Round 2, Vote 7 (HOH Top Goaltenders)

[Bear of Bad News]

Please provide evidence of such teams and coaches at the NHL level.

The opposite is in fact true.

I would argue that the 1980s Oilers took advantage of this strategy - or at least the primary source quotes that I've seen suggest that they trusted Fuhr to cover their ***** when they pinched.

 

[Ohashi_Jouzu*]

You've always seemed to be just convinced that Connell was better than everyone else thinks, and I don't see anything that supports that.

Well, people at the time saw him retire with both the career GAA record and consecutive shutout streak (still a record) records intact. And while the timing of his induction hints that his illness may have sped up the process, obviously there was an impetus to get him in while he could enjoy the honour (likely) because he was already a "no-brainer" at that point. I think it also bears repeating that he consistently compared favourably with the top goalies in the game both before, during, and after the transition to a forward passing game.

He's an interesting case. Got himself a Stanley Cup fairly early, was named captain of his team the same year Hainsworth was named captain of his (granted, rule at the time stated a captain had to be on the ice at all times), retires, returns and backstops another Cup ("one of the greatest goaltending performances in hockey history"), retires again, comes back and almost backstops another Cup (derailed in the Semis by a Rangers upset)... all from a baseball/football guy who couldn't even skate when convinced to join hockey as a soldier stationed in Kingston.

Hate to keep bringing up (and beating down) Lehman, but I almost like Connell as a candidate more than him. Even with the understanding that the Senators were a good team, and granted the relative lack of media/voting fanfare, Connell posted NHL numbers year after year that compared well with (or bested) guys like Benedict and Hainsworth (and indeed Thompson and Gardiner at other times) - both (all?) of whom I hold in higher regard than Lehman.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Stat Keepers

Oh I don't doubt that teams have access to their own information regarding this, however, like you said, they keep it. None of us have a backup goalie with a clipboard at our disposal. So we're left to guess. Or worse, just take the stats at face value.

Video coach/technician(s) plus the goalie coach analyzed against team objectives and game plan going in.

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

100% correct. Game is too fast, center red line is out, trapezoid is in, you can't fully expect a team to allow 14 shots a game...shot quality (something we really don't have a metric for) is drastically reduced by teams like Boston, St. Louis, Detroit, etc. to help insulate their goalies. See: Thomas' stats before Chara/Julien, but still the same NHL team. See: Brian Elliott before arriving in St. Louis.

Save percentage becomes even more deceptive...no more valuable than GAA in today's game...those that dismiss one as a team stat, would be incorrect to fully endorse the other as an "individual" stat...

As seventieslord already pointed out, it is by definition false to claim that save percentage is no more valuable than GAA. Even if team effects were so massive that the same goalie would have a .950 on one team and .850 on the other, that would still do absolutely nothing at all to make GAA more valuable compared to save percentage, because all team shot quality effects impact both stats equally, again by definition.

GAA = (1 - save percentage) x (shots against per 60 minutes)

Since save percentage is a component of GAA, every team impact on save percentage has the exact same impact on GAA, and then there is the additional and separate factor of shots against that is by far mostly impacted by the rest of the team.

Everyone wants to talk about Brian Elliott's .940 as if that somehow invalidates the usefulness of save percentage, but Elliott's lead in GAA was actually far greater than his lead in save percentage:

Save Percentage Leaders:
1. Elliott, .940
2. Schneider, .937
3. Lundqvist, .930

GAA Leaders:
1. Elliott, 1.56
2. Quick, 1.95
3. Schneider, 1.96

The only way to make the argument that GAA and save percentage are equally useful is to claim that goalies are just as responsible for the team's rate of shots against as the rest of the team is, which would be frankly absurd.

Now, it could be argued that GAA is the best way to compare goalies on the same team since they should have similar shot prevention in front of them and it might capture some of the non-save skills that goalies have that can create or prevent shots against. But when comparing across teams, GAA adds essentially no value.

If you want to argue that team effects are important, fine. It's correct that the rest of the team affects goaltending stats, the only disagreement we have is on the magnitude of that effect, particularly in the current NHL where the overall evidence (i.e. not just cherry-picking a few outliers) indicates that shot quality does not have a major impact in most cases. Contrast that to the original six and post-expansion eras where goalies often had very different save percentages when moving from team to team, suggesting much larger team effects.

