Huh? That's not what the people thought who saw him regularly every season. Tretiak in Soviet Best Player voting:
1970-1971: 5th
1971-1972: 6th
1972-1973: 4th
1973-1974: 1st
1974-1975: 1st
1975-1976: 1st
1976-1977: 4th
1977-1978: 2nd
1978-1979: x
1979-1980: 8th
1980-1981: 1st
1981-1982: 3rd
1982-1983: 1st
1983-1984: 2nd
According to this, Tretiak reached his prime in 1973-1974.
He achieved World Championships honours (All-star or Best Goaltender or both) in: 1974, 1975, 1979, 1981, 1983.
Yes, I´m little surprised to see people taking Tretiak as an early-peak goalie, goalie who first sparked when he was 20 and then had more or less flat career path till his retirement. It´s completely opposite to my understanding of Tretiak: a goalie who constantly kept getting better, more reliable and more successful as he aged.
Let´s have a quick look at phases of his development:
a) 1970-1972
Tretiak recorded impressive 0.950 at WHC 70 (the highest SV% of the tournament) when he was still only 17/18 yo but I wouldn´t think too highly of this yet. I´ve read the game reports and Tretiak´s usage was extremely sheltered, most of his 6 games that he officially played were just 1 or 2 periods against the low-level opponents (Poland, E. Germany, Finland). Kudos to Tretiak that he approached these games conscientiously, as he should have, but there is nothing of a serious value in this yet... Tretiak didn´t get a single vote in either WHC all-star team voting or subsequent SPOTY voting.
Then comes the WHC 71, Tretiak again posted impressive 0.930, 2nd only to Holecek, but again it is still just 5 games played, when Konovalenko (7 games) still acted as soviet starting goalie. Kudos to Tretiak again for how he played and that he again posted higher SV% than his colleague Konovalenko, but it was Konovalenko again who received a couple of votes in AST voting, Tretiak didn´t receive any. Tretiak did at least become soviet all-star goalie (instead of Konovalenko) and finished 5th in SPOTY voting (ahead of Konovalenko, so we can make a solid judgement that Tretiak became the best Soviet goalie already here at this point. But I again don´t see anything of serious value on a macro-level yet.
OG 72, I didn´t read anything of Tretiak´s big contribution to the gold medal, there was no award voting for Olympics but goalie Mike Curran pretty much stole the show with the way he led the underdog USA team to silver medals. Tretiak had solid 0.921 but it was only 4th best SV%, Curran led the tournament with 0.928%.
Moving to the WHC 72, the tournament where Soviets didn´t win for the first time in 10 years or so. Tretiak posted 0.912 which was only 2nd among starters (behind Holecek) and he did receive 10 votes in AST voting of the championship for the first time, but it was still just a 4th best result (Holecek, Molina and Valtonen had more votes). Moreover, I´ve read the game reports from this championship, Tretiak was shaky precisely in both crucial games against Czechoslovakia, allowed some weaker goals from shots from the blueline. I have read plenty from this particular season (aside from game reports also descriptions from Gól magazine and post-seasonal hockey yearbook 1972) and I can say with certainty that Tretiak was still at this point firmly considered below the top tier Czechoslovak, Swedish and Finnish goaltenders (namely Holecek, Dzurilla, Holmqvist and Valtonen). Tretiak finished 6th in ´72 SPOTY voting, which as I´ve written few days ago, was notably weak voting finish for the top Soviet goalie by their standards.
b) 1973-1976
Summit series in the summer of 1972, this is where Tretiak took the next step. It was interesting to read contemporary Czech comments to this series, regarding Tretiak, Czechs had thought pretty much the same as Canadians prior to series - that is, Tretiak, or generally weak Soviet goaltending, will be the main reason why Soviets would lose the series, that was the expection. Otherwise Czechs expected that the Soviet forwards are going to shock the Canadians and generally expected a rather close series. It was a big surprise for all the sport writers and columnists in the Czech press to see Tretiak playing so well.
Anyway, after Summit Series, Tretiak had somewhat average WHC 73 (7 games with 0.921, 6th SV% overall, 4th among starters, no award recognition) but finished 4th in SPOTY in pretty good competition.
