (among goalies with 50% of their team’s decisions)
(1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 6*, 11, 12*)
*Conn Smythe Season

From 1985-86 to 1993-94, Patrick Roy was a de facto top-three save percentage starter in seven seasons. On top of those seven seasons, each of the two remaining seasons ended with Patrick Roy winning the Conn Smythe Trophy. I would argue that this nine-year stretch alone is more than enough to earn him a place in the HOF. I will be examining his Colorado play and making an assessment as to whether it was mere compiling on to an already HOF career, or a distinct HOF career in its own right.

Wow. Depending on age, I think a lot of us remember Roy mostly from Colorado. After Roy left Montreal, he didn't really distinguish himself from Brodeur in the regular season - a high standard - but not a transcendent level of play like Hasek in the regular season. Roy's transcendence was in the playoffs. But again, Roy's Colorado days are only the second half of his career.

I think it helps to be reminded of just how impressive Roy was in the regular season in Montreal.

That all reminds me, there was a thread not too long ago about players who had 2 hhof careers. Bourque, orr and roy were the three favourites IIRC. Someone even argued roy might have 3 hhof careers if cut off strategically, I think.

I think it was Bourque, Gretzky, and Roy. Gretzky not Orr for that one.

It is well known that Brodeur has had the opportunity to play behind a diciplined defence for large parts of his career. But I was surprised to see that Roy had similar support during the start of his career.

Between 85/86 and 91/92 Roy finished 14th, 5th, 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 1st in the save % race. During these seasons Montreal finished the season with the least amount of power play opportunities against 5 times and second least 2 times. Often with much lower numbers than the second least. They also ranked consistently low in power play opportunities which might also results in tougher shots against in forms of breakaways. These are the years of Roys best save % placements. It is also interesting to note that in 92/93 when Montreal finished with the 8th least PPOA Roy fell to 5th in save % again after 5 consecutive years in the top-2.

Buffalo ranked 22nd, 10th, 4th, 3rd, 3rd, 4th in most power play opportunities against during Haseks 6 consecutive save % titles. They also consistently had more power play opportunities than Roys Canadians.

This indicates that Roys save % numbers from his peak could be inflated. I know that late in his career he did rank high in even strengh save % but does anybody have his even strengh save % from these years compared to the rest of the league.

It also indicates that Haseks titles could be even more impressive than the numbers show.

Roy and Brodeur were even coached by the same guy - Pat Burns.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Here's a question: What exactly is an international tournament worth to a career? The weight of an equal number of games in a playoff?

 

[quoipourquoi]

I think it was Bourque, Gretzky, and Roy. Gretzky not Orr for that one.

I think we gave a little bit of love to Mark Messier in that one too.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I'm saying that our universal human experience* is that we perform better at some times that others (at our jobs, in our relationships, in life), and that we are responsible for our good performance and our bad performance. As human beings, goaltenders experience their career in this way. I think it is extremely wrong to call a universal human experience an attribution error because someone has run a crude statistical model that hasn't found a large difference between actual distribution and random distribution. Attribution errors may exist but I think there is a high burden of proof for statistical methods when attempting to go against human experience.

*Or if it's not universal it's the dominant way that people have experienced the world, and much better than blaming any variation in performance on the whims of the gods, or randomness, or whatever.

Thanks for posting this.

I feel like I'm going to quote it again and again on this board in the future.

Here's a question: What exactly is an international tournament worth to a career? The weight of an equal number of games in a playoff?

I think that shorts non-NHL European players. For players in Europe who didn't come to the NHL, winning a gold medal at the Olympics or World Championships was the ultimate achievement, the thing they played for most, much like North Americans (and Europeans who came to the NHL) play for the Stanley Cup.

I don't think there is any exact formula here. But 2 major international tournaments = 1 Stanley Cup playoffs "feels" right to me: It seems like a good compromise between realizing that the WCs and Olympics were the most important time of year for Europeans, while also realizing that they involved a smaller sample of games. Edit: To be clear, I'm talking about WCs before the fall of the Iron Curtain only.

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

I don't see Hasek as close to Holecek at all if we just look at their non-NHL accomplishments. Holecek was named best goalie in the World Championships 5 times. Hasek was named best goalie twice, the same number of times as Jiri Kralik and Peter Lindmark (both of whom made my list, but towards the bottom). Holecek won 3 gold medals at the World Championships, Hasek none. Hasek's 1998 Olympics were outstanding, but I just can't see them closing the gap that much.