Either way that doesn't mean save percentage is useless, and it certainly doesn't mean we should put any stock at all in GAA numbers. The best method is to use backup numbers or other estimates to adjust save percentage up or down to where you think it should be, rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

(MOD: Edited out flaming - this is in response to C1958):

You're always looking at things at a team level or a league level, and just assuming that various factors must have had a big impact on goaltenders, when often there is little evidence that those factors had any impact on goaltending specifically. It is not enough to show that there was a rule change, or that a player was added or traded away, or a new coach came in, or there was a specific scheduling setup for some teams around the league. You have to relate that specifically to the goaltender and how that affected their performance, and if we're looking at save percentage then it has to specifically affect the difficulty of chances allowed, not just shot prevention or the team's overall performance.

Let's take your argument above that Harry Lumley's below-average save percentage numbers in 1952-53 were caused by injuries at the center position for the Leafs. The evidence actually goes in the exact opposite direction of your claim, as Harry Lumley was at his worst with both Ted Kennedy and Max Bentley playing and at his best with one or both of them out of the lineup.

Lumley had a terrible first eight games (4+ GA in five of the first eight starts) and a pretty mediocre first third (.884), and after that he played very well (.927 over the rest of the season). Ted Kennedy was injured on New Year's Day and came back for the last few games of the regular season. Max Bentley got injured in mid-November and was in and out of the lineup all season with a bad back. Assuming Kennedy missed 27 straight games after his injury and played the rest of the season, here's Lumley with and without Kennedy in the lineup:

With Kennedy: 1016 SA, 100 GA, .902
Without Kennedy: 880 SA, 67 GA, .924

Not to mention that the claim that Max Bentley's injury-related absence was a big part of the difference between the 1952-53 and 1953-54 teams makes no sense given Bentley was traded for cash over the offseason and replaced by players already on the Leafs' roster.

Note that I'm not saying that injuries to centers for the Leafs wasn't significant in terms of that team's season. It probably cost the team a lot of goals and likely played a big role in the team missing the playoffs. Newspaper articles during that season mention it a lot, I'd go as far as to say that you can't write the complete story of the 1952-53 Maple Leafs without discussing it. But there's no evidence that it had a big impact on goaltending specifically (unless you think I'm knocking Lumley because of his W/L record or the fact his team missed the playoffs, which I absolutely am not). And at the end of the day, the effect on the goaltender is really all we care about for the purposes of this project.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Ok, ok, fine...my point wasn't really that one (GAA or save pct.) is more valuable than the other, it was that it's not as valuable as it might have been before the game changed. That's all I was pointing out. Given that there's a number of modern goalies up for debate, it's worth repeating. With the modern guys, we can evaluate goalies, not numbers.

 

[seventieslord]

Well, people at the time saw him retire with both the career GAA record and consecutive shutout streak (still a record) records intact. And while the timing of his induction hints that his illness may have sped up the process, obviously there was an impetus to get him in while he could enjoy the honour (likely) because he was already a "no-brainer" at that point. I think it also bears repeating that he consistently compared favourably with the top goalies in the game both before, during, and after the transition to a forward passing game.

Yes, in GAA.

You don't see a problem with that?

Clearly the correllation between GAA and how a goalie was perceived by those who saw him, was very weak back then.

In other words, we know his GAA, and we know how he was perceived relative to his peer goalies. The latter should vastly outweigh the former. We should almost throw out the former entirely.

 

[Ohashi_Jouzu*]

Yes, in GAA.

You don't see a problem with that?

Clearly the correllation between GAA and how a goalie was perceived by those who saw him, was very weak back then.

In other words, we know his GAA, and we know how he was perceived relative to his peer goalies. The latter should vastly outweigh the former. We should almost throw out the former entirely.

My issue is still with qualification of "better than everyone else thinks". What can that possible mean, given the context of a player than fans would have seen dominate a statistical category, enjoy great team success, and go on to be enshrined (possibly "rushed") in the HoF? I'm not talking about trying to turn his stats into a video game player rating or anything. Just saying that it looks like there's more than a legitimate case to include Connell's name in the mix not far from his contemporaries Benedict/Hainsworth/Thompson (all seriously considered up to this point), so I don't understand what you can mean by that. How far apart have you guys really been on this one in the past? Surely the argument isn't that Connell shouldn't be anywhere near the conversation yet... and it's not even that far in right now as it is.

