Round 2, Vote 1 (HOH Top Goaltenders)

[steve141]

Roy is not that far behind Hasek in the regular season using save % adjusted by era

I've stated before in this thread that I'm very impressed by Roy's adjusted numbers considering his long NHL career. That said, it's not correct to state that Roy or anybody else comes close to Hasek in this stat. This chart based on Hockey Outsider's numbers really shows how big of an outlier Hasek is:

View attachment 59265

Compare how small the difference is between the other goaltenders on the rest of the list. The difference between Hasek and Roy is as big as the difference between 4th and 24th place.

This is even more impressive considering how much harder it is to improve your save percentage the higher it gets. Hasek's lead of 0.5 percentage points on a career average is simply huge.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I've stated before in this thread that I'm very impressed by Roy's adjusted numbers considering his long NHL career. That said, it's not correct to state that Roy or anybody else comes close to Hasek in this stat. This chart based on Hockey Outsider's numbers really shows how big of an outlier Hasek is:

View attachment 59265

Compare how small the difference is between the other goaltenders on the rest of the list. The difference between Hasek and Roy is as big as the difference between 4th and 24th place.

This is even more impressive considering how much harder it is to improve your save percentage the higher it gets. Hasek's lead of 0.5 percentage points on a career average is simply huge.

Why are you only graphing their career adjusted save percentage and not peak adjusted save percentage? Roy is indeed relatively close to Hasek in peak adjusted save percentage.

Save percentage is basically an averaging stat and you are comparing 735 games of Hasek to 1039 games of Roy. (Yes, I realize the tables above did that too - such is the nature of save percentage. But IMO, if you're comparing averaging or per-game, it is most useful to do it over similar numbers of games. I think the peak save percentage is at least as useful as the career save percentages).

 

[quoipourquoi]

Save percentage is basically an averaging stat and you are comparing 735 games of Hasek to 1039 games of Roy.

Imagine how many more Forsberg threads we'd have if the most-used statistic for skaters was an averaging statistic.

 

[steve141]

Why are you only graphing their career adjusted save percentage and not peak adjusted save percentage? Roy is indeed relatively close to Hasek in peak adjusted save percentage.

No particular reason, I'm not in this project to advocate for any particular player, and am frankly getting pretty tired of the Hasek-Roy debates. You stated "Roy is not that far behind Hasek in the regular season using save % adjusted by era", which I took to mean career numbers.

Since you asked, here is the same graph for peak aswell:

View attachment 59267

Save percentage is basically an averaging stat and you are comparing 735 games of Hasek to 1039 games of Roy. (Yes, I realize the tables above did that too - such is the nature of save percentage. But IMO, if you're comparing averaging or per-game, it is most useful to do it over similar numbers of games. I think the peak save percentage is at least as useful as the career save percentages).

That's a fair opinion. In my opinion adjusted save percentage is the best existing stat for comparing goaltenders. You are right that it is an averaging stat, but I'm not sure looking at a five year sample is going to give us better information than the career sample, since both of them had great longevity.

 

[Rhiessan71]

No particular reason, I'm not in this project to advocate for any particular player, and am frankly getting pretty tired of the Hasek-Roy debates. You stated "Roy is not that far behind Hasek in the regular season using save % adjusted by era", which I took to mean career numbers.

Since you asked, here is the same graph for peak aswell:

View attachment 59267



That's a fair opinion. In my opinion adjusted save percentage is the best existing stat for comparing goaltenders. You are right that it is an averaging stat, but I'm not sure looking at a five year sample is going to give us better information than the career sample, since both of them had great longevity.

The thing is though, Hasek's greatest value for being the GOAT is his incredible peak and the perceived gap that peak has above everyone else.
The point Devil is trying to get across is that maybe Roy's peak is a lot closer to Hasek's peak than he gets credit for.

The use of Adjusted Stats not withstanding, there's still obviously some merit to that conclusion.

 

[quoipourquoi]

I'm not sure looking at a five year sample is going to give us better information than the career sample, since both of them had great longevity.

