Round 2, Vote 4 (HOH Top Goaltenders)

[Theokritos]

Hull was 38 years old when he played against the Czech's & Holocek in the 76 Canada Cup...and lets face facts, not exactly the Golden Jet of the early to mid 60's. More an honorary selection than anything else.

Obviously he wasn't the 1960s Bobby Hull any more, but he still had more points than any other Canadian forward except Gilbert Perreault, so "honorary selection" is an exaggeration.

I also read a column from 1972 (at the time of another best-on-best international tournament) claiming that Jorma Valtonen was generally considered the best goalie in Europe ahead of Vladislav Tretiak. That seemed to be largely based on Valtonen's world championship performance that year, and again does call a bit into question whether European observers were doing much more than watching who played the best at the world championships.

So what? Holeček performed great in the 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1976, 1978 world championships. Isn't that enough to rank him over his competitors Valtonen (honoured 1972), Larsson (1974), Tretiak (1974, 1975) and Högosta (1977)?

Let's say the same guys who rated Holecek over Tretiak in 1976 were asked in 1979 what their opinion was on who was better between the two. Would they tell you that Holecek was better before but Tretiak had now surpassed him, or would they tell you that Holecek had a nice run there but Tretiak sort of proved that he was probably really the best all along? That would be interesting to know.

Who are the rating guys you are thinking of? Europeans? See the world championship honours where Holeček beats Tretiak. Canadians? They were already so impressed with Tretiak (1972 Summit, 1975 Red Army tour) that there was hardly anything left to "prove" for him.

About .500. What was their exact record and what were the exact years - first and last?

1968 Olympics: Czechoslovakia - USSR 5-4
1969 World Championship: Chechoslovakia - USSR 2-0, 4-3
1970 World Championship: Czechoslovakia - USSR 1-3, 1-5
1971 World Championship: Czechoslovakia - USSR 3-3, 5-3
1972 Olympics: Czechoslovakia - USSR 2-5
1972 World Championship: Czechoslovakia - USSR 3-3, 3-2

5 Victories, 2 Ties, 3 Defeats. The Soviet defeat in 1972 led to the dismissal of Anatoli Tarasov.
BTW the Czechoslovaks also won at the 1970 Izvestia Cup.

Dzurilla was in goal in 1968, 1969 and 1970 plus he was the starter in the 1972 Olympics, but he was pulled with his team down 0-3. Holeček played in the 1971* and 1972** World Championship plus he was brought on in the 1972 Olympics with his team down 0-3, the game ended 2-5.
*Best goaltender, All-Star goaltender
**All-Star goaltender

where I might find, say, the other goalies that played in the Czech League in 1972 or '68 or whatever...?

See:

Here are all the goalies who placed in Golden Stick voting during this time frame:
1969: 5 Dzurilla, 14 Miroslav Lacký, 15 Miroslav Termer.
1970: 4 Dzurilla, 12 Holeček, 13 Lacký, 16 Pavel Wohl.
1971: 5 Holeček, 12 Dzurilla, 15 Jiří Crha, 17 Vladimír Nadrchal, 21 Marcel Sakač.
1972: 3 Dzurilla, 5 Holeček, 25 Nadrchal, 26 Crha, 28 Jiří Kralík and Miroslav Krása, 34 Sakač, 36 Termer.
1973: 5 Holeček, 11 Crha, 22 Sakač, 29 Krása, 39 Wohl.
1974: 1 Holeček, 15 Crha, 22 Pavol Svitana, 31 Dzurilla, 33 Termer, 39 Krása, 41 Miroslav Kapoun.
1975: 2 Holeček, 14 Crha.
1976: 2 Holeček, 9 Dzurilla, 20 Svitana, 23 Crha, 30 Sakač.
1977: 6 Dzurilla, 8 Holeček, 17 Kralík, 23 Crha, 29 Sakač, 32 Svitana.
1978: 2 Holeček, 15 Dzurilla, 17 Kralík, 19 Crha, 37 Ivan PodeÅ¡va, 42 Petr Å evela, 46 Milan Kolísek.

 

[lamini]

If they had fundamentally sound and better coached goalies it would have been to their advantage.

Well, that is definitely true. But if Holecek was goalie that shoudn't be in conversation for all time top 60, than replacing him with guy that is all time number 7 should make huge difference.
On the other hand if the difference is that one of them has game that works better against NHL hockey, while the other one tailors his game agaist specific oponent (CCCP) that playes totaly different kind of game, replacing them should make Czechoslovakian result worse.