I also parrot Mike's concern re: evaluation vs. modern goalies. Numbers make up a lot of the context in rationalizing the "actual" performance gap between contemporary players, and certainly offer a helping hand to simple extension of an examination of relative proportions of votes received for a post season all-star berth, or trophy. Being more familiar with the modern goalies and the teams in front of them certainly creates an imbalance when it comes to "burden of evidence".

 

[seventieslord]

How far apart have you guys really been on this one in the past? .

I recall a couple ATDs ago that MXC was incredibly high on Connell and I saw no good justification for it.

At the time the records we had weren't as good as now, but I recall pointing out that he never showed up in hart or all-star voting once, which is pretty weak, good GAA or not.

 

[Czech Your Math]

At Barrasso responses:

I really don't disagree. Except that Barrasso was the clear #1 to Wregget for duration of their careers. Wregget fine in spot duty, but couldn't hack it after so many games. See: this snippet from a post from another project I'm spearheading:
---

In 1994-95, he wears down over the course of even a short season:
January/February: 14-2-2, 2.98 GAA, .912 save pct.
March/April/May: 11-7-0, 3.43 GAA, .894 save pct.

Whole career. Starter for the 1988 Maple Leafs.
Starts out fine...wheels fall off...

October/November: 7-8-2, 4.26 GAA, .867 save pct., 1 shutout
December-April: 5-29-2, 4.63 GAA, .869 save pct., 1 shutout

1989 Leafs, limits starts further, still a tandem goalie, starts out hot:
October: 7-3-1, 2.80 GAA, .904 save pct.
Rest of the way: 2-17-1, 5.30 GAA, .849 save pct.

Leafs quickly tired of this and traded him in March.

Unfortunately for him, in Philly it was little better...

1990 Flyers:
October-December: 13-13-1, 2.84 GAA, .909 save pct.
January-March: 9-11-2, 4.17 GAA, .870 save pct.

When the Flyers saw something similar begin in 1991, they realized that they had not acquired what they thought they needed and made the move to send him to Pittsburgh without requiring a goalie back. Leaving them with a Dominic Roussel/Tommy Soderstrom/Stephane Beauregard trio for the 92-93 season.

Despite Wregget's playoff success in 1996, when the team got into any sort of a remotely tough spot (like losing game 1 to Florida), they immediately went to Barrasso again, feeling that he gave them the best chance to win. Wregget was steady when managed correctly, but overall could not handle the rigors of the starting position over the long haul.
---

See my Barrasso Penguins profile here: http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showpost.php?p=56622503&postcount=30 - there's even a quote from May of 1996 when they switched back to Wregget despite his record and at the bottom it says "no offense to Wregget (though it's X'd out because it came from a different project) but Barrasso is better..." or something to that effect.

I was mostly just adding some anecdotal memories as a Pens fan in the 90s. Barrasso could have come up big in '93 and he didn't. After that, I never had a whole lot of confidence in him, for whatever reason. Maybe faulty memory, but Barrasso could look great and then let in a soft goal at the most inopportune time. Wregget could let in a softy, and then come up big when it really mattered.

You're probably right that Wregget couldn't have hacked it as a year-in, year-out starter... but in the playoffs he stepped it up, so it was a tough call when the games mattered most:

Barrasso '93-'00 Playoffs: 23-30, .904 SV%, 2.84 GAA
Wregget career PO: 28-25, .911, 2.87

 

[Crease]

I wish I was a bit older so that I could contribute (not calling you guys old, per se ). Following this project has been enjoyable for me, moreso now that guys I grew up watching are in the discussion. Keep up the good work, gang.

 

[quoipourquoi]

I was mostly just adding some anecdotal memories as a Pens fan in the 90s. Barrasso could have come up big in '93 and he didn't. After that, I never had a whole lot of confidence in him, for whatever reason. Maybe faulty memory, but Barrasso could look great and then let in a soft goal at the most inopportune time. Wregget could let in a softy, and then come up big when it really mattered.