The difference in that longevity being that Hasek's five-year prime makes up 41.1% of his total career, whereas Roy's five-year prime makes up just 26.9% of his. So with this being an averaging statistic, Hasek's career number is better protected.

frankly getting pretty tired of the Hasek-Roy debates

There's a pretty good chance that they'll be two of the four goalies to make the Top-Four, so there's a very good reason to discuss them now instead of waiting to discuss them next week.

I'm always curious and changing my thinking on how to value the regular season and the playoffs for any player.

Since playoff success, or even the ability to make the playoffs or have an impact is largely team driven, I have a hard time giving playoffs more than 20% of the total equation or even as much as that.

Wondering what your ballpark splits are in this matter.

I don't feel as though it is the sort of thing that needs a defined percentage of weight. I'm not going to say, "Oh, John Vanbiesbrouck in 1994? Let me deduct X amount from your season." But I'm also not going to say, "Billy Smith? Now there's a guy who barely registered anything of value in the regular season (one 1st Team All-Star selection and one 5th Place selection with less than two-percent of the voting share). He shouldn't be considered a top goalie."

The whole point of the NHL season is what comes after the NHL season: The Stanley Cup Playoffs. If you can deliver there, sometimes that's all that matters. If you can't deliver there, sometimes that's all that matters.

Ken Dryden, 1971
Grant Fuhr, 1984
Patrick Roy, 1986
Martin Brodeur, 1995
Jean-Sebastien Giguere, 2003

Between the five of them, they couldn't buy a 1st or 2nd place All-Star vote. Only Giguere made it onto an All-Star ballot at all.


Roman Cechmanek, 2001; .921 (4th)
Roman Cechmanek, 2002; .921 (3rd)
Roman Cechmanek, 2003; .925 (3rd)

And there's a reason he was traded for a second-round draft pick.


Not everything is going to be a boiled down to a number. We're not going to be able to look at a scoreboard a la The Hockey Compendium and award Curtis Joseph 968 points for his regular season and 1000 points for his playoffs in 1993 (which is the best playoff since Vachon in 1969 according to Klein and Reif... I can't believe how much I paid for this book).


Short Answer: I don't know how to math this.

 

[RabbinsDuck]

Adjusting Roy's SV% from the 80s and early 90s is fair, but does not consider the level of competition. I just view the mid-late 90s till now as so much more competitive at the top level for goalies, largely b/c of euros. The popularity of the butterfly has also shortened the gap between top and bottom goalies.

 

[Rob Scuderi]

The difference in that longevity being that Hasek's five-year prime makes up 41.1% of his total career, whereas Roy's five-year prime makes up just 26.9% of his. So with this being an averaging statistic, Hasek's career number is better protected.




There's a pretty good chance that they'll be two of the four goalies to make the Top-Four, so there's a very good reason to discuss them now instead of waiting to discuss them next week.




I don't feel as though it is the sort of thing that needs a defined percentage of weight. I'm not going to say, "Oh, John Vanbiesbrouck in 1994? Let me deduct X amount from your season." But I'm also not going to say, "Billy Smith? Now there's a guy who barely registered anything of value in the regular season (one 1st Team All-Star selection and one 5th Place selection with less than two-percent of the voting share). He shouldn't be considered a top goalie."

The whole point of the NHL season is what comes after the NHL season: The Stanley Cup Playoffs. If you can deliver there, sometimes that's all that matters. If you can't deliver there, sometimes that's all that matters.

Ken Dryden, 1971
Grant Fuhr, 1984
Patrick Roy, 1986
Martin Brodeur, 1995
Jean-Sebastien Giguere, 2003

Between the five of them, they couldn't buy a 1st or 2nd place All-Star vote. Only Giguere made it onto an All-Star ballot at all.


Roman Cechmanek, 2001; .921 (4th)
Roman Cechmanek, 2002; .921 (3rd)
Roman Cechmanek, 2003; .925 (3rd)

And there's a reason he was traded for a second-round draft pick.


Not everything is going to be a boiled down to a number. We're not going to be able to look at a scoreboard a la The Hockey Compendium and award Curtis Joseph 968 points for his regular season and 1000 points for his playoffs in 1993 (which is the best playoff since Vachon in 1969 according to Klein and Reif... I can't believe how much I paid for this book).


