Toggle sidebar

Round 2, Vote 7 (HOH Top Goaltenders)

  • Work is still on-going to rebuild the site styling and features. Please report any issues you may experience so we can look into it. Click Here for Updates
Mike Farkas said:
Worters seems to be universally praised after every game for giving his team a chance - snatching victory for a low quality team. That was further backed by the 10 men that put those teams together as well...many of them are etched permanently on trophies that players today hope to win. It's tough to find any strong praise for Connell in game summaries from the era, meanwhile, the only way not to find praise for Worters is to not look.

Maybe Connell was a slightly better Chris Osgood of the era. Fundamentally, they were probably challenged as well. Osgood is a poor goaltender technically and it shows. Connell didn't start playing goalie until he was 18 I think, so I doubt he was very refined. But who knows...well, besides the managers and writers that saw them, that is...

I just don't know what you guys hope to bring about with your arguments...I guess that's my main issue. What is your point? And I mean it respectfully...I just can't seem to grasp what you hope to happen when it seems there's little more going on than crumbling up box scores and throwing them in my general direction...

If anything, this is a terrific lesson for all of us when these modern goalies start to come up. "System" goalies existed throughout the history of the league to some extent, and probably more so now than ever. So, when guys like Osgood, Giguere, Thomas, etc. come up, hopefully we won't get sucked in...Doesn't this help to alleviate some of the mystery surrounding Hainsworth too? These guys recognized what goalies were critical to a team's success and which guys were passengers it would appear. Appear. It would appear. I repeat it so what I'm saying goes down as a talking point and not gospel.

When you look at detailed game summaries (I'm still in the 20's here) from the time...when Worters comes up, it's all about him and how he's the best goalie in the league and the biggest part of his team's success. When you get to Hainsworth and Connell, they're third or fifth in the pecking order. Usually talking about the strong defensive presence of guys like Nighbor and Mantha and the like...

Personally, and I may be alone in this, but this era -- pre-expansion -- is the time when I think first-hand accounts are the most valuable. These guys know the game, they know the players, they know the teams...as you get further and further away from this time, the line between media and fan blurs significantly...luckily, we have more and more video as that line blurs so we can judge for ourselves...case in point.

So, if we're going to go on stats...well, stat, I guess, it's just GAA from what I can see, right? If we're going on stat...why Connell now? Why not at #3 or #7...or #12, you know, behind Hainsworth...?
Click to expand...

Why did you fail to mention the all-time system goaltender, Martin Brodeur?
 
Mike Farkas said:
That's all very possible, but I didn't really get to in-depth research on that part yet. I was talking about his career up until the forward pass. Perhaps you want to take over and paw through some game summaries too. I know in 1935 (as I did a profile for Connell in the pre-1950 goalies thread) he was regarded very highly for his playoff performance. Maybe there's even more to him than that. From accounts and voting of the time, from various years (pre-forward pass, just so I'm clear), I wouldn't assume that Connell was a top-3 player on his team at least, nor would I suppose that he's a top-3 goalie in the league at least.
Click to expand...

So its possible that when you have viewed his entire career you may consider him a legit candidate at this point?
 
Mike Farkas said:
Personally, and I may be alone in this, but this era -- pre-expansion -- is the time when I think first-hand accounts are the most valuable. These guys know the game, they know the players, they know the teams...as you get further and further away from this time, the line between media and fan blurs significantly...luckily, we have more and more video as that line blurs so we can judge for ourselves...case in point.
Click to expand...

And what do you do with King Clancy's first hand account?
 
Dennis Bonvie said:
Why did you fail to mention the all-time system goaltender, Martin Brodeur?
Click to expand...

Because that's only something people that can't identify goaltending talent would say. Anyone that has actually watched Martin Brodeur's career AND knows goaltenders, knows that he's one of the best there ever was. This is where talent evaluation takes a premium - you (not you specifically, just speaking in general) either can identify talent or you can't. That's how you distinguish Chris Osgood from Martin Brodeur, for instance. It's not remotely close and it never was and it never will be. There might not be a stat on the planet that makes it so, there might be 100 stats for it, maybe 100 against it, I don't know, I don't care...because it's so obvious. So obvious.