You're probably right that Wregget couldn't have hacked it as a year-in, year-out starter... but in the playoffs he stepped it up, so it was a tough call when the games mattered most:

Barrasso '93-'00 Playoffs: 23-30, .904 SV%, 2.84 GAA
Wregget career PO: 28-25, .911, 2.87

Sorry, but these spans are far too broad for you to define them by cumulative figures, especially since the numbers are somewhat close. Barrasso's .905 in the 1993 playoffs was actually well above average for the time (.885), but it isn't going to hold up when tossed in with the save expectations of a 1999-2000 goaltender. Adjust each individual run for the average of that given season, and you might find that Barrasso evens things up - or you might find that Wregget shows greater strength. But they must be adjusted.

 

[Czech Your Math]

Sorry, but these spans are far too broad for you to define them by cumulative figures, especially since the numbers are somewhat close. Barrasso's .905 in the 1993 playoffs was actually well above average for the time (.885), but it isn't going to hold up when tossed in with the save expectations of a 1999-2000 goaltender. Adjust each individual run for the average of that given season, and you might find that Barrasso evens things up - or you might find that Wregget shows greater strength. But they must be adjusted.

That's true, but if anything I expect that would help Wregget vs. Barrasso, since over half of Wregget's PO minutes were in the late 80s, while I was only using Barrasso's post-'92 PO data.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Well, people at the time saw him retire with both the career GAA record and consecutive shutout streak (still a record) records intact. And while the timing of his induction hints that his illness may have sped up the process, obviously there was an impetus to get him in while he could enjoy the honour (likely) because he was already a "no-brainer" at that point. I think it also bears repeating that he consistently compared favourably with the top goalies in the game both before, during, and after the transition to a forward passing game.

He's an interesting case. Got himself a Stanley Cup fairly early, was named captain of his team the same year Hainsworth was named captain of his (granted, rule at the time stated a captain had to be on the ice at all times), retires, returns and backstops another Cup ("one of the greatest goaltending performances in hockey history"), retires again, comes back and almost backstops another Cup (derailed in the Semis by a Rangers upset)... all from a baseball/football guy who couldn't even skate when convinced to join hockey as a soldier stationed in Kingston.

Hate to keep bringing up (and beating down) Lehman, but I almost like Connell as a candidate more than him. Even with the understanding that the Senators were a good team, and granted the relative lack of media/voting fanfare, Connell posted NHL numbers year after year that compared well with (or bested) guys like Benedict and Hainsworth (and indeed Thompson and Gardiner at other times) - both (all?) of whom I hold in higher regard than Lehman.

Just for the record, I had Connell very high on my original list (27th).

However, since then I have learned that even if you have the all-time very best statistic in a category like Goals Against Average (as Connell has) it really means almost nothing.

 

[seventieslord]

Just for the record, I had Connell very high on my original list (27th).

However, since then I have learned that even if you have the all-time very best statistic in a category like Goals Against Average (as Connell has) it really means almost nothing.

Despite the sarcasm, you’re actually right. It might just mean you’re the starting goalie on the stingiest team in the league in the lowest-scoring era. The people who saw him play and cast ballots didn’t seem to think he was any better than the 5th best goalie of that generation.

I mean, come on, he wasn’t even that dominant from a GAA standpoint. He was 1st once (when the NHL was a half-league), 2nd three times, and never 3rd, when the league had 4-10 teams.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Despite the sarcasm, you’re actually right. It might just mean you’re the starting goalie on the stingiest team in the league in the lowest-scoring era. The people who saw him play and cast ballots didn’t seem to think he was any better than the 5th best goalie of that generation.

I mean, come on, he wasn’t even that dominant from a GAA standpoint. He was 1st once (when the NHL was a half-league), 2nd three times, and never 3rd, when the league had 4-10 teams.

Yes, he could have had a lower GAA than the lowest ever.

However, in the playoffs, he apparently didn't play enough games to qualify for best GAA. His 1.19 in 21 games would have only shattered the official record of 1.54.

 

[Michael Farkas]

I'll say this, I have a hunch that Alec Connell was probably better than we give him credit for. I'm not sure why I feel that way, or how, but I have a weird feeling that he's undersold.

With that said, this is another great example of "not creating a narrative to back the numbers" - what happened, happened. We'll have to do our best to uncover what was known and said about Connell at the time.

Just on what I can find quickly...
1932 - 9 goalies with 10 games or more. Connell is 1st in GP, t-4th in Wins, 2nd in GAA, t-3rd in shutouts. When All-Star Voting came around, he was essentially the 7th best goalie if you go strictly by the vote.