I'm not sure which one of those two would be true, that's why I asked wheather you are.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Comparables

Well, that is definitely true. But if Holecek was goalie that shoudn't be in conversation for all time top 60, than replacing him with guy that is all time number 7 should make huge difference.
On the other hand if the difference is that one of them has game that works better against NHL hockey, while the other one tailors his game agaist specific oponent (CCCP) that playes totaly different kind of game, replacing them should make Czechoslovakian result worse.

I'm not sure which one of those two would be true, that's why I asked wheather you are.

First, the bolded is not my opinion. I have Holecek ranked higher.

Your comparable does not work in hockey reality. Example Mario Lemieux is ranked higher as a center than Jean Beliveau or Henri Richard. This does not mean that the dynasty Canadiens 1955-56 to 1970-71 would have been better with Mario Lemieux replacing either one since Lemieux did not bring any defence to the rink.

 

[lamini]

First, the bolded is not my opinion. I have Holecek ranked higher.

Than I misunderstood you and the part about AHL level goalie at best.

comparable does not work in hockey reality. Example Mario Lemieux is ranked higher as a center than Jean Beliveau or Henri Richard. This does not mean that the dynasty Canadiens 1955-56 to 1970-71 would have been better with Mario Lemieux replacing either one since Lemieux did not bring any defence to the rink.

I understand that different players are needed for different kind of game, I just feel right now Holecek is penalised for playing kind of game that worked against oponents that were most important for him, but failed in games that are considered more important in NA.
TBH I'm not sure where I'd rank Tretiak and Holecek, I just don't feel comfortable with them too far apart (which may be ofcourse partly thanks to me growing up in country, where CCCP x CSSR games were most important part of hockey year)

 

[Canadiens1958]

Reverse is True

Than I misunderstood you and the part about AHL level goalie at best.



I understand that different players are needed for different kind of game, I just feel right now Holecek is penalised for playing kind of game that worked against oponents that were most important for him, but failed in games that are considered more important in NA.
TBH I'm not sure where I'd rank Tretiak and Holecek, I just don't feel comfortable with them too far apart (which may be ofcourse partly thanks to me growing up in country, where CCCP x CSSR games were most important part of hockey year)

Reverse is true. Holecek gets credit for his success in Europe as does Tretiak, likewise Dzurilla. Then Tretiak gets credit for his success in NA,, Dzurilla gets some credit while Holecek gets very little, hence the gap between Tretiak and Holecek.

 

[Theokritos]

Reverse is true. Holecek gets credit for his success in Europe as does Tretiak, likewise Dzurilla. Then Tretiak gets credit for his success in NA,, Dzurilla gets some credit while Holecek gets very little, hence the gap between Tretiak and Holecek.

But Holeček was more successful than Tretiak in Europe. Even if the NA success puts Tretiak in front, how far in front can we put him? Or how far behind should we rank a guy who outplayed him time and time again in Europe?

 

[Canadiens1958]

Quantify

But Holeček was more successful than Tretiak in Europe. Even if the NA success puts Tretiak in front, how far in front can we put him? Or how far behind should we rank a guy who outplayed him time and time again in Europe?

Quantify the International success.

Head to head, against other European competition, etc.

Provide the actual numbers. SOGs, SV%, etc.

 

[lamini]

Just testing something. Here (starting at 10:50): http://www.ceskatelevize.cz/ivysilani/10364596087-archiv-z/21147129818-cssr-sssr/ is third period of game between CSSR and USSR from WC 1976. Wonder if it's available for users in NA. In case it is, there should be games from most WC games between USSR and CSSR

 

[Canadiens1958]

No

Just testing something. Here (starting at 10:50): http://www.ceskatelevize.cz/ivysilani/10364596087-archiv-z/21147129818-cssr-sssr/ is third period of game between CSSR and USSR from WC 1976. Wonder if it's available for users in NA. In case it is, there should be games from most WC games between USSR and CSSR

In Canada the following notice appears:

This content is not available at your territory due to limited copyright.

 

[lamini]

In Canada the following notice appears:

This content is not available at your territory due to limited copyright.

Hoped it wouldn't be the case Thought archive of Czech television could help evaluate Holecek and Dzurilla (if he ever gets into consideration), but it's useles if it don't work for majority of voters.