I know you rail against Brodeur for playing behind the much ballyhooed trap and all, but to be frank, that's just not accurate - saying that he's a "system goaltender". A profound miss, really, really damning. And I'll leave it at that because we're done talking about Brodeur.
 
Mike Farkas said:
Because that's only something people that can't identify goaltending talent would say. Anyone that has actually watched Martin Brodeur's career AND knows goaltenders, knows that he's one of the best there ever was. This is where talent evaluation takes a premium - you (not you specifically, just speaking in general) either can identify talent or you can't. That's how you distinguish Chris Osgood from Martin Brodeur, for instance. It's not remotely close and it never was and it never will be. There might not be a stat on the planet that makes it so, there might be 100 stats for it, maybe 100 against it, I don't know, I don't care...because it's so obvious. So obvious.

I know you rail against Brodeur for playing behind the much ballyhooed trap and all, but to be frank, that's just not accurate - saying that he's a "system goaltender". A profound miss, really, really damning. And I'll leave it at that because we're done talking about Brodeur.
Click to expand...

I guess I know nothing about goaltenders then. A wolf in sheeps clothing voting with the elite in HOH Top Goaltenders project. Fair warning to all voters. Best not take anything I post as remotely useful, perhaps I'll have some incite when we get to forwards.

Done with Brodeur. As you wish.
 
Mike Farkas said:
Because that's only something people that can't identify goaltending talent would say. Anyone that has actually watched Martin Brodeur's career AND knows goaltenders, knows that he's one of the best there ever was. This is where talent evaluation takes a premium - you (not you specifically, just speaking in general) either can identify talent or you can't. That's how you distinguish Chris Osgood from Martin Brodeur, for instance. It's not remotely close and it never was and it never will be. There might not be a stat on the planet that makes it so, there might be 100 stats for it, maybe 100 against it, I don't know, I don't care...because it's so obvious. So obvious.

I know you rail against Brodeur for playing behind the much ballyhooed trap and all, but to be frank, that's just not accurate - saying that he's a "system goaltender". A profound miss, really, really damning. And I'll leave it at that because we're done talking about Brodeur.
Click to expand...

Having said all of that, it was also obvious to those who can identify goaltending talent and watched Connell at the time that he should be enshrined in the Hall of Fame - i.e. he was "one of the best". Lehman probably wasn't the best player on his team featuring 5 Hall of Famers (anyone have Lehman above Frank Nighbor or Cyclone Taylor on their all-time list, for example?), and perhaps Hainsworth wasn't the best player on his team either if we go on the strength of the evidence offered by 4 different teammates winning the Hart trophy during his career in Montreal (not sure where Gardiner, Morenz, Joliat and Siebert fit on everyone's lists).

Point being teams (and their relative strength in the league, and the contributions of key players through their career path) change enough over the course of a decade(+) that the strength of a goalie's statistical track record over the same amount of time has to be at least as valuable in "determining" how "good" they were vs their peers as any collection of voting records.

We have to remember that goalies at the time kind of obviously got Hart votes for being valuable relative to their teammates (and seems to offer little for comparing actual "level" from one goalie to the next across the league, since a case where only two goalies receiving votes would leave as many as 8 other goalies as either N/A or "0" by comparison), that the Vezina simply went goalies who played a minimum of 25 games on the team that allowed the most goals (from '27 to '81), and that we also have candidates at this point whose best seasons may have pre-dated one, or both, awards.

Post season all-star berths seem like some of the strongest evidence, but those didn't exist before '30/31 (and I've already piped up about the messiness of all-stars in a multi-league environment), so how would we even go about trying to make the best educated guess (or even construct an argument) of who might have been without the stats? Now, I wouldn't make much of a single year to single year stats comparison for all the obvious reasons. Once we're talking about 10 year windows, though, I still can't understand the very thought of throwing out all those stats in favour of opinions expressed in a medium subject to pressure to creatively bend the truth and increase circulation through "better readability".

Use it all, or use none of it and watch it all for yourself to form an opinion. I see no plausible strategy in the middle which involves selective blanket dismissal of an entire category of evidence (be it stats, votes, or public opinion), and I know we lack enough video for anyone to go completely on observation. So to me, the GAA stat is real and stays, and it's just a matter of dealing with it.
 