What followed then? Tretiak´s incredible 3-year stretch of winning the 'Soviet player of the year' award in 1974, 1975, 1976... Now we´ve already discussed in this thread that these finishes might very well be inflated and why. But let´s not completely discount what Tretiak showed here, he was firmly in the range of best players in Europe during this time (at the very least one of the top 10 players in Europe, but more likely top 5-7, something like that), he showed well his qualities vs. NHL opponents. Look at his international 73-76 stretch again, there´s nothing wrong with being "only" 2nd best goalie in Europe, there were simply 2 elite goalies, one who was at his peak and the other one (=Tretiak) who didn´t his his peak yet:
Summit Series 1972
1. Vladislav Tretiak (USSR): 8 games / 31 goals allowed / 236 saves / 3.88 GAA / 0.8839
2. Tony Esposito (CAN): 4 games / 13 goals allowed / 97 saves / 3.25 GAA / 0.8818
3. Ken Dryden (CAN): 4 games / 19 goals allowed / 98 saves / 4.75 GAA / 0.8376
Source
World Championship 1973
1. Jiří Crha (CSSR): 2 games / 3 goals allowed / 51 saves / 0.9444
2. Antti Leppänen (FIN): 6 games / 10 goals allowed / 149 saves / 0.9371
3. William Löfqvist (SWE): 7 games / 13 goals allowed / 182 saves / 0.9333
4. Jiří Holeček (CSSR): 8 games / 17 goals allowed / 212 saves / 0.9258
5. Alexander Sidelnikov (USSR): 3 games / 4 goals allowed / 48 saves / 0.9231
6. Vladislav Tretiak (USSR): 7 games / 14 goals allowed / 163 saves / 0.9209
7. Christer Abrahamsson (SWE): 4 games / 10 goals allowed / 89 saves / 0.8990
8. Walery Kosyl (POL): 10 games / 58 goals allowed / 344 saves / 0.8557
9. Robert Merkle (W. GER): 4 games / 27 goals allowed / 158 saves / 0.8541
10. Anton Kehle (W. GER): 9 games / 55 goals allowed / 314 saves / 0.8509
11. Jorma Valtonen (FIN): 4 games / 29 goals allowed / 151 saves / 0.8389
12. Henryk Wojtynek (POL): 2 games / 18 goals allowed / 38 saves / 0.6786
Source
IIHF Directoriate´s Best Goaltender: Jiří Holeček
1st All-Star Team: Jiří Holeček
World Championship 1974
1. Curt Larsson (SWE): 4 games / 4 goals allowed / 137 saves / 0.9716
2. Stig Wetzel (FIN): 2 games / 2 goals allowed / 54 saves / 0.9643
3. Christer Abrahamsson (SWE): 6 games / 16 goals allowed / 248 saves / 0.9394
4. Vladislav Tretiak (USSR): 8 games / 12 goals allowed / 157 saves / 0.9290
5. Alexander Sidelnikov (USSR): 3 games / 6 goals allowed / 64 saves / 0.9143
6. Jiří Holeček (CSSR): 6 games / 14 goals allowed / 139 saves / 0.9085
7. Jorma Valtonen (FIN): 5 games / 19 goals allowed / 163 saves / 0.8956
8. Jiří Crha (CSSR): 5 games / 11 goals allowed / 92 saves / 0.8932
9. Anti Leppänen (FIN): 4 games / 15 goals allowed / 113 saves / 0.8828
10. Walery Kosyl (POL): 10 games / 48 goals allowed / 353 saves / 0.8803
11. Joachim Hurbanek (E. GER): 5 games / 26 goals allowed / 136 saves / 0.8395
12. Wolfgang Fisher (E. GER): 8 games / 45 goals allowed / 214 saves / 0.8263
13. Andrzej Tkacz (POL): 4 games / 20 goals allowed / 50 saves / 0.7143
Source
IIHF Directoriate´s Best Goaltender: Vladislav Tretiak
All-Star Team Voting: 1. Curt Larsson (43 votes),
2. Vladislav Tretiak (38 votes), 3. Jiří Holeček (23 votes), 4. Christer Abrahamsson (14 votes), 5. Stig Wetzel (2 votes), 6. Anti Leppänen, Jorma Valtonen (1 vote)
Summit Series 1974
1. Alexander Sidelnikov (USSR): 1 game / 2 goals allowed / 24 saves / 0.9231
2. Gerry Cheevers (CAN): 7 games / 24 goals allowed / 215 saves / 0.8996
3. Vladislav Tretiak (USSR): 7 games / 25 goals allowed / 213 saves / 0.8950