 

[Theokritos]

Quantify the International success.

Head to head, against other European competition, etc.

Provide the actual numbers. SOGs, SV%, etc.

I don't have that data. The IIHF directorate awards & media all-star votes are what I have in mind.

 

[Sanf]

I don´t have all but here are some stats. Gathered from Finnish hockey books. They used this "upside down" Sv%. How many shots to make one goal. I have seen few oddities in these but they propably printed the data which they got from IIHF?

Keep in mind that Tretiak and Holecek played the hard games in these tournaments (except 72 olympics where Holecek failed). Sorry can´t make tables so this is quite a mess

1971 WHC
Top3
Shots Goals S per G
Jiri Holecek 228 12 19,00
Vladislav Tretjak 86 6 14,33
Jorma Valtonen 240 17 14,12

1972 Olympics
Top4
Games Shots Goals S per G
Michael Curran 5 209 15 13,93
Vladimir Dzurilla 5 94 7 13,43
Leif Holmqvist 3 89 7 12,71
Vladislav Tretjak 5 146 13 11,23
...
Jiri Holecek 2 32 6 5,33

1972 WHC
Top 4
Shots Goals SV%
Vladimir Shepalov 51 2 96,0
Vladimir Dzurilla 80 6 92,5
Jiri Holecek 130 10 92,3
Vladislav Tretjak 174 15 91,3

1974 WHC
Top5
Games Shots Goals S per G
Curt Larsson 4 142 4 35,50
Christer Abrahamsson 6 260 16 16,25
Aleksander Sidelnikov 4 90 6 15,00
Vladislav Tretjak 7 151 12 12,58
Jiri Holecek 6 148 14 10,57

1975 WHC
Top 3
Games Shots Goal S per G
Jiri Holecek 9 200 14 14,29
Antti Leppänen 7 195 15 13,00
Vladislav Tretjak 8 220 18 12,22

1976 Olympics
Top5
Games Shots Goals S per G
Aleksander Sidelnikov 1 25 1 25,00
Jiri Holecek 4 159 9 17,67
Vladislav Tretjak 4 165 11 15,00
Antti Leppänen 2 79 7 11,29
Urpo Ylönen 3 118 11 10,73

1976 WHC
Top3
Games Shots Goals S per G
Jiri Holecek 7 154 10 15,40
Vladimir Dzurilla 3 59 4 14,75
Vladislav Tretjak 10 248 19 12,05

 

[seventieslord]

Still one third of the NHL games creates a much greater sample space with an opportunity to watch how a goalie adapts to a team and players over the course of a 5 - 6 month season.

True, but that changes the goalposts. Seeing a full international tournament makes you more qualified to judge the players based on how they performed in that tournament, than you would be to judge NHL players had you seen a third of an NHL season.

 

[seventieslord]

In Canada the following notice appears:

This content is not available at your territory due to limited copyright.

Maybe use a Proxy site?

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

In Canada the following notice appears:

This content is not available at your territory due to limited copyright.

Same thing in the US. A shame.

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

One thing, and it might not be related to the project even, but there aren't just three goaltending techniques: butterfly, stand-up and, let's say, acrobatic...

People that are more in the talent evaluation neck of the woods name some fundamental flaws in a goaltender and somehow people take these things and spin them into Dominik Hasek and go "see, it's not so bad" ...Hasek wasn't like anything I've ever seen, and maybe someone can point to a goalie that was similar in style and success, but I've never seen it. Holecek didn't play like Hasek, Cechmanek didn't play like Hasek, Tim Thomas doesn't play like Hasek, Yutaka Fukufuji didn't play like Hasek...that's just not what happened. Whether or not it's relevant to discussion is another matter, but it's a tiny bit frustrating to see all non-butterfly goalies lumped into "other" with Hasek being the exception to the rule that justifies all the others despite noteworthy dissimilarities in play style...

I think this is definitely related to the project, and you are absolutely correct that there are differences in style between goalies with unorthodox styles. When I have referred to Hasek in this thread, it was to make the point that sometimes great goalies are underrated largely because of their style, not to claim that he was the exact equivalent of Holecek. Hasek was actually much more conventional than people usually assume in making the first save, his flopping, diving, barrel rolling, etc. usually came on scrambles, rebounds and other second-chance opportunities, although I suspect that in his younger days in Czechoslovakia he probably wasn't as polished in the fundamentals as he was later on after working with NHL coaching. Just flopping around doesn't make you into Hasek, you need both the technical foundations to their game and the incredible anticipation and body control that Hasek had to pull off what he was able to do, which is obviously why he was such a unique and outstanding goaltender.