Ohashi_Jouzu said:
Having said all of that, it was also obvious to those who can identify goaltending talent and watched Connell at the time that he should be enshrined in the Hall of Fame - i.e. he was "one of the best". Lehman probably wasn't the best player on his team featuring 5 Hall of Famers (anyone have Lehman above Frank Nighbor or Cyclone Taylor on their all-time list, for example?), and perhaps Hainsworth wasn't the best player on his team either if we go on the strength of the evidence offered by 4 different teammates winning the Hart trophy during his career in Montreal (not sure where Gardiner, Morenz, Joliat and Siebert fit on everyone's lists).
Click to expand...

I don't see this changing what I said. Connell, Hainsworth and Lehman have all been "yeah, but" candidates this entire time. Same with other fringe HHOFers like Cheevers and Giacomin...unless I'm misreading it, this seems neutral, at best, to my point.

Ohashi_Jouzu said:
Point being teams (and their relative strength in the league, and the contributions of key players through their career path) change enough over the course of a decade(+) that the strength of a goalie's statistical track record over the same amount of time has to be at least as valuable in "determining" how "good" they were vs their peers as any collection of voting records.
Click to expand...

Clearly. We're talking about Alec Connell with only 24 names on the big board. I'd say his stats have carried him quite far. Even if he doesn't make the top 40. Once we started giving the benefit of the doubt to some of these guys, that's when I got my feathers ruffled a bit. And now I see some dangerous - for lack of a better term - names coming up and I don't want to see it happen any further.

I don't disagree with the quoted premise. But let's not create the story. Let's either find it and evaluate it. Or move on to the next name.

Ohashi_Jouzu said:
We have to remember that goalies at the time kind of obviously got Hart votes for being valuable relative to their teammates (and seems to offer little for comparing actual "level" from one goalie to the next across the league, since a case where only two goalies receiving votes would leave as many as 8 other goalies as either N/A or "0" by comparison), that the Vezina simply went goalies who played a minimum of 25 games on the team that allowed the most goals (from '27 to '81), and that we also have candidates at this point whose best seasons may have pre-dated one, or both, awards.
Click to expand...

Yes, the Most Valuable Player Award went to the player deemed most valuable. If Connell is the third or fourth best goalie of a generation that we seem to have reservations about, why are we going through this?

Lehman got the benefit of the doubt because he was the best of the rest of the West...and there was certainly talk in this pre-forward pass/depression area about the quality of these netminders, yet because of the statistics and statistics alone, we're trying to build a castle on sand. It's artificial. Forced, I feel.

Ohashi_Jouzu said:
Post season all-star berths seem like some of the strongest evidence, but those didn't exist before '30/31 (and I've already piped up about the messiness of all-stars in a multi-league environment), so how would we even go about trying to make the best educated guess (or even construct an argument) of who might have been without the stats? Now, I wouldn't make much of a single year to single year stats comparison for all the obvious reasons. Once we're talking about 10 year windows, though, I still can't understand the very thought of throwing out all those stats in favour of opinions expressed in a medium subject to pressure to creatively bend the truth and increase circulation through "better readability".
Click to expand...

It's not any one thing though. Not only does Connell not have the All-Star berths, but he also doesn't have the day to day praise that the other elite goaltenders, defensemen and forwards got in that era.

Ya know, C1958 is right, there is a caveat to using these Google Archives, but it's an ever-expanding pool of information. This isn't the last time we'll evaluate goaltenders, this list isn't going into a book and filed under "H" for History. Next ATD it could change...it will...

But just a quick search from 1924-1929 (the deadest of the dead puck eras)...John Ross Roach - you get pages. Roy Worters - you get pages. Alec Connell - you get two entries, and one of them just says he got scored on.

