Was Pete Peeters rather good?

[The Panther]

I may have seen Peeters play a few games toward the end of his career when he was with Washington and (for the second time) Philly. Not sure. But anyway, I basically missed his salad years.

Every time I see his career stats and whatnot, it looks very impressive.

- Regular season record of: 246 - 156 - 5 (only .500 in playoffs)
- Seven seasons of 20+ wins
- League-rank GAA: 1, 1, 3, 4, 4, 5
- League-rank save%: 2, 3, 4, 5

However, he obviously played on some strong clubs, and his GSAA results (if you're into that) are good but a bit less impressive: 1, 7, 7, 9

For all this, however, voters seemed to credit much of his success to his teams, as his Vezina results are: 1, 10, 10, 11
That may also be because for much of his career he was sharing the net with another goalie. Only twice did he appear in 50 games in a season, and in five of his full seasons he appeared in less than 40 games.

Anyway, I rarely hear him talked about as one of the best goalie of the 1980s (admittedly, not the best period for goalies). But, to his credit, even from 1986 to 1991 (when he retired) he still put up very good numbers.

Did he ever get invited / play for Team Canada?

 

[crobro]

Canada cup 84

 

[The Panther]

Canada cup 84

Ha! Funny that I didn't know (or had forgotten?) that.

The 1984 Canada Cup is a weird black hole to me. I should really watch the games someday...

 

[Albatros]

Peeters was very good when he was on, one of the biggest goalies of his era with a good reach and quite athletic relative to that too. But also had a bad temper, allegedly assaulted a journalist in Philadelphia and subsequently ended up getting traded to Boston which turned out to be something of a blessing in disguise and earned him the Vezina with a 40-win season behind Ray Bourque and Brad Park. Had a reputation of being quite streaky and too frequently off when it mattered the most, maybe his early successes and highest highs made him somewhat overrated and he then struggled living up to the sky high expectations. Only a part of 1A/1B arrangements after that, mostly remember the tail end of his career when he also recorded a 1-win season, but I don't think he ever really fell off a cliff either. Didn't look out of place with the much younger Hextall and Wregget when he returned to Philadelphia once more before retirement.

He still has two of the three longest undefeated streaks in league history to his name, playing for two different teams which is quite impressive.

 

[Moose Head]

He was great in the 1979-80 and 82-83, but outside of that, a run of the mill above average starter.

 

[daver]

The fact that he overcame a troubled childhood due to the complete lack of creativity by his parents to make the NHL is impressive in it's own right.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

As a Bruins fans, even in his Vezina season in 1982-83, I wasn't really impressed by his play. That was a great Bruins team, but they lost to the dynasty Islanders as Peeters was horrible in the playoffs.

 

[Doctor No]

I do think that Peeters was gassed by the playoffs, since the Bruins were (understandably?) not wanting to use Mike Moffat or Marco Baron and rode Peeters as far as he could go (and the wheels started to come off in the Buffalo series).

Peeters was nice in that system but I'm also sure that the statistics available back then were doing him favors.

 

[BraveCanadian]

I remember him being pretty highly thought of for a while, but how much of that was him and how much of that was the team is hard to separate (as always).

Really good record across three teams but they were all good defensive teams at the time if I recall.

 

[PrimumHockeyist]

Ha! Funny that I didn't know (or had forgotten?) that.

The 1984 Canada Cup is a weird black hole to me. I should really watch the games someday...

It will be somewhat of a feat if you manage to watch the entire final game without any coffee, et cetera.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

He's a bit before my time, but feels like a Linus Ullmark

 

[Michael Farkas]

A technically good goaltender whose stats were buoyed by team effects beyond his own means...?

 

[seventieslord]

Yeah, GSAA doesn't say anything about the quality of his teams. It's nothing more than save percentage versus League average, multiplied by workload.

 

[reckoning]

It will be somewhat of a feat if you manage to watch the entire final game without any coffee, et cetera.

The final game is fine, but the horrible one was the round-robin game between Canada and the U.S.. It feels like there's a whistle every 15 seconds.

But for my money, the semi-final between Canada and the Soviets was more entertaining than the '87 games. Both teams were fighting tooth and nail for any advantage. Tonelli was an absolute force.