1935 - 10 goalies with more than 10 games. Connell is t-1st in GP, 4th in wins, 2nd in GAA, 1st in shutouts. When All-Star Voting came around he was at best 2nd (funky voting measures) maybe 3rd or 4th.

1928 - 11 goalies with 15 or more games. Connell is t-1st in GP, 3rd in wins, 2nd in GAA, t-1st in shutouts. If I remember right from that 1928 managers vote, Connell was 3rd.

And it's believed that in 1926, Connell, who led the league in GP, wins, GAA and shutouts, was no better than the 3rd best goalie in the circuit. With Worters and C.Stewart ahead of him.

I mean, really, what more can we do? We can make up a story about him, maybe he was the Tom Barrasso of his time and nobody liked him so they punished him by not voting him for the Hart? Maybe "fireman" had a different connotation back then and he was actually an arsonist...maybe he made the ATM withdrawal that crashed the stock market...

Who knows...but in an age where the writers actually knew the game and there was less talent to evaluate and keep track of (for both writers and managers), they just didn't feel strongly that he was the best goalie in the game regularly despite his shiny statistics...and we should go back 75 years after the fact and go, "nah, he led the league in GAA once, so, uh, he was the bee's knees, ankles and feet...they got it wrong..."

In a different era, I might be with ya...10 years ago, 5 years ago, 5 minutes ago, when you got a bunch of Johnny Clockpunchers filing hockey "stories" before a deadline and a bunch of blank stares at an All-Star Team voting ballot...sure, I'll work with it...but there wasn't even 100 players in the league at some points back then (Connell's time) AND they had to know the game because there was no way for anyone to watch it other than attendance, so they had to be able to accurately portray what they saw...so I gotta trust their judgment, if not fully, then largely...

So instead of making up a story that tells how Connell was better than the managers and writers thought at the time based on 75-year-old stats...let's either: A) dig deeper and find something about him [and his dual-firstnamemanship] or B) make up a sob story about how he was held down and vote him next to Barrasso and call it a day...

But I mean, if we're going to decide this purely on numbers and assume that they're telling the story, let's scrap the project and get our best math guys on it...let's get Czech Your Math, Taco MacArthur, pnep, overpass, bm67, whoever...let's get these on the case, post haste, and let's make some adjusted, percentage, triangulated, glaven/gliven category, sort by it and marvel...

 

[Bear of Bad News]

But I mean, if we're going to decide this purely on numbers and assume that they're telling the story, let's scrap the project and get our best math guys on it...let's get Czech Your Math, Taco MacArthur, pnep, overpass, bm67, whoever...let's get these on the case, post haste, and let's make some adjusted, percentage, triangulated, glaven/gliven category, sort by it and marvel...

Glaven/gliven ratios have been discredited for the past few years. We're using Pete Peeters Factors (PPF) now.

 

[seventieslord]

Yes, he could have had a lower GAA than the lowest ever.

However, in the playoffs, he apparently didn't play enough games to qualify for best GAA. His 1.19 in 21 games would have only shattered the official record of 1.54.

what mike said.

and you apparently didn't listen or didn't care about the circumstances surrounding him posting the lowest GAA of all-time.

Why don't you post who makes up the rest of the top-10? That way we can see if there is any era bias inherent in such a dubious stat.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Glaven/gliven ratios have been discredited for the past few years. We're using Pete Peeters Factors (PPF) now.

It was harder than I thought to spell the noises that Professor Frink makes...

 

[MXD]

You've always seemed to be just convinced that Connell was better than everyone else thinks, and I don't see anything that supports that.

My point was -- look at the teams!

That was only ONE season. But I look at the Rangers. And then, at the Falcons.

The Rangers team is, IMO, superior to the Falcons teams, in every respect. Mainly on defense. Unless, as I said, I'm completely missing something about Alex Smith, or Reg Noble's effectiveness at the late stages of his career.

Then, I look at goals surrendered. Goals scored.

Rangers effectively scored more goals. But allowed goals... oops. Not.

I can understand the Worters vote to a certain extent -- big gap between the Falcons and the Amerks -- to the Falcons advantage, and Worters appears (we can say "WAS") their best player.

But why was there absolutely no difference between Worters and the 6 games played by Jake Forbes?

There are things that, sometimes, appears sketchy, and AST voting that year seems to be the case.