I think there is a good case Hasek is the 3rd best European non-NHL European goalie ever behind Tretiak and Holecek even without his NHL career. But I don't know how close he'd be to either .

I'm confused as to why you seem to be elevating world championships above all other competitions. Hasek played in five best-on-best tournaments (six, if you include the '06 Olympics where he got injured), as the outright starter every single time, plus the 1988 Olympics. He played in more best-on-best tournaments than world championships (only played four of those, not including his backup stint as an 18-year old, which is probably why he only had two best goalie awards and three All-Star tournament selections), and pretty much owned the Czech net in any tournament where the best players were available from 1984 to 2006, a much longer stretch of time than Holecek represented Czechoslovakia. Hasek was very good in the 1987 Canada Cup and the 2002 Olympics, and of course 1998 ranks among the best international performances by any goalie ever.

Holecek played in a lot of world championships but just one best-on-best tournament, splitting starts with Dzurilla, plus two Olympics, one where he was the starter ('76) and one where he was mostly backing up Dzurilla ('72).

I don't see how Hasek's vastly superior best-on-best and Olympics resume doesn't at least come close to making up the gap of two or three best goalie awards at the world championships (depending on whether you use best goalie or All-Star awards), especially given that Holecek had more than double the opportunity and played on significantly better teams. There's also the fact that 4 of Holecek's 5 WC best goalie awards came during the period when Canada wasn't competing in international hockey, while Hasek's came against Canadian and American NHLers.

On top of all of that, you don't seem to be taking into account domestic accomplishments at all. Hasek has three Czech league best players to Holecek's one and three league championships to Holecek's zero. He probably did it in a weaker league, but he was still getting widespread recognition as the top goalie in Europe.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I'm confused as to why you seem to be elevating world championships above all other competitions. Hasek played in five best-on-best tournaments (six, if you include the '06 Olympics where he got injured), as the outright starter every single time, plus the 1988 Olympics. He played in more best-on-best tournaments than world championships (only played four of those, not including his backup stint as an 18-year old, which is probably why he only had two best goalie awards and three All-Star tournament selections), and pretty much owned the Czech net in any tournament where the best players were available from 1984 to 2006, a much longer stretch of time than Holecek represented Czechoslovakia. Hasek was very good in the 1987 Canada Cup and the 2002 Olympics, and of course 1998 ranks among the best international performances by any goalie ever.

I'm not elevating World Championships over other competitions. I guess I'm elevating elite, award winning performances over merely solid ones, like Hasek in the Canada Cup and 2002 Olympics.

Holecek played in a lot of world championships but just one best-on-best tournament, splitting starts with Dzurilla, plus two Olympics, one where he was the starter ('76) and one where he was mostly backing up Dzurilla ('72).

The Olympics in the 1970s were basically the same as the World Championships. Slightly more glory, same competition.

I don't see how Hasek's vastly superior best-on-best and Olympics resume doesn't at least come close to making up the gap of two or three best goalie awards at the world championships (depending on whether you use best goalie or All-Star awards), especially given that Holecek had more than double the opportunity and played on significantly better teams. There's also the fact that 4 of Holecek's 5 WC best goalie awards came during the period when Canada wasn't competing in international hockey, while Hasek's came against Canadian and American NHLers.

There was exactly 1 best-on-best tournament that happened when Holecek was the starting goalie of Czechoslovakia. Hardly a fair comparison. And yes, Holecek stunk in that 1 tournament.

Holecek competed directly against Tretiak for his World Championship awards. Who was the best goalie Hasek competed against? Peter Lundmark? When Hasek was in Czechoslovakia, 16/21 teams made the playoffs, so only players from the worst 5 of 21 teams in the league were available for the World Championships.

On top of all of that, you don't seem to be taking into account domestic accomplishments at all. Hasek has three Czech league best players to Holecek's one and three league championships to Holecek's zero. He probably did it in a weaker league, but he was still getting widespread recognition as the top goalie in Europe.

I'm taking domestic accomplishments in full account. I just don't see how Hasek distinguishes himself there. "Probably a weaker league" is a serious understatement. Holecek was the top ranked goalie in Czech Golden stick voting 6 times, Hasek 4 times. Holecek just had better forwards and defensemen in Czechoslovakia. Twice, Holecek finished 2nd to Vladimir Martinec in Golden Stick voting. Martinec is usually considered the 2nd best Czech forward after Jagr.

I guess the fact that the Czech hockey program was in serious decline in the 80s makes Hasek's lack of gold medals in the 80s more understandable though.