Short Answer: I don't know how to math this.

To pick a nit, Dryden only played 6 games in '71 so his omission from post-season ballots is a bit different from the others.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

The difference in that longevity being that Hasek's five-year prime makes up 41.1% of his total career, whereas Roy's five-year prime makes up just 26.9% of his. So with this being an averaging statistic, Hasek's career number is better protected.

This is true, but to be fair to Hasek, his statistical "peak" basically lasted 8 years, while Roy's lasted 5, so it isn't just that his career number is better protected by fewer GP (though that is part of it).

Adjusting Roy's SV% from the 80s and early 90s is fair, but does not consider the level of competition. I just view the mid-late 90s till now as so much more competitive at the top level for goalies, largely b/c of euros. The popularity of the butterfly has also shortened the gap between top and bottom goalies.

But the Euros weren't just goaltenders, right? They were defensemen and forwards too. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how greater depth at all positions would affect adjusted save percentage numbers.

And to the extent that the proliferation of the butterfly increased the quality of goaltending, shouldn't Roy get some credit for that as the guy who started the trend? We haven't talked much about "historical importance," but Roy is probably the most influential goalie of all time. In addition to popularizing the butterfly, Roy made goaltending glamorous to the kids growing up in Quebec, the narrative goes. Plante is the only guy I can think of who might have been as influential as Roy.

 

[RabbinsDuck]

But the Euros weren't just goaltenders, right? They were defensemen and forwards too. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how greater depth at all positions would affect adjusted save percentage numbers.

And to the extent that the proliferation of the butterfly increased the quality of goaltending, shouldn't Roy get some credit for that as the guy who started the trend? We haven't talked much about "historical importance," but Roy is probably the most influential goalie of all time. In addition to popularizing the butterfly, Roy made goaltending glamorous to the kids growing up in Quebec, the narrative goes. Plante is the only guy I can think of who might have been as influential as Roy.

The late 90s (couple years before and after) was just incredibly deep at the top - Hasek, Roy, Brodeur, Belfour, Jospeh - 3 of whom in this discussion for top 7 and all at or near prime - along with several other goalies capable of incredible peak years (as the bottom half of goalies during this time was so far ahead of the bottom half in the 80s early 90s).

It's just an incredibly deep and talented era for goalies.

I consider Hasek's dominance in this time period similar to Bourque getting 6 Norrises in the 90s, a particularly elite and deep era for defenseman.

Roy deserves recognition for making the butterfly so popular, but shouldn't the first goalie to do it in the NHL deserve more credit? Either way, anecdotes like that do not get too much weight from me....

Pioneers are sort of a double-edged sword, they deserve the benefit they received by being creative and ahead of the curve, but for instance it's hard to envision Orr more than doubling up on his competition in the 80s, as he did in the 70s, even though his competition was largely inspired by himself. Bit of a paradox.

 

[quoipourquoi]

This is true, but to be fair to Hasek, his statistical "peak" basically lasted 8 years, while Roy's lasted 5, so it isn't just that his career number is better protected by fewer GP (though that is part of it).

Hasek's 6th-8th best statistical seasons are: 1996 (59 games), 2000 (35 games), and 2006 (43 games). Roy's 6th-8th best statistical seasons are: 1994 (68 games), 1997 (62 games), and whichever one of 1991/2002 (48/63 games) HockeyOutsider did not use.

I'm not so sure which goalie has the better set of three. They would each have one remaining fifth-place save percentage finish: Hasek's 2001 (67 games) and Roy's 1987 (46 games).

It's just that after those nine seasons each of them have in the Top-Five, Roy has 51.3% of his career to go; Hasek just 31.2%. Averaging stats...

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

The late 90s (couple years before and after) was just incredibly deep at the top - Hasek, Roy, Brodeur, Belfour, Jospeh - 3 of whom in this discussion for top 7 and all at or near prime - along with several other goalies capable of incredible peak years (as the bottom half of goalies during this time was so far ahead of the bottom half in the 80s early 90s).

It's just an incredibly deep and talented era for goalies.

I consider Hasek's dominance in this time period similar to Bourque getting 6 Norrises in the 90s, a particularly elite and deep era for defenseman.