4. Don McLeod (CAN): 1 game / 8 goals allowed / 40 saves / 0.8333
World Championship 1975
1. Jiří Holeček (CSSR): 9 games / 14 goals allowed / 212 saves / 0.9381
2. Anti Leppänen (FIN): 7 games / 15 goals allowed / 214 saves / 0.9345
3. Viktor Krivolapov (USSR): 2 games / 3 goals allowed / 40 saves / 0.9302
4. Vladislav Tretiak (USSR): 8 games / 18 goals allowed / 221 saves / 0.9247
5. Leif Holmqvist (SWE): 7 games / 22 goals allowed / 200 saves / 0.9009
6. Göran Högosta (SWE): 4 games / 12 goals allowed / 89 saves / 0.8812
7. Jorma Valtonen (FIN): 3 games / 19 goals allowed / 124 saves / 0.8671
8. Andrzej Tkacz (POL): 9 games / 41 goals allowed / 263 saves / 0.8651
9. Blaine Comstock (USA): 4 games / 32 goals allowed / 187 saves / 0.8539
10. Tadeusz Slowakiewicz (POL): 5 games / 24 goals allowed / 127 saves / 0.8411
11. Jim Warden (USA): 7 games / 52 goals allowed / 253 saves / 0.8295
12. Jiří Crha (CSSR): 2 games / 5 goals allowed / 20 saves / 0.8000
- Report of the game USSR vs. Poland (13:2) does not show the number of saves that each goalie recorded. Therefore statistics of Krivolapov (+2 goal allowed), Tkacz (+8 goals allowed) and Slowakiewicz (+5 goals allowed) are incomplete. The game is not counted in this table so these 3 goalies played in fact one more game each than the number presented above.
Source
IIHF Directoriate´s Best Goaltender: Jiří Holeček
1st All-Star Team: Vladislav Tretiak (42 votes out of 92 ballots)
Olympic Games 1976
1. Alexander Sidelnikov (USSR): 1 game / 1 goal allowed / 25 saves / 0.9615
2. Jiří Holeček (CSSR): 5 games / 9 goals allowed / 129 saves / 0.9348
3. Vladislav Tretiak (CSSR): 4 games / 10 goals allowed / 127 saves / 0.9270
4. Jiří Crha (CSSR): 1 game / 1 goal allowed / 12 saves / 0.9231
5. Anti Leppänen (FIN): 2 games / 7 goals allowed / 77 saves / 0.9167
6. Anton Kehle (W. GER): 3 games / 8 goals allowed / 80 saves / 0.9091
7. Jim Warden (USA): 5 games / 21 goals allowed / 197 saves / 0.9037
8. Urpo Ylönen (FIN): 3 games / 11 goals allowed / 98 saves / 0.8991
9. Erich Weishaupt (W. GER): 3 games / 16 goals allowed / 95 saves / 0.8559
10. Walery Kosyl (POL): 3 games / 18 goals allowed / 97 saves / 0.8435
11. Andrzej Tkacz (POL): 3 games / 26 goals allowed / 104 saves / 0.8000
Source
World Championship 1976
1. Vladimír Dzurilla (CSSR): 2 games / 1 goal allowed / 41 saves / 0.9762
2. Jiří Holeček (CSSR): 8 games / 13 goals allowed / 214 saves / 0.9427
3. Vladislav Tretiak (USSR): 10 games / 19 goals allowed / 257 saves / 0.9312
4. Mike Curran (USA): 5 games / 15 goals allowed / 177 saves / 0.9219
5. William Löfqvist (SWE): 4 games / 9 goals allowed / 102 saves / 0.9189
6. Erich Weishaupt (W. GER): 8 games / 24 goals allowed / 235 saves / 0.9073
7. Göran Högosta (SWE): 6 games / 20 goals allowed / 188 saves / 0.9038
8. Andrzej Tkacz (POL): 10 games / 39 goals allowed / 339 saves / 0.8968
9. Jorma Valtonen (FIN): 10 games / 41 goals allowed / 326 saves / 0.8883
10. Peter LoPresti (USA): 5 games / 27 goals allowed / 177 saves / 0.8676
11. Wolfgang Kraske (E. GER): 6 games / 27 goals allowed / 156 saves / 0.8525
12. Roland Herzig (E. GER): 6 games / 25 goals allowed / 124 saves / 0.8322
13. Anton Kehle (W. GER): 2 games / 17 goals allowed / 76 saves / 0.8172
14. Henryk Wojtynek (POL): 1 game / 8 goals allowed / 25 saves / 0.7576
15. Alexander Sidelnikov (USSR): 1 game / 4 goals allowed / 8 saves / 0.6667
Source
IIHF Directoriate´s Best Goaltender: Jiří Holeček
1st All-Star Team: Jiří Holeček (159 votes out of 192 ballots)
c) 1977-1979
Let´s skip that, it´s not that important...