But my problem with the talent evaluation people is that I think they do tend to overrate the importance of technique, probably in part because it is one of the most obvious elements of a goalie's game.

C1958 challenged me to name an example of a goalie who lasted in the NHL with poor technique, so I'll throw out Chris Osgood. During the 2004-05 lockout, Osgood worked with a goalie coach to change pretty much everything he did in net, because he realized as he aged that his technique was so poor that he needed to play differently (Ken Holland called pre-lockout Osgood "an NHL goalie who had high school technical skills"). Here's an excerpt from the InGoal Magazine article about Osgood's transformation:

“The first time we worked together we spent an hour and 20 minutes on movement, we didn’t shoot a puck. That’s how poor it was,†says Matwijiw, a former minor-pro goaltender who spent time as the goaltending coach at the University of Michigan while also running Bandits Goaltending School.

When Osgood, then a free agent living nearby in Detroit, left him a message on the eve of the lockout in 2004 after a recommendation Holland, Matwijiw wasn’t really sure what to expect.

“I asked what he has was looking for out of this, and his exact words were ‘I want you to tear my game apart and rebuild it,’ so that’s what we tried to do,†Matwijiw says, admitting he didn’t really know what that would entail until that eye-opening first session on the ice. “Boy, he had a long road ahead of him, let’s put it that way. Everything from not stopping with the correct leg, to not looking where he was going, his angles were poor, he couldn’t get off his line, I mean everything was wrong. Everything. To the point that 45 minutes in, picture him gas tired and all we’re doing is movement, and he has his elbows on his knees and he’s looking down at the ice and he shakes his head and he just picks his head up and says to me, ‘I feel like a Mite goalie out here, this is embarrassing.’ And after an hour and 20 minutes of straight movement I called it a day because he was so frustrated and … almost ashamed of himself.â€

Matwijiw says this not with ridicule in his voice, but respect, not to criticize, but to give credit. Because as bad as his technique looked that day, that’s how much hard work Osgood put in to fix it, coming back three or four times a week, 90 minutes at a time, from August through April 2005, determined to get it right.

I don't really rate Osgood all that highly, but he was an average goalie for a long time in the NHL despite all those drawbacks, and that was in the '90s and early '00s against a deeper talent pool and against goalie competition that was nearly all more technically skilled than he was. Go back to the '70s, before video analysis and before full-time goalie coaches, and you don't think that goalies could get away with technical flaws in the NHL? Of course they could, if they were good enough in other areas of their game to make up for it.

Goaltending has been made into a science, and using proper technique obviously enhances your chances to succeed, but we can't just simply rate goalies from the past based on how close they played to the modern style. Tony Esposito vs. Ken Dryden is a great example of that, watch the game footage and Esposito looks way more like a modern goalie but the group here has already concluded that Dryden was the better goalie based on their actual performances.

And to clarify, my comment that "it's whether you stop the puck or not" refers to the fact that goaltending is a results business, it's not performing arts. A guy like Marc-Andre Fleury looks amazing in net, but his record simply shows that he lets in more pucks than you'd expect him to based on what the talent evaluators say. Tim Thomas is exactly the opposite.

Of course goalies at the same time do need to evaluated within their team context, maybe Fleury has to face more difficult chances than Thomas, maybe Fleury would do better on a terrible team than Thomas would, I don't necessarily agree but those are potential debates that could be had. Even stats guys like me recognize that team adjustments have to be made if there is evidence for them. I'm definitely not saying that like "it doesn't matter how many saves you make, as long as you win the game" or anything dumb like that. I just feel that you do need to check what kind of numbers a goalie is putting up (over a large sample of games) because the evidence strongly suggests that really tells you more about their effectiveness than anything else.

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

So what? Holeček performed great in the 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1976, 1978 world championships. Isn't that enough to rank him over his competitors Valtonen (honoured 1972), Larsson (1974), Tretiak (1974, 1975) and Högosta (1977)?

Of course Holecek is better than those guys, that's not the point of the Valtonen example. The point of bringing up Valtonen is to show 1) that European goalies only get written about in Canadian newspapers when Canadian teams are playing best-on-best tournaments in Europe (e.g. 1972 and 1976), and 2) European observers probably rate the world championships more highly than anything else when rating goalies.