That's not scientific, that's barely even anecdotal, I admit. But it's not like Connell has this big pile of evidence for him...he doesn't. He doesn't have all-star teams, he wasn't rushed into the Hall in 1945 or whatever...he wasn't praised as the best goalie in the game (I haven't taken the fine-tooth comb to the 30's yet, I admit, but the pro-Connell crowd certainly isn't jumping to the occasion either - they'd rather guess), he wasn't praised as the difference maker for his team, he was mentioned as an also-ran. He was voted for like also-ran. If that career GAA started with a 2 instead of a 1.9, I don't think there's a peep about him. Not an iota. He'd be an also-ran for our list too.

But it's shiny and it glistens in the unadjusted sun like a pyrite nugget...so we feel compelled to pick it up...

Ohashi_Jouzu said:
Use it all, or use none of it and watch it all for yourself to form an opinion. I see no plausible strategy in the middle which involves selective blanket dismissal of an entire category of evidence (be it stats, votes, or public opinion), and I know we lack enough video for anyone to go completely on observation. So to me, the GAA stat is real and stays, and it's just a matter of dealing with it.
Click to expand...

Why can't we use stats to back an argument though, is my point. Why do they have the power to create one? Stats are a byproduct of a game, not its chief export.

It should be:
"This goalie was really good AND look at his stats..." not "These stats are really good AND this goalie probably was too...I guess..."

Don't let the numbers create the narrative. The narrative is out there.

@ Dennis Bonvie - I don't mean it to be personal, but it doesn't change the reality. I'll save my other Brodeur comments for another time - any time you want to give him a fair chance.
 
Mike Farkas said:
I don't see this changing what I said. Connell, Hainsworth and Lehman have all been "yeah, but" candidates this entire time. Same with other fringe HHOFers like Cheevers and Giacomin...unless I'm misreading it, this seems neutral, at best, to my point.



Clearly. We're talking about Alec Connell with only 24 names on the big board. I'd say his stats have carried him quite far. Even if he doesn't make the top 40. Once we started giving the benefit of the doubt to some of these guys, that's when I got my feathers ruffled a bit. And now I see some dangerous - for lack of a better term - names coming up and I don't want to see it happen any further.

I don't disagree with the quoted premise. But let's not create the story. Let's either find it and evaluate it. Or move on to the next name.



Yes, the Most Valuable Player Award went to the player deemed most valuable. If Connell is the third or fourth best goalie of a generation that we seem to have reservations about, why are we going through this?

Lehman got the benefit of the doubt because he was the best of the rest of the West...and there was certainly talk in this pre-forward pass/depression area about the quality of these netminders, yet because of the statistics and statistics alone, we're trying to build a castle on sand. It's artificial. Forced, I feel.



It's not any one thing though. Not only does Connell not have the All-Star berths, but he also doesn't have the day to day praise that the other elite goaltenders, defensemen and forwards got in that era.

Ya know, C1958 is right, there is a caveat to using these Google Archives, but it's an ever-expanding pool of information. This isn't the last time we'll evaluate goaltenders, this list isn't going into a book and filed under "H" for History. Next ATD it could change...it will...

But just a quick search from 1924-1929 (the deadest of the dead puck eras)...John Ross Roach - you get pages. Roy Worters - you get pages. Alec Connell - you get two entries, and one of them just says he got scored on.

That's not scientific, that's barely even anecdotal, I admit. But it's not like Connell has this big pile of evidence for him...he doesn't. He doesn't have all-star teams, he wasn't rushed into the Hall in 1945 or whatever...he wasn't praised as the best goalie in the game (I haven't taken the fine-tooth comb to the 30's yet, I admit, but the pro-Connell crowd certainly isn't jumping to the occasion either - they'd rather guess), he wasn't praised as the difference maker for his team, he was mentioned as an also-ran. He was voted for like also-ran. If that career GAA started with a 2 instead of a 1.9, I don't think there's a peep about him. Not an iota. He'd be an also-ran for our list too.

But it's shiny and it glistens in the unadjusted sun like a pyrite nugget...so we feel compelled to pick it up...



Why can't we use stats to back an argument though, is my point. Why do they have the power to create one? Stats are a byproduct of a game, not its chief export.

It should be:
"This goalie was really good AND look at his stats..." not "These stats are really good AND this goalie probably was too...I guess..."

Don't let the numbers create the narrative. The narrative is out there.