d) 1980
Here we have to stop, this was probably Tretiak worst season of this career. Miracle on ice, Soviets losing the gold medals to American students. Tretiak was definitely an accomplice with his uncharacteristically low 0.840 SV%:
Olympic Games 1980
1. William Löfqvist (SWE): 2 games / 1 goal allowed / 53 saves / 0.50 GAA / 0.9815
2. Karel Lang (CSSR): 1 game / 2 goals allowed / 27 saves / 2.00 GAA / 0.9310
3. Jim Craig (USA): 7 games / 15 goals allowed / 163 saves / 2.14 GAA / 0.9157
4. Antero Kivelä (FIN): 3 games / 10 goals allowed / 90 saves / 3.33 GAA / 0.9000
5. Vladimir Myshkin (USSR): 5 games / 9 goals allowed / 77 saves / 2.08 GAA / 0.8953
6. Valerian Netedu (ROM): 4 games / 12 goals allowed / 93 saves / 5.21 GAA / 0.8857
7. Paul Pageau (CAN): 4 games / 11 goals allowed / 82 saves / 2.79 GAA / 0.8817
8. Henryk Wojtynek (POL): 5 games / 16 goals allowed / 114 saves / 4.10 GAA / 0.8769
9. Bob Dupuis (CAN): 3 games / 7 goals allowed / 49 saves / 3.44 GAA / 0.8750
10. Minoru Misawa (JAP): 3 games / 14 goals allowed / 97 saves / 6.50 GAA / 0.8739
11. Pelle Lindbergh (SWE): 5 games / 18 goals allowed / 124 saves / 3.60 GAA / 0.8732
12. Jim Marthinsen (NOR): 3 games / 14 goals allowed / 88 saves / 4.93 GAA / 0.8627
13. Jiří Králík (CSSR): 5 games / 15 goals allowed / 83 saves / 3.00 GAA / 0.8469
14. Jorma Valtonen (FIN): 4 games / 15 goals allowed / 82 saves / 3.93 GAA / 0.8454
15. Vladislav Tretiak (USSR): 4 games / 8 goals allowed / 42 saves / 3.00 GAA / 0.8400
16. Pawel Lukaszka (POL): 2 games / 7 goals allowed / 31 saves / 6.36 GAA / 0.8158
17. Takeshi Iwamoto (JAP): 3 games / 22 goals allowed / 97 saves / 7.73 GAA / 0.8151
18. Gheorghe Hutan (ROM): 4 games / 17 goals allowed / 73 saves / 6.31 GAA / 0.8111
19. Sigmund Suttner (W. GER): 4 games / 20 goals allowed / 78 saves / 6.23 GAA / 0.7959
20. Bernhard Englbrecht (W. GER): 3 games / 10 goals allowed / 39 saves / 5.59 GAA / 0.7959
21. Ted Lenssen (NET): 5 games / 30 goals allowed / 116 saves / 6.88 GAA / 0.7945
22. Tore Walberg (NOR): 3 games / 22 goals allowed / 55 saves / 10.19 GAA / 0.7143
23. John de Bruyn (NET): 2 games / 13 goals allowed / 8 saves / 20.33 GAA / 0.3810
Source 1, p. 103, 117-118; Source 2
It was not only about one tournament as Tretiak ended up 8th in SPOTY voting (his worst finish between 1971-1984) and for the first and last time, different soviet goalie, V. Myshkin was voted ahead of Tretiak on the 7th place...