Anyway, Holecek isn't up for voting yet, so we are probably getting ahead of ourselves.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Maybe I'm not giving Hasek enough credit for the tournaments he played in while playing in the NHL; I don't know. I guess there is something said just for being your country's choice to start and playing relatively well; even if you aren't winning any awards for it.

 

[quoipourquoi]

and of course 1998 ranks among the best international performances by any goalie ever.

But here's my problem: It stands alongside performances by Antero Niittymaki and Ryan Miller as one-loss NHL goaltenders with a strong six-game tournament in recent years. It's an indication of which goalie is having the best two weeks every four years. 360 minutes isn't a whole lot of hockey.

 

[Ohashi_Jouzu*]

But here's my problem: It stands alongside performances by Antero Niittymaki and Ryan Miller as one-loss NHL goaltenders with a strong six-game tournament in recent years. It's an indication of which goalie is having the best two weeks every four years. 360 minutes isn't a whole lot of hockey.

Well it's a good thing that Hasek also played in 72 NHL games, stopped over 2000 shots that year, and won the Vezina for it, or imagine the "what ifs".

 

[quoipourquoi]

Well it's a good thing that Hasek also played in 72 NHL games, stopped over 2000 shots that year, and won the Vezina for it, or imagine the "what ifs".

We're talking about the value of international tournaments separately. Maybe you missed that.

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

I'm not elevating World Championships over other competitions. I guess I'm elevating elite, award winning performances over merely solid ones, like Hasek in the Canada Cup and 2002 Olympics.

Not convinced those are the same things. What about elite, non-award winning performances? What about average, award-winning performances? It's not hard to look at other instances of awards voting and realize the serious drawbacks in the kind of binary, either-you're-the-best-and-elite-or-you-aren't-and-therefore-not outlook. Jim Carey won a Vezina in 1996. Martin Brodeur did not in 1997. Examples abound.

I realize it is far easier to rank guys when you're pretty much just counting best goalie awards, but there are lots of problems with awards. Somebody always has to win, so sometimes guys get them more or less by default. And sometimes the media vote you as an All-Star on a weak Czech team where your playing partner had a 5.00 GAA in two games, but Arturs Irbe puts up an 0.95 GAA so you don't get the best goalie award and apparently that makes your performance non-elite.

There's also voter bias, like we've been talking about with Hart and All-Star voting for Terry Sawchuk and Jacques Plante. In the late '60s and early '70s at the WC they voted for the guy who carried a weak team the farthest. From 1963 to 1973, nobody won best goalie on a gold medal squad and only three guys even took silver. From the mid-'70s through the '90s, nearly every best goalie was on the gold or silver medalists. Hasek was one of only four goalies in a two decade span who won the award on a team finishing 3rd or worse, and he did it twice. That at least suggests he was winning those awards on talent, not simply team success or stats.

And seriously, "merely solid" in 2002? Why, just because his team didn't medal? 20/22 in a narrow loss against a Swedish team that was dominating all comers, tied Canada 3-3 despite getting outshot 36-23 and then was 26/27 against Russia in the quarterfinals, losing 1-0 on a goal described by SI as "a fortunate bounce."
(http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/olympics/2002/ice_hockey/news/2002/02/20/russia_czech_ap/)

The Olympics in the 1970s were basically the same as the World Championships. Slightly more glory, same competition.

There was exactly 1 best-on-best tournament that happened when Holecek was the starting goalie of Czechoslovakia. Hardly a fair comparison. And yes, Holecek stunk in that 1 tournament.

Fair enough, I was more trying to make a point about Hasek's overlooked non-WC record rather than blaming Holecek for not having more of one.

Holecek competed directly against Tretiak for his World Championship awards. Who was the best goalie Hasek competed against? Peter Lundmark? When Hasek was in Czechoslovakia, 16/21 teams made the playoffs, so only players from the worst 5 of 21 teams in the league were available for the World Championships.

Sean Burke, John Vanbiesbrouck and Peter Lindmark were all there in both 1987 and 1989.

Secondly, what makes the presence of Tretiak alone greater competition than what Hasek was facing? Even leaving aside the question of how likely the voters were to give it to the guy on the stacked team, with Canada not showing up and the Soviets and Czechs usually dominating most goalies probably had less chance to win the best goalie award as it's tough to look good when the Soviets are blowing your team out. The more good teams and the more good goalies, the more likely it is that any one of them emerges and you get something like Antero Niittymaki winning a best-on-best tournament MVP over Brodeur and Lundqvist, among others.