@ Dennis Bonvie - I don't mean it to be personal, but it doesn't change the reality. I'll save my other Brodeur comments for another time - any time you want to give him a fair chance.
Click to expand...

I'll give Brodeur a fair chance when you give me one.

Seriously, I fully realize I'm in the minority on Brodeur. But that doesn't mean I'm second guessing myself about him. I've changed my mind on lots of players since I've come on these boards. I'm an old dog that has learned new tricks. But I haven't read anything that has changed my view on Brodeur.

And someone's opinion does not make anything a reality.
 
MXD said:
See TDDM post earlier.
Click to expand...

Ok, I mean, it's a nice quote...I don't see it in context or anything, nor do I know the time in which it was said...it'd be nice to have more information about something like that...but one quote from a teammate that played a big part of his career with that goalie isn't exactly going to thrust him to the top of the heap either. Gretzky said Hextall was the best goalie in the league in 1987 (against his own goalie Fuhr, no less), but a stray quote now and again isn't going to change things really. It seems almost every candidate, if not, every candidate to this point has had a mountain of this evidence for them...except Connell...he has a number...

Clancy's quote is great, it might even be true, but where's the rest of this? Actually this quote doesn't even say anything about the rest of the league even...it just says that he was the best goalie Clancy played with in Ottawa. Which only really matches up against three years of 30+ year old Clint Benedict...it's not exactly the most relevant quote in the world at this point...

I want to give credit where credit is due here...but if this quote is Exhibit A, then the glove don't fit and we must acquit...
 
Mike Farkas said:
Ok, I mean, it's a nice quote...I don't see it in context or anything, nor do I know the time in which it was said...it'd be nice to have more information about something like that...but one quote from a teammate that played a big part of his career with that goalie isn't exactly going to thrust him to the top of the heap either. Gretzky said Hextall was the best goalie in the league in 1987 (against his own goalie Fuhr, no less), but a stray quote now and again isn't going to change things really. It seems almost every candidate, if not, every candidate to this point has had a mountain of this evidence for them...except Connell...he has a number...

Clancy's quote is great, it might even be true, but where's the rest of this? Actually this quote doesn't even say anything about the rest of the league even...it just says that he was the best goalie Clancy played with in Ottawa. Which only really matches up against three years of 30+ year old Clint Benedict...it's not exactly the most relevant quote in the world at this point...

I want to give credit where credit is due here...but if this quote is Exhibit A, then the glove don't fit and we must acquit...
Click to expand...

To be fair though Hextall won the Vezina that year and pretty much carried his team to the finals.
 
The complete Clancy quote from Without Fear Hockey's 50 Greatest Goalies by Kevin Allen and Bob Duff

Second Opinion: Hall of Famer King Clancy on Connell, from a 1986 Interview with Karl-Eric Reif and Jeff Z. Klein

"Alex Connell, to me, was the sharpest of all - I mean of all the goalkeepers who played in Ottawa. He could play the angles like there was no tomorrow. He wasn't a good skater; in fact, he was one of the poorest skaters of them all, but damn it, he could sure cut down those angles. He'd give you nothing to shoot at. And one on one, he was terrific too. He was the best goalie I ever played with."
 
Thank you, BM67.

Well, that speaks to my theory about him. He probably wasn't technically good and was just a clockpuncher on a powerhouse team. That goes a long way to explaining why the managers didn't pick him early on - they were looking at talent. Which I happen to agree with.

So, hopefully we'll open the book on him from 1930 and on...but I don't think it'll matter in this round too much...
 
Mike Farkas said:
Thank you, BM67.

Well, that speaks to my theory about him. He probably wasn't technically good and was just a clockpuncher on a powerhouse team. That goes a long way to explaining why the managers didn't pick him early on - they were looking at talent. Which I happen to agree with.

So, hopefully we'll open the book on him from 1930 and on...but I don't think it'll matter in this round too much...
Click to expand...

Cutting down angles is very technical. And a talent. And either way, he did his job. Why does it matter if his talent was unorthodox? It's not like Clancy said he sucked at skating and so we bailed his ass out. No, it was he wasn't a good skater, so he used other methods to be the best goalie he had played with
 
bluesfan94 said:
Cutting down angles is very technical. And a talent. And either way, he did his job. Why does it matter if his talent was unorthodox? It's not like Clancy said he sucked at skating and so we bailed his ass out. No, it was he wasn't a good skater, so he used other methods to be the best goalie he had played with
Click to expand...