 

[reckoning]

But also had a bad temper, allegedly assaulted a journalist in Philadelphia

If that alleged incident happened today and was public knowledge, it would probably result in a lifetime suspension.

 

[Iron Mike Sharpe]

His rookie year there was a bit of a hullabaloo around him because that was the year the Flyers went on their legendary 35-game unbeaten streak, with Peeters riding most of it. He was moody and streaky and notorious for his occasional blowouts. In 82, the Flyers sent him packing after he sexually assaulted a sports journalist using a light bulb in response to a column calling him "Light Bulb Peeters."

Of all the goalies that emerged during the weird transitional micro-era 78-83, Peeters was a rung down from Liut, Fuhr and Smith, but during his time as a starter in Philadelphia and Boston you could likely rank him in the top 10 each year in terms of performance, he was solid enough in his role. He popped big in his first year in Beantown with a really sexy-looking 8 shutouts which really helped his win in the first year ever of Vezina voting. He did have the advantage of always playing on one of the top defensive teams (in GA, PHA was 7,2,9, BOS was 2,3,6 and WAS was 2, 8, 2, 5 in the seasons Peeters played for them) and had 5 HOF blueliners and 2 Selke winners in front of him over the course of his career, in addition to numerous other players notable for their defensive abilities. He slipped to backup status fairly quickly in Washington and pretty much stayed in the spot despite the Caps rotating through a few starters while he was there. He was infamously waived and booted to Binghamton for a few games for an attitude adjustment, and then seemed to settle into the backup role adequately for the rest of his career.

 

[crobro]

A few comparables to Peeters career wise

Don Edwards
Bill Ranford
Andy Moog
Bob Froese

 

[MS]

I only saw the end of his career, but my impression was that he was generally an average goalie who was very fortunate to spend basically his entire career playing on elite defensive teams.

Playoff record was atrocious through his Philly/Boston years.

Whenever Peeters' name comes up, I'm re-astonished that he wasn't cancelled (or even jailed) for the Lightbulb Incident - which is one of the most stunningly horrific things to happen in modern sports history - and that he continued to work in prominent positions in NHL as a coach until just a few years ago.

 

[Albatros]

He slipped to backup status fairly quickly in Washington and pretty much stayed in the spot despite the Caps rotating through a few starters while he was there.

That's not really accurate, while he did get a relatively light load during the regular season he still was always the number one for the playoffs.

 

[seventieslord]

A few comparables to Peeters career wise

Don Edwards
Bill Ranford
Andy Moog
Bob Froese

Moog's way too generous. Froese way too harsh.

Edwards and Ranford, sure. McLean, Lemelin and Hrudey are a few others.

 

[The Panther]

I've never even heard of this "lightbulb incident". Do I even wanna...?

 

[Doctor No]

I've never even heard of this "lightbulb incident". Do I even wanna...?

You're better off if you don't.

 

[The Panther]

You're better off if you don't.

Unfortunately, I found this:
Did at one time Pete Peeters Assault a Hockey Writer ?

If the information available therein is even close to being true, Peeters is a very lucky man to have played when he did. Anything like that nowadays would obviously result in a lawsuit, jailtime, and most certainly the end of his career overnight.

 

[Doctor No]

Unfortunately, I found this:
Did at one time Pete Peeters Assault a Hockey Writer ?

If the information available therein is even close to being true, Peeters is a very lucky man to have played when he did. Anything like that nowadays would obviously result in a lawsuit, jailtime, and most certainly the end of his career overnight.

"When you're a star, they let you do it."

 

[The Panther]

Don't read the following as my defending Peeters (which is impossible), but just to put context on it, remember that in early-1980s' hockey culture it was considered totally acceptable for groups of athletic grown men in the locker room to grab a rookie by surprise, hold him down, and shave his pubic hair while he screamed and struggled. Coaches and trainers would join in, watch, or laugh. What Peeters and teammates did is probably an extension of that kind of (rather sick) hockey culture of the time, albeit even worse.

(Incidentally, the journalist Peeters assaulted -- Jay Greenberg -- died two years ago.)