Roy deserves recognition for making the butterfly so popular, but shouldn't the first goalie to do it in the NHL deserve more credit? Either way, anecdotes like that do not get too much weight from me....

Pioneers are sort of a double-edged sword, they deserve the benefit they received by being creative and ahead of the curve, but for instance it's hard to envision Orr more than doubling up on his competition in the 80s, as he did in the 70s, even though his competition was largely inspired by himself. Bit of a paradox.

Just to clarify, 2 of Belfour's top 3 seasons from a save percentage standpoint and both of his Vezina's come at the the tail end of Roy's regular season peak, before Hasek was an NHL starter.

 

[Hardyvan123]

Imagine how many more Forsberg threads we'd have if the most-used statistic for skaters was an averaging statistic.

For some reason the guys that play in the NHL have their seasons in Europe discounted compared to the guys who never play in the NHL or have very small samples like Krutov.

The bottom line is that Hasek makes up the gap with his non NHL career IMO.

Maybe Dryden would be lower, average statwise, as well as the Habs slipped in the late 70's from perennial powerhouse to a good to very good team?

 

[Nalyd Psycho]

Just to clarify, 2 of Belfour's top 3 seasons from a save percentage standpoint and both of his Vezina's come at the the tail end of Roy's regular season peak, before Hasek was an NHL starter.

Maybe so, but if you remove Hasek, Roy and Brodeur, Belfour turns a 2nd team in '95 into another Vezina. A 1st team all-Star in '98 (Non Vezina though). And a 2nd team all-star in '03.

In other words, if you remove three of the top 7, Belfour's resume starts looking like a top 10 goalie...

It was a big four, even if the fourth was clearly fourth.

 

[Rhiessan71]

For some reason the guys that play in the NHL have their seasons in Europe discounted compared to the guys who never play in the NHL or have very small samples like Krutov.

May as well include AHL stats too then. I mean in all seriousness, the majority of the Euro leagues are not even on par with the AHL and the ones that are on par with or better than the AHL are still not on par with the NHL by any stretch of the imagination.
Not to mention the SEVERELY reduced number of games played of these leagues.
No, the lack of respect these players get for their play in those leagues is quite warranted IMO.

The bottom line is that Hasek makes up the gap with his non NHL career IMO.

He loses his starting job with the Wings to Chris freaking Osgood at the most important time of the season but is still good enough, after taking an entire season off to boot, to be an All-Star in the Czech league and the KHL the following 2 seasons and you want that to count...seriously?
Or you want to count the years in the Czech league or in the IHL that happened a full 2 years before he was even able to become an NHL starter?
I don't see either happening, sorry.

 

[Hardyvan123]

I don't feel as though it is the sort of thing that needs a defined percentage of weight. I'm not going to say, "Oh, John Vanbiesbrouck in 1994? Let me deduct X amount from your season." But I'm also not going to say, "Billy Smith? Now there's a guy who barely registered anything of value in the regular season (one 1st Team All-Star selection and one 5th Place selection with less than two-percent of the voting share). He shouldn't be considered a top goalie."

The whole point of the NHL season is what comes after the NHL season: The Stanley Cup Playoffs. If you can deliver there, sometimes that's all that matters. If you can't deliver there, sometimes that's all that matters.

Ken Dryden, 1971
Grant Fuhr, 1984
Patrick Roy, 1986
Martin Brodeur, 1995
Jean-Sebastien Giguere, 2003

Between the five of them, they couldn't buy a 1st or 2nd place All-Star vote. Only Giguere made it onto an All-Star ballot at all.


Roman Cechmanek, 2001; .921 (4th)
Roman Cechmanek, 2002; .921 (3rd)
Roman Cechmanek, 2003; .925 (3rd)

And there's a reason he was traded for a second-round draft pick.


Not everything is going to be a boiled down to a number. We're not going to be able to look at a scoreboard a la The Hockey Compendium and award Curtis Joseph 968 points for his regular season and 1000 points for his playoffs in 1993 (which is the best playoff since Vachon in 1969 according to Klein and Reif... I can't believe how much I paid for this book).