All that means that even if it was true that Holecek was widely seen as the best in Europe at the time of the 1976 Canada Cup as reported in the Canadian press, that doesn't necessarily mean that he was seen as the best in Europe throughout the 1970s. And also, as TDMM points out, Tretiak was winning Soviet League MVPs during this time but if the observers were still pretty much rating him mostly based on international play then it is far from certain that they took domestic play into account as much as I think they probably should have.

Who are the rating guys you are thinking of? Europeans? See the world championship honours where Holeček beats Tretiak. Canadians? They were already so impressed with Tretiak (1972 Summit, 1975 Red Army tour) that there was hardly anything left to "prove" for him.

I don't know who the rating guys are, that's the problem. The pro-Holecek claims are based on the world championship best goalie awards plus a bunch of references by Joe Pelletier and some journalists back in the day to "European observers", but I can't tell if that means Russians, Czechs, Swedes, Finns, overseas Canadians or what.

The only article I've ever seen that gives names of people specifically ranking Holecek over Tretiak is this one, which quotes the coach and GM of the Canadian national team (once again in 1976 at the time of the Canada Cup):

"One of the key members on the Czech squad is goaltender Jiri Holecek, who is rated the top goaltender in Europe by many observers, even better than Vladislav Tretiak of the Soviet Union. Kromm and Keith Allen, general manager of the Canadian team, both had high praise for Holecek. "He was excellent in the world championships last year," said Allen. "He was the best goaltender there." "I think he's the best goaltender in Europe," added Kromm. "I think he's better than Tretiak. People over in Europe can't understand why we are always raving about Tretiak. He's good, but Holecek is excellent."

That's good evidence, but it again it quotes unnamed "people over in Europe" and it seems like it goes back quite a bit to play at the world championships, and I'm not convinced that being the best goalie of a short tournament means you are the best goalie.

I don't put a lot of stock in awards over an 82 game NHL season, so obviously I put even much less stock in awards for a short tournament. There is just a lot of uncertainty with best goalie awards. We don't know if Holecek was winning the best goalie awards unanimously or if he was winning them by one vote over Tretiak. We don't know if the voters were more likely to vote for goalies on non-championship teams (I think they were, given that Holecek was the best goalie only once in the three years he won a gold medal, similar to Tretiak's three best goalie awards in the 10 years that the Soviets won). We don't know if Tretiak was generally a better goalie than Holecek from 1973-1976 that just played worse than Holecek over a 20 game stretch. Having a weaker goalie outplay a better one over a small sample happens all the time if you look at other international tournaments or results from the NHL.

Again, I think Holecek was very good, and I think international goalies from the '60s onwards should be respected as many of them probably could have competed in the NHL. I'm just struggling with what tiers to put the international goalies on and where to rank them relative to the NHL guys, and the more I look at it, the more I feel like the evidence to put Holecek and Tretiak on a similar level is really thin once you get outside of world championship awards.

 

[Sanf]

I don't know who the rating guys are, that's the problem. The pro-Holecek claims are based on the world championship best goalie awards plus a bunch of references by Joe Pelletier and some journalists back in the day to "European observers", but I can't tell if that means Russians, Czechs, Swedes, Finns, overseas Canadians or what.

My guess would be the media people all over from Europe (most likely some from NA) who voted the all star goalie in WHCs.If and when they voted Holecek in those they propably were writing about Holecek in their own countries newspapers and talking about him in TV. Logically this way Holecek became known as the best goalie in all over europe. This was before my time but even my mother (not a hockey fan) remembers Holecek as a great goalie so that kind of backups my theory .

 

[Canadiens1958]

No

C1958 challenged me to name an example of a goalie who lasted in the NHL with poor technique, so I'll throw out Chris Osgood. During the 2004-05 lockout, Osgood worked with a goalie coach to change pretty much everything he did in net, because he realized as he aged that his technique was so poor that he needed to play differently (Ken Holland called pre-lockout Osgood "an NHL goalie who had high school technical skills"). Here's an excerpt from the InGoal Magazine article about Osgood's transformation:

That was not the challenge. Refer specifically to post #217:

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=1283387&page=9

then follow-up with the data.

What you posted about Osgood is commonplace. Happened regularly with goalies going from maskless to mask from heavy to light equipment, from Europe to the NHL.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Proxy Site

Maybe use a Proxy site?