It's a similar argument to the one you correctly advanced in favour of Brodeur: The more good teams and the deeper the talent pool, the tougher it is for any one goalie to win awards and stand out. And if that's true over a full season then it's far more true over a two-week long international tournament.

I'm taking domestic accomplishments in full account. I just don't see how Hasek distinguishes himself there. "Probably a weaker league" is a serious understatement. Holecek was the top ranked goalie in Czech Golden stick voting 6 times, Hasek 4 times. Holecek just had better forwards and defensemen in Czechoslovakia. Twice, Holecek finished 2nd to Vladimir Martinec in Golden Stick voting. Martinec is usually considered the 2nd best Czech forward after Jagr.

I guess the fact that the Czech hockey program was in serious decline in the 80s makes Hasek's lack of gold medals in the 80s more understandable though.

Best goalie 6 times > best goalie 4 times. No consideration given to team success or playoff performance. So, why do you have Roy ahead of Hasek again?

Anyway, Holecek isn't up for voting yet, so we are probably getting ahead of ourselves.

I think comparing goalies consistently is one of the toughest parts of this project, and we'll need at least some ability to bring guys up as points of comparison before they are eligible for voting. I don't want to get too far into the specifics of Holecek either, but how else do you make a case for Hasek's international career? None of the other six guys at the moment are all that comparable in that regard (with the possible exception of Brodeur).

 

[tarheelhockey]

Terry Sawchuk's 1955 playoffs in detail. The Wings cruised past the Leafs in a sweep and won the Cup in 7 over Montreal.

As you read these numbers, just keep in mind that they combine the results of two VERY different series for Sawchuk. More on that At the bottom of the post.

1: @ Detroit 16 - 8 - 11 = 35 (7-4 W)
2: @ Detroit 6 - 10 - 15 = 31 (2-1 W)
3: @ Toronto 11 - 15 - 10 = 36 (2-1 W)
4: @ Toronto 7 - 5 - 9 = 21 (3-0 W)
TOTAL = 6 goals on 123 shots (.951)

1: @ Detroit 10 - 4 - 8 = 22 (4-2 W)
2: @ Detroit 10 - 7 - 10 = 27 (7-1 W)
3: @ Montreal 11 - 7 - 8 = 26 (2-4 L)
4: @ Montreal 7 - 11 - 12 = 30 (3-5 L)
5: @ Detroit 7 - 8 - 9 = 21 (5-1 W)
6: @ Montreal 9 - 15 - 15 = 39 (3-6 L)
7: @ Detroit 5 - 8 - 9 = 22 (3-1 W)
TOTAL = 20 goals on 197 shots (.898)

GRAND TOTAL = 26 goals on 320 shots (.919) and a GAA of 2.36

First periods - 9 goals, GAA of 2.45; 96 shots, sv% of .906

Sawchuk allowed the first goal 7/11 times: 6 times in the first period, 1 time in the second period.

Funny how differently Sawchuk played in first periods than in past seasons. After nearly shutting out the Habs in the first frames of their '54 series, he spotted them leads in 5 of their games in '55. And it's not like he was getting shelled, the Habs averaging only 8-9 shots per period. For whatever reason, Sawchuk just didn't start games as well as before.

Second periods - 8 goals, GAA of 2.18; 98 shots, sv% of .918
When Detroit was leading after 1 - 4 games, 0 goals, 40 shots, sv% 1.000
When Detroit was tied after 1 - 6 games, 7 goals, 51 shots, sv% .863
When Detroit was trailing after 1 - 1 games, 1 goals, 7 shots, sv% .857

The situational numbers really tell a story here, don't they? Sawchuk was perfect when leading, but below-average otherwise. I think we have good reason to believe that these numbers reflect tactical decisions by the Wings, who were as good as anyone at hunkering down to protect a lead.

Third periods - 9 goals, GAA of 2.45; 116 shots, sv% of .922
When Detroit was leading after 2 - 7 games, 4 goals, 73 shots, sv% .945
When Detroit was tied after 2 - 1 games, 1 goals, 8 shots, sv% .875
When Detroit trailed after 2 - 3 games, 4 goals, 35 shots, sv% .886

More or less the same pattern here -- Sawchuk almost seems like a different goalie when spotted a lead. It's noteworthy that Detroit only won 1 game during this Cup run in which they were tied going to the 3rd.

Overtime - n/a


As mentioned above, these numbers disguise two very distinctive series. The Leafs threw the kitchen sink at Sawchuk, averaging 31 shots a game, and could hardly beat him as the series wore on. Sawchuk's .951 already looks good enough until you take away the first period of the series to get a .963; take away the first game and he had a ridiculous .977 going forward.