Short Answer: I don't know how to math this.

That's why I asked for a ballpark because at the end of the day we all rationalize and weigh things differently but we need to weigh them to judge and compare two players.

We know that Ken Dryden was great and won cups and CS with the Habs but what if he had been the exact same player who had the misfortune to play with another team?

Sure great players affect their teams ability to win the Stanley Cup but at the end of the day winning the Stanley cup is a team thing and becomes increasingly more difficult, ie Any superstar needs more team support as the league gets larger say from a 6 team league to a 30 team one.

My ballpark 80-20 to say 75-25 split in weighing these matters isn't written in stone but it is something that I think about when comparing any 2 guys and I would think that others might be using some sort of baseline at least or else bias really can get in the way really fast IMO.

The sometimes SC playoffs is all that matters and sometimes it doesn't doesn't make alot of sense though. At least if you have a baseline then you can add the exceptional information of why or why not it matters, depending on the player and circumstance, in the evaluation right?

If the playoffs are indeed all that matters then we would have more Forsberg threads as well. Well okay his playoff success is one reason why we ahve those threads already to be fair.

I say this as a general comment, not as a direct reply to you, but you did mention the worth of a deeper playoff game compared to a regular season game and it sparked my interest.

 

[quoipourquoi]

I say this as a general comment, not as a direct reply to you, but you did mention the worth of a deeper playoff game compared to a regular season game and it sparked my interest.

I think you'll get your answer when Billy Smith either appears relatively high on the list or not at all.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Maybe so, but if you remove Hasek, Roy and Brodeur, Belfour turns a 2nd team in '95 into another Vezina. A 1st team all-Star in '98 (Non Vezina though). And a 2nd team all-star in '03.

I don't think it works like that. GMs and the NHLPA are given 1-2-3 ballots. Some voters struggle to leave off goalies who lead the league in Wins or SOs (which in the case of Belfour in 1995, I believe he was 2nd in Wins and 1st in SOs). Taking out Hasek is going to make them look a little more lovingly at the next highest SPCT goaltender to make the playoffs, like the man who tied Belfour in Vezina voting: Jim Carey.

 

[RabbinsDuck]

May as well include AHL stats too then. I mean in all seriousness, the majority of the Euro leagues are not even on par with the AHL and the ones that are on par with or better than the AHL are still not on par with the NHL by any stretch of the imagination.
Not to mention the SEVERELY reduced number of games played of these leagues.
No, the lack of respect these players get for their play in those leagues is quite warranted IMO.




He loses his starting job with the Wings to Chris freaking Osgood at the most important time of the season but is still good enough, after taking an entire season off to boot, to be an All-Star in the Czech league and the KHL the following 2 seasons and you want that to count...seriously?
Or you want to count the years in the Czech league or in the IHL that happened a full 2 years before he was even able to become an NHL starter?
I don't see either happening, sorry.

With the knowledge Hasek won a Vezina in his first year as a starter in the NHL, quickly going on to dominate a HHoF field, it gets a little hard to blow off best goalie at World Junior Championship, multiple Best Goalie at World Championship, and multiple best goalie and player in his country awards or suggest he was a late bloomer, especially when so many eastern euros also took a while to adjust their game to N. America.

The way some of you blow off Hasek's international accomplishments makes me wonder if Tretiak even makes your Top 40.

 

[Rhiessan71]

With the knowledge Hasek won a Vezina in his first year as a starter in the NHL, quickly going on to dominate a HHoF field, it gets a little hard to blow off best goalie at World Junior Championship, multiple Best Goalie at World Championship, and multiple best goalie and player in his country awards or suggest he was a late bloomer, especially when so many eastern euros also took a while to adjust their game to N. America.

The way some of you blow off Hasek's international accomplishments makes me wonder if Tretiak even makes your Top 40.

It still took him 2 years to become that starter AFTER he played in those other leagues.
As far as the World championships goes, all we have to do is look at the list of other goalies that have grabbed that same best honor to see how high that ranks.
Either way, to suggest that those seasons and "accomplishments" should be used on par with Roy's and Brodeur's "extra" NHL seasons, most of which had either or both of them ranking high in Vezina and All-star voting, not to mention playoff performances, is just plain idiotic IMO and quite frankly, an insult to them on a grand scale.