Sure, cutting down angles is a skill. But it's a skill at just the fundamental level. We're looking for players that were above and beyond...we're not looking for guys that just "did [their] job" - we're looking for guys that were the best at their position. Connell isn't getting a lot of support for that title to be honest. Unless we're all hiding it...?

Again, I wouldn't recommend reverse justifications of statistics. I don't think that's a genuine way to evaluate. Saw it once already in this thread with Tim Thomas, we're seeing it again. Some of us are hellbent on proving the numbers right, when it should be the opposite...
 
Ohashi_Jouzu said:
And if I have to conclude that Worters is the best NHL goalie between 1923 and 1950 because he's the only one with a Hart trophy, then I know something's wrong there, too.
Click to expand...

Except you don't have to do that at all. Worters had the best Hart voting, and that's something, but we all realize it's not everything, and that it can have less to do with being "the best" and more to do with being "the most valuable to his team".

But there's no grey area with all-star voting... we know exactly what it means. The best. He was a two-time legitimate all-star and we have evidence suggesting he led the GM-voted all-star teams four times before that (two of those times it's conclusive), and this was over Gardiner, Hainsworth, Connell, and Thompson - what more do you need?
 
Mike Farkas said:
Sure, cutting down angles is a skill. But it's a skill at just the fundamental level. We're looking for players that were above and beyond...we're not looking for guys that just "did [their] job" - we're looking for guys that were the best at their position. Connell isn't getting a lot of support for that title to be honest. Unless we're all hiding it...?

Again, I wouldn't recommend reverse justifications of statistics. I don't think that's a genuine way to evaluate. Saw it once already in this thread with Tim Thomas, we're seeing it again. Some of us are hellbent on proving the numbers right, when it should be the opposite...
Click to expand...

Of course when Clancy says he was the best, we discount that, right?
 
I´m not sure if this is old information but Connell did seem to lose his job to Bill Beveridge in early 30´s Senators. He "retired" (was some sort of leagues?/Senators spare goalie that season though) the first time actually because Beveridge outplayed him in 33 trainig camp and was chosen the starter to season. Of course every goalie has some sort of black marks in their career.

edit. Okay have to admit that the sources really don´t mention outplaying and don´t know the full story behind it but here are the sources and everybody can make their own mind what to think.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=7UApAAAAIBAJ&sjid=pWYFAAAAIBAJ&pg=749,502030&dq=utility+goalie&hl=en

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6g4_AAAAIBAJ&sjid=YE4MAAAAIBAJ&pg=2441,901552&dq=beveridge+connell&hl=en
 
Last edited:
seventieslord said:
Except you don't have to do that at all. Worters had the best Hart voting, and that's something, but we all realize it's not everything, and that it can have less to do with being "the best" and more to do with being "the most valuable to his team".

But there's no grey area with all-star voting... we know exactly what it means. The best. He was a two-time legitimate all-star and we have evidence suggesting he led the GM-voted all-star teams four times before that (two of those times it's conclusive), and this was over Gardiner, Hainsworth, Connell, and Thompson - what more do you need?
Click to expand...

How about something to help put HoF goalies who may have played as many as 6 of their best 7 seasons before post season all-star voting existed on "level ground"?
 
bluesfan94 said:
Of course when Clancy says he was the best, we discount that, right?
Click to expand...

At no point did his good friend and former teammate King Clancy say that Connell was the best in the league. This really can't be a serious argument, it just can't.

It's funny, all of this argument and debate and yet not one additional iota of proof has come in...I don't get it, this is my first list on here...did you guys guess on the other ones too?

"Ah, we got nothing King Clancy...but he led the league in plus/minus twice...and he was first team NAACP All-Star and Jesse Jackson said he had an infectious laugh...throw him on there at #37..."
 
Connells retirement was announced only under two weeks after they said they are going to but Beveridge and Connell on competition of the number one spot. So my last post proves nothing and I made false assumption. Sorry.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Top Bottom