e) 1981-1984
...Which leads us to Tretiak´s, in my opinion, peak phase of his career. 1980, miracle on ice disaster had to motivate him to change something. Whatever that was, it was working. During this stretch, Tretiak recorded 0.9377 over this stretch of 4 seasons and 5 major international tournaments (WHC 81, CC 81, WHC 82, WHC 83, OG 84), when the average aggregate save percentage over these tournaments was a mere 0.8843. That´s a huge difference that cannot be explained just through the strength of 'Red machine' alone. In fact, the award voting proves the point, i.e. Tretiak´s excellence at this timeframe, that I define as his peak. SPOTY voting: 1st (1981), 1st (1983), 2nd (1984), 3rd (1982).
Sure you can point to pro-goalie soviet bias again here but we have fortunately the voting record of the 'European Golden Stick' award, otherwise known as simply 'Izvestia trophy' for the best players in Europe, voted by European writers / coaches / officials, not just voted by Soviets. Tretiak did here just as well which points to conclusion that his 1980s performances weren´t just a fluke. Tretiak´s Izvestia trophy voting record during this stretch:
Izvestia golden stick voting
1980/81
1) Vladislav Tretyak 462 (119-51-3)
2) Aleksandr Maltsev 453 (115-54-0)
3) Jiří Lála 160 (27-31-17)
4) Sergey Makarov 151 (25-27-22)
5) Peter Lindmark 142 (25-24-9)
6) ?
7) Vladimír Martinec
8) Valery Vasilyev
1981/82
1) Vladislav Tretyak 224 (61-11-19)
2) Milan Nový 217 (46-31-17)
3) Viktor Shalimov 191 (58-7-3)
4) Jiří Lála 175 (56-2-3)
5) Miroslav Dvořák 160 (24-27-34)
6) Sergey Makarov
7) Jiří Králik (or 9th)?
8) Valery Vasilyev
9) ?
1982/83
1) Vladislav Tretyak 346 (82-43-14)
2) Vladimir Krutov 214 (49-29-9)
3) Jiří Lála 195 (52-18-2)
4) Sergey Makarov 123 (26-19-7)
5) Jiří Králik 109
6) Igor Larionov
7) František Černík 76
8) ?
9) Aleksey Kasatonov
10) Vyacheslav Fetisov
11) Dušan Pašek 49
1983/84
1) Vyacheslav Fetisov 316 (96-10-8)
2) Vladislav Tretyak 182 (45-21-5)
3) Dominik Hašek 163 (28-36-7)
4) Sergey Makarov 124 (32-12-4)
5) Vladimir Krutov 86 (23-2-13)
6) Jaromír Šindel 81 (18-11-5)
7) Peter Gradin 66 (19-4-1)
8) Aleksandr Kozhevnikov 52 (8-11-6)
9) Erich Kühnhackl 51 (14-4-1)
10) Nikolay Drozdetsky 38 (9-1-9)
11) Milan Chalupa 36 (11-0-3)
12) Igor Liba 34 (8-5-0)
13) Petri Skriko 28 (0-13-2)
14) Thomas Rundqvist 24 (6-3-0)
15) Raimo Summanen 16 (0-7-2)
3 times in row considered the best PLAYER in Europe, not just the best GOALIE. And that is precisely why I think Tretiak became at this point the best goalie in the world, not just in his own country or continent. Especially considering the dip down in quality of NHL goalies during the same timeframe.
Keep in mind, Tretiak was 28-32 years old between 1981-1984 seasons, which is common age for goalkeepers to have lived their top athletic performance.
_________________
Summary:
I think we can for all intents and purposes structure Tretiak´s career this way:
Elite (= the best or one of the best players in Europe / the best or one of the best goalies in the world) seasons: 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984.
Very good, meaningful in an all-time sense (let´s say top 10-12 best player in Europe / roughly 2nd best goalie in Europe) seasons: 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979.
Seasons which holds no value (or even negative value) in an all-time sense: 1970, 1971, 1972, 1980.
_________________
Now question from me I guess would be, why put Tretiak below Dryden? If I were to be voter, I´d vote Tretiak ahead without hesitation.