Suggest one that works for the link in question.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Interesting....

I don´t have all but here are some stats. Gathered from Finnish hockey books. They used this "upside down" Sv%. How many shots to make one goal. I have seen few oddities in these but they propably printed the data which they got from IIHF?

Keep in mind that Tretiak and Holecek played the hard games in these tournaments (except 72 olympics where Holecek failed). Sorry can´t make tables so this is quite a mess

1971 WHC
Top3
Shots Goals S per G
Jiri Holecek 228 12 19,00
Vladislav Tretjak 86 6 14,33
Jorma Valtonen 240 17 14,12

1972 Olympics
Top4
Games Shots Goals S per G
Michael Curran 5 209 15 13,93
Vladimir Dzurilla 5 94 7 13,43
Leif Holmqvist 3 89 7 12,71
Vladislav Tretjak 5 146 13 11,23
...
Jiri Holecek 2 32 6 5,33

1972 WHC
Top 4
Shots Goals SV%
Vladimir Shepalov 51 2 96,0
Vladimir Dzurilla 80 6 92,5
Jiri Holecek 130 10 92,3
Vladislav Tretjak 174 15 91,3

1974 WHC
Top5
Games Shots Goals S per G
Curt Larsson 4 142 4 35,50
Christer Abrahamsson 6 260 16 16,25
Aleksander Sidelnikov 4 90 6 15,00
Vladislav Tretjak 7 151 12 12,58
Jiri Holecek 6 148 14 10,57

1975 WHC
Top 3
Games Shots Goal S per G
Jiri Holecek 9 200 14 14,29
Antti Leppänen 7 195 15 13,00
Vladislav Tretjak 8 220 18 12,22

1976 Olympics
Top5
Games Shots Goals S per G
Aleksander Sidelnikov 1 25 1 25,00
Jiri Holecek 4 159 9 17,67
Vladislav Tretjak 4 165 11 15,00
Antti Leppänen 2 79 7 11,29
Urpo Ylönen 3 118 11 10,73

1976 WHC
Top3
Games Shots Goals S per G
Jiri Holecek 7 154 10 15,40
Vladimir Dzurilla 3 59 4 14,75
Vladislav Tretjak 10 248 19 12,05

Soviet and Czechoslovakian teams show very low SOGs allowed per game totals, less than 25 seems to be common. This reflects a team defense factor as opposed to a goaltending factor.

Also the shot counting issue resurfaces. Example 1976 Olympics Holecek faced 39.75 SOG/Game, Tretiak faced 41.25 SOG/Game . Two Finnish goalies were just under 40.

1976 WHC Holecek faced 22 SOG/Game, Dzurilla faced 19.67 while Tretiak faced 24.8.

 

[VMBM]

5 Victories, 2 Ties, 3 Defeats. The Soviet defeat in 1972 led to the dismissal of Anatoli Tarasov.

This is incorrect; Tarasov and Chernyshev were fired after the 1972 Winter Olympics (where USSR won gold) but before the 1972 World Championships.

 

[Theokritos]

Of course Holecek is better than those guys, that's not the point of the Valtonen example.

One of "these guys" is Tretiak, I guess you have overlooked that.

European goalies only get written about in Canadian newspapers when Canadian teams are playing best-on-best tournaments in Europe (e.g. 1972 and 1976)

Which is why they often talk about Tretiak (72 Summit, 74 Summit, 75-76 Super Series etc etc) and not about Holeček (played in one game against WHA Team Canada in 1974 and in one game against Winnipeg in 1975). So the circumstance you mention actually works in Tretiak's favour.

European observers probably rate the world championships more highly than anything else when rating goalies.

I thought that was a given. If you want to compare the top Soviet goalie and the top Czechoslovak goalie, you compare their performance at the one stage where they meet head to head.

All that means that even if it was true that Holecek was widely seen as the best in Europe at the time of the 1976 Canada Cup as reported in the Canadian press, that doesn't necessarily mean that he was seen as the best in Europe throughout the 1970s.

He won the World Championship awards over Tretiak - that's enough for European observers to consider him better.

And also, as TDMM points out, Tretiak was winning Soviet League MVPs during this time

It's not like Holeček didn't do well in the Czechoslovak League MVP voting. And in another thread TDMM asked whether Tretiak was overrated in the Soviet League MVP voting because he simply looked outstanding compared to the other Soviet League goalies who were nothing to rave about.

if the observers were still pretty much rating him mostly based on international play then it is far from certain that they took domestic play into account as much as I think they probably should have... it seems like it goes back quite a bit to play at the world championships, and I'm not convinced that being the best goalie of a short tournament means you are the best goalie.