Obviously, Connel's case doesn't rest on a lone year.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

what mike said.

and you apparently didn't listen or didn't care about the circumstances surrounding him posting the lowest GAA of all-time.

Why don't you post who makes up the rest of the top-10? That way we can see if there is any era bias inherent in such a dubious stat.

I'm not denying era bias.

But that doesn't change the fact that Connell has a better GAA than anyone else in his era also. And many of those goalies are already on our list.

I'm not suggesting he should be hands down #1 this round. But it does seem that he is being completely disregarded by many this round and I don't think that should be the case either.

 

[Ohashi_Jouzu*]

I recall a couple ATDs ago that MXC was incredibly high on Connell and I saw no good justification for it.

At the time the records we had weren't as good as now, but I recall pointing out that he never showed up in hart or all-star voting once, which is pretty weak, good GAA or not.

I guess I don't see why Hart votes, for example, are necessarily going to be any more reliable/better than a GAA record for the era. Heck, Roy Worters is the only goalie in the first 25 years of the award to win it, so how much weight does that give toward Worters being the best goalie between 1924-1949? And if you can only vote for two guys to an all-star team, and you have Hainsworth/Benedict/Thompson playing at the same time, how many votes is it going to take to prove that 3rd or 4th out of any of those 6 goalies might actually be much better than simply the top 20 goalie such proportions would extend to in modern terms?

Again, I'm not saying Connell is being undersold necessarily, or trying to make a case for him in particular. Totally ignoring performance metrics and then trying to be "just" when dealing with contemporaries outside of the top 2 at any given time just seems impossible to me. Heck, Brodeur was only the 3rd best of the era dominated by Hasek/Roy (and only made a post season all-star squad 7 of 20 seasons, had no 1st places until both Hasek and Roy are out of the picture, etc), and he still landed in the top 4 overall, so... At some point someone has to convince you guys that you're not going to come up with any lists more "credible" than the next by throwing out GAA(/SV% by the inverse relationship) all together and leaning on award and all-star voting instead - even... nay, especially when it comes to the older generations, imo. It all has to be balanced as best possible. Pointing to a strong team and concluding that their goalie's GAA is now completely invalid doesn't seem like a positive strategy.

 

[MXD]

... nay, especially when it comes to the older generations, imo. It all has to be balanced as best possible. Pointing to a strong team and concluding that their goalie's GAA is now completely invalid doesn't seem like a positive strategy.

Especially when said teams are all THAT great to begin with.

 

[seventieslord]

I'm not just pointing at the team. I am pointing to how he was regarded in his time.

Aside from cheevers, every goalie up for voting now, spent some time as the best or 2nd best goalie in hockey. It doesn't look like Connell did.

He would certainly be on my radar next round though. There really needs to be separation from Thompson and Hainsworth to him.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

I guess I don't see why Hart votes, for example, are necessarily going to be any more reliable/better than a GAA record for the era. Heck, Roy Worters is the only goalie in the first 25 years of the award to win it, so how much weight does that give toward Worters being the best goalie between 1924-1949? And if you can only vote for two guys to an all-star team, and you have Hainsworth/Benedict/Thompson playing at the same time, how many votes is it going to take to prove that 3rd or 4th out of any of those 6 goalies might actually be much better than simply the top 20 goalie such proportions would extend to in modern terms?

Again, I'm not saying Connell is being undersold necessarily, or trying to make a case for him in particular. Totally ignoring performance metrics and then trying to be "just" when dealing with contemporaries outside of the top 2 at any given time just seems impossible to me. Heck, Brodeur was only the 3rd best of the era dominated by Hasek/Roy (and only made a post season all-star squad 7 of 20 seasons, had no 1st places until both Hasek and Roy are out of the picture, etc), and he still landed in the top 4 overall, so... At some point someone has to convince you guys that you're not going to come up with any lists more "credible" than the next by throwing out GAA(/SV% by the inverse relationship) all together and leaning on award and all-star voting instead - even... nay, especially when it comes to the older generations, imo. It all has to be balanced as best possible. Pointing to a strong team and concluding that their goalie's GAA is now completely invalid doesn't seem like a positive strategy.

A good point.

Voting for the player that is truly most valuable, a great goalie on a bad team has a much better chance of getting Hart votes than the same goalie on a great team. So it seems for the pre-expansion era.