That makes the Montreal series all the more intriguing. While being outshot 269-197 (that's 38-28 on average) the Rocket-less Habs made Sawchuk look rather ordinary and came very close to stealing the Cup away. To make things even more difficult to explain, all three of Montreal's wins (and Sawchuk's only losses of this playoffs) came at the Montreal Forum, where Sawchuk posted an ugly .842. Compare that to .964 in Detroit and .982 in Toronto.

Ultimately the Wings prevailed and Sawchuk had his third Cup in four years, but I'd love to hear an explanation as to why Sawchuk seemed so human in Montreal and so dominant elsewhere.

 

[RabbinsDuck]

But here's my problem: It stands alongside performances by Antero Niittymaki and Ryan Miller as one-loss NHL goaltenders with a strong six-game tournament in recent years. It's an indication of which goalie is having the best two weeks every four years. 360 minutes isn't a whole lot of hockey.

It means a lot more than a great "two weeks". I certainly hope best-on-best tournaments carry significant weight in these discussions.

 

[Ohashi_Jouzu*]

We're talking about the value of international tournaments separately. Maybe you missed that.

And you're implying that 360 mins of observation at the Olympics in '98 wasn't enough to let you know anything meaningful about how good Hasek was; that he, like Miller and Niittymaki, could have just "had a good two weeks for the first time in 4 years" or something. Good thing there was a whooooole lot to observe, though (wait, you are old enough to have actually watched Hasek in the 90s, right?) that year outside of simply those 360 mins that showed us the rest of the reasons so many consider Hasek the best of all time.

 

[RabbinsDuck]

Interesting to think where Hasek might rank with 0 NHL games. Not an easy one.

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

But here's my problem: It stands alongside performances by Antero Niittymaki and Ryan Miller as one-loss NHL goaltenders with a strong six-game tournament in recent years. It's an indication of which goalie is having the best two weeks every four years. 360 minutes isn't a whole lot of hockey.

You're right, the sample size is a big problem. That's why participation should be a big part of the score for goalies in international tournaments.

The biggest difference between Niittymaki or Miller and Hasek is that, in addition to what he did in Nagano, Hasek played in five other best-on-best tournaments over a 22 year span. Essentially that means his countrymen repeatedly voted him the best available goalie in the nation for two decades straight, and that information alone is probably much more valuable than how he played and what kind of puck luck he had in any one of those given six-game stretches.

Obviously there are some drawbacks with going purely based on games played or tournaments entered, maybe some guy's reputation keeps unfairly earning him starts, maybe someone is only starting because the best guy withdrew or got injured, the participation score shouldn't be quite so high for Irbe on Latvia or Kolzig on Germany as it is for a Canadian goalie, etc., but it should be a large part of the equation.

An interesting international career comparison is Bill Ranford vs. Martin Brodeur. If all you care about is peak performance or best goalie awards then you would seemingly want to go with Ranford, because he had an outstanding Canada Cup and two excellent world championships that took place over three consecutive seasons. Brodeur played great and was named the best goalie in the 2004 World Cup, but that's his only individual accolade. What Brodeur did do though was get a phone call for six straight best-on-bests over a 16 year span (seven if you include the '05 WCs during the lockout), ending up as the starter in three (or 4) of them. Because of that there's an argument to be made that Brodeur's international record is much more impressive than Ranford's. Was Ranford's ability to outplay five other goalies over two weeks more significant than Brodeur's ability to repeatedly outplay hundreds of goalies over the course of a decade? Most likely not.

The sample size considerations are so important in goaltending that sometimes you have to almost by default take the guy with the larger sample size. Take for example a veteran workhorse who plays a lot of games vs. a one-year wonder (say, Jim Henry vs. Frank McCool, ideally a non-WWII aided McCool but either way). Even if you generally like peak over career, the more experienced guy should win that head-to-head matchup every time, because any goalie can get hot for a short period of time but it usually takes talent to stick around for a while and that needs to be at least some part of the equation.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Best goalie 6 times > best goalie 4 times. No consideration given to team success or playoff performance. So, why do you have Roy ahead of Hasek again?
.

Everything you say is fair except for this, and I'm definitely going to think more about the rest of your post. Here, I was answering your question that I was ignoring domestic performance. I view major international tournaments as basically the playoffs for non-NHL Euros as they generally care more about them than domestic championships, and I think Holecek had more success there than Hasek (in more opportunities, of course). I'm not intimately familiar with their domestic playoff records, but Holecek won 6 domestic championships, so I assume he did his part.