The Tretiak reference is an absolutely terrible one as he was actually playing against the best Europeans most of the time. Not like in the 80's and 90's where those best Europeans were mostly in the NHL.

 

[RabbinsDuck]

It still took him 2 years to become that starter AFTER he played in those other leagues.
As far as the World championships goes, all we have to do is look at the list of other goalies that have grabbed that same best honor to see how high that ranks.
Either way, to suggest that those seasons and "accomplishments" should be used on par with Roy's and Brodeur's "extra" NHL seasons, most of which had either or both of them ranking high in Vezina and All-star voting, not to mention playoff performances, is just plain idiotic IMO and quite frankly, an insult to them on a grand scale.

The Tretiak reference is an absolutely terrible one as he was actually playing against the best Europeans most of the time. Not like in the 80's and 90's where those best Europeans were mostly in the NHL.

Hasek is literally the youngest professional hockey player in history, wins pretty much everything he can outside of the NHL - moves to another country/continent/culture without knowing the language and struggles in limited opportunities - then immediately dominates the NHL for years.

Shining the spotlight on his early years in N. America misses the forest for the trees. It's like defining Jagr based on his Washington years.

It just seems illogical to pretend Hasek's accolades would not be much better if he was Canadian. This is not giving credit to a player who missed games because of injury, as Hasek was obviously playing at the top level available to him at the time, and doing everything internationally we would expect an elite goaltender to do, again and again.

 

[RabbinsDuck]

Just to clarify, 2 of Belfour's top 3 seasons from a save percentage standpoint and both of his Vezina's come at the the tail end of Roy's regular season peak, before Hasek was an NHL starter.

Point stands Hasek dominated a much stronger field of goaltenders to a larger degree than Roy's domination of a much weaker field beforehand. Add to it he was on a weak, heavily penalized team while doing it (his differential over his backups is staggering), and it is even more amazing.

 

[Rhiessan71]

Hasek is literally the youngest professional hockey player in history, wins pretty much everything he can outside of the NHL - moves to another country/continent/culture without knowing the language and struggles in limited opportunities - then immediately dominates the NHL for years.

Shining the spotlight on his early years in N. America misses the forest for the trees. It's like defining Jagr based on his Washington years.

It just seems illogical to pretend Hasek's accolades would not be much better if he was Canadian. This is not giving credit to a player who missed games because of injury, as Hasek was obviously playing at the top level available to him at the time, and doing everything internationally we would expect an elite goaltender to do, again and again.

Glad to know you at least realise you are indeed pretending.

You can dress it up all you want but the bottomline is that you are still projecting a prime Hasek onto a younger one.

You can respect what he did prior to the NHL and even factor it into your evaluation of him but giving it equal weight to go against the ACTUAL NHL seasons and playoffs of Roy and Brodeur is just ridiculous!

To say he makes up some ground here and there is one thing, but to say he actually bridges the gap....bull****!

Just remember though, if you are going to assign as much weight as you seem to be for non-NHL accomplishments, you best remember that Patrick Roy right out of Junior, after only playing a single AHL regular season game, led the 37-38-5 Sherbrooke Canadiens to the Calder Cup.

 

[GuineaPig]

Point stands Hasek dominated a much stronger field of goaltenders to a larger degree than Roy's domination of a much weaker field beforehand. Add to it he was on a weak, heavily penalized team while doing it (his differential over his backups is staggering), and it is even more amazing.

Exactly. I don't see how anyone can give Roy as much credit for being significantly better than the likes of Hextall, Vanbiesbrouck, Barasso, and Casey, when Hasek did the same to a much superior crop of goaltenders.

 

[MadArcand]

Just remember though, if you are going to assign as much weight as you seem to be for non-NHL accomplishments, you best remember that Patrick Roy right out of Junior, after only playing a single AHL regular season game, led the 37-38-5 Sherbrooke Canadiens to the Calder Cup.

Are we seriously comparing crappy grinder & prospect league like AHL with World Championships and top European leagues? What's next, listing accomplishments in juniors?