Fair enough. If you're the best goalie of a short tournament once, then no. But if you are the best goalie of a short tournament* time and time again, you have a case.
*Not just any short tournament, the World Championship: see below.

I don't put a lot of stock in awards over an 82 game NHL season, so obviously I put even much less stock in awards for a short tournament.

Patrick Roy was ranked first in this project mainly because of his playoff resume. What are the playoffs other than a short tournament compared to the regular season? If you go by the 82 game NHL season, Martin Brodeur is at least Roy's equal.

We don't know if Holecek was winning the best goalie awards unanimously or if he was winning them by one vote over Tretiak.

Yes, it's a pity when don't have all the data. What we know is that Holeček repeatedly had the edge.

We don't know if the voters were more likely to vote for goalies on non-championship teams (I think they were, given that Holecek was the best goalie only once in the three years he won a gold medal, similar to Tretiak's three best goalie awards in the 10 years that the Soviets won).

For starters I take directorate awards AND all-star team nominations into account. Holeček won gold in 1972, 1976 and 1977. In 1972 he received the directorate award and in 1976 both the directorate award and the media vote. That he didn't win anything in 1977 is not a surprise when you consider that he lost his position to Dzurilla during the tournament (Holeček played 200 minutes, Dzurilla 400).
As for the Tretiak leg: Why should they have voted for him all of the time the Soviets won when he simply wasn't the best goalie? If your theory was right you'd except Tretiak would have been honoured in the years the Soviets failed to win gold, but no, he wasn't.

We don't know if Tretiak was generally a better goalie than Holecek from 1973-1976 that just played worse than Holecek over a 20 game stretch.

A 20 game stretch that happens to be the most decisive in the perception of the involved players, coaches and observers. That's what everybody worked and aimed for: top performance at the international stage. If everybody is supposed to deliver at that stage more than anything else, then you cannot dismiss this period as random, and if one player is delivering more than the other in that crucial period, then you have to give him credit.

the more I look at it, the more I feel like the evidence to put Holecek and Tretiak on a similar level is really thin once you get outside of world championship awards.

There is hardly any other evidence for or against Holeček outside of that anyway, so we have to stick with what we got.

 

[Theokritos]

This is incorrect; Tarasov and Chernyshev were fired after the 1972 Winter Olympics (where USSR won gold) but before the 1972 World Championships.

You are right, Bobrov was in charge as early as March 1972. Thanks for the correction!

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

That was not the challenge. Refer specifically to post #217:

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=1283387&page=9

then follow-up with the data.

What you posted about Osgood is commonplace. Happened regularly with goalies going from maskless to mask from heavy to light equipment, from Europe to the NHL.

There were two points to the Osgood example. One was that he put a lot of work in to learn the fundamentals again, and while a goalie completely tearing apart their game is far more rare than you imply, I do agree with you that goalies can work on their fundamentals and make technical adjustments or learn the latest and most efficient styles of play.

That is in fact a strong counterargument to anybody who wants to criticize older goalies because they had never been taught better technical fundamentals, because they would be able to pick those things up with work and proper coaching. Crha obviously picked up some things pretty quickly upon arrival in North America, and it seems to be nothing more than penalizing Holecek for his circumstances to assume that he wouldn't have fixed some of the holes in his game in the same way.

But perhaps the more important point with Chris Osgood is the fact that he played 568 games in the NHL with "high-school level technique". He didn't lift his skates off the ice when he moved laterally*, but he had plenty of other holes in his games for shooters to exploit and yet he stuck around for an awful long time at the highest level in the world. How does that happen if technique is everything?

I'm not completely minimizing the importance of strong technique, a guy like Sean Burke shows how a talented goalie can go from average to really good after putting in the work to develop their game. But the best goalies are generally very adaptable, there are no absolutes in goaltending in terms of style, and goaltending is a results business. If the guy gets the job done for a long time in an outstanding way relative to his team context then that's good enough for me, and I don't care an awful lot about how he looks while doing it.

(*-By the way, did Holecek always do this or did he do it once facing one breakaway in one clip? I haven't seen enough of him to know, and I'm extremely leery of the some of concrete claims being made here from awfully scant video evidence).