Bobrovsky - HHOF?

[RJMA]

2 vezinas. Stanley Cup finalist. 396 wins (27 wins away from 10th all time). Winningest Russian goalie. Any chance?

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[Michael Farkas]

Goalies are tough. It'd be great if he didn't make it. He has a short-season Vezina and one more on top and then a little bit of meh...and then, of course, he was renowned for his playoff failures - on a historical level. He had a nice run last year and he somehow swept Tampa in 2019, but that's not enough to make his playoff resume remotely positive.

He has another opportunity on a team that plays defense to put together another run...

I don't know, as it sits right now, it's a pretty easy "no" for me...but folks are going to use the transitive property here and go, "Cheevers is in...Vernon is in...why not Bob?" and I suppose that isn't without its, ahem, charm...

 

[RJMA]

Goalies are tough. It'd be great if he didn't make it. He has a short-season Vezina and one more on top and then a little bit of meh...and then, of course, he was renowned for his playoff failures - on a historical level. He had a nice run last year and he somehow swept Tampa in 2019, but that's not enough to make his playoff resume remotely positive.

He has another opportunity on a team that plays defense to put together another run...

I don't know, as it sits right now, it's a pretty easy "no" for me...but folks are going to use the transitive property here and go, "Cheevers is in...Vernon is in...why not Bob?" and I suppose that isn't without its, ahem, charm...

The 400 wins/2 vezinas club is an unbelievably small fraternity (Brodeur, Roy, Belfour). He's 4 wins away.

 

[Sanf]

2 vezinas. Stanley Cup finalist. 396 wins (27 wins away from 10th all time). Winningest Russian goalie. Any chance?

I have hard time seeing Bobrovsky in. Not really consistently best goalies of this past era. And you are presenting his case quite favourably.

2 Vezinas and Stanly Cup finalist yes. But only 2 time Vezina winner (the actual trophy winner) who does not have his name on cup (out of 22 I believe?). I know I am being very favourable for some in here. Few of them were only backups. But for example Esposito also played in Stanley Cup finals on losing side.

And in the 400 win/vezina club you are counting only the goalies from modern Vezina era since 81. But you could say that old All-Star selections would be somewhat the same as modern Vezina which would already bring Esposito, Hall, Plante and Sawchuk to that club.

Also the most wins by Russian goalie in regular season. Yes. But he was only the fifth Russian goalie to reach the 200 game milestone. Not that many significant Russian goalies in NHL before him. And looking at the playoff wins he is still behind Nabokov and Khabibulin. Currently tied with Varlamov. And Vasilevsky has surpassed him with over double amount of wins.

 

[Felidae]

SV% finishes: 1, 2, 7, 9
Hart finishes: 3, 5
Vezina finishes: 1, 1, 8, 8, 9

He's probably getting in given the standards of the HHOF with goalies lately (inducting Vernon opens up a lot of other possible goalie inductions..)

But as of now if I had the choice to put him in, I wouldn't, even with him regaining elite status this year (9th in sv%, possible vezina nominee)

Great 2 year peak, but that right there is basically half his prime, a bunch of mediocre seasons after his vezina wins to pad his stats shouldn't be enough to move the needle. He needs at least another season like this one, maybe two. But as it stands right now, he's roughly comparable to Tim Thomas without the 50 game sample size of incredible postseason play.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Two vezinas, ranks very high on wins lists over x years consistently, put a team on his back to make the finals. Should get in but hhof is kind of stupid and will hold things like contract and some bad playoff series him while giving Tavares a rubber stamp in first year of eligibility.

 

[ChiTownPhilly]

I don't know, as it sits right now, it's a pretty easy "no" for me.

Maybe he surprises us all and becomes a key part of getting professional hockey's EveryGoal (i.e.: Cup) and leaves a positive impression, like a fighter who puts out a burst of energy in the last half-minute and "steals" a round-- but (at present moment) I'm not seeing it.

His two Vezinas are the only two times he was a Vezina top-5. Is he a Vezina top-5 this year? Perhaps?!? What's the value of a 2x Vezina starter whose credentials in other seasons are league-average starter (or a little less) in the other campaigns? And that's before we consider his playoff performance, which was measurably below average until last year. [Last year might elevate him to "playoff average" level.]

Nothing against him- and I'm not rooting against him- but he's not there now.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Maybe he surprises us all and becomes a key part of getting professional hockey's EveryGoal (i.e.: Cup) and leaves a positive impression, like a fighter who puts out a burst of energy in the last half-minute and "steals" a round-- but (at present moment) I'm not seeing it.

His two Vezinas are the only two times he was a Vezina top-5. Is he a Vezina top-5 this year? Perhaps?!? What's the value of a 2x Vezina starter whose credentials in other seasons are league-average starter (or a little less) in the other campaigns? And that's before we consider his playoff performance, which was measurably below average until last year. [Last year might elevate him to "playoff average" level.]

Nothing against him- and I'm not rooting against him- but he's not there now.

Should be top 3 in vezina voting (helle will win it)

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

Bob getting in while Thomas sits out would be good for exposing the fact that HOF level play isnt what they decide on.

Thomas peaked higher and like Bob had a few great seasons. The only difference is Thomas had a short career and Bob surrounded his few great seasons with a whole lot of bad seasons. But the bad seasons pushed him to the dumb compilation milestones they require of goalies.

FWIW, Thomas dominates Bob in GSAA and playoff GSAA with 131.1 for Thomas vs 88.1 for Bob, and 27.9 for Thomas vs -23.1 for Bob

 

[WarriorofTime]

Bob getting in while Thomas sits out would be good for exposing the fact that HOF level play isnt what they decide on.

Thomas peaked higher and like Bob had a few great seasons. The only difference is Thomas had a short career and Bob surrounded his few great seasons with a whole lot of bad seasons. But the bad seasons pushed him to the dumb compilation milestones they require of goalies.

FWIW, Thomas dominates Bob in GSAA and playoff GSAA with 131.1 for Thomas vs 88.1 for Bob, and 27.9 for Thomas vs -23.1 for Bob

There's a bit of politics involved with Thomas, a lot of people don't like the way he feels about certain things, and then the justification of short career.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Thomas was not a good goalie that played behind a great defensive team in DPE 2.0. Thomas getting in should make people consider Roman Cechmanek...

As a reminder, with Julien: 151-78-31 (.640), 2.28 GAA, .926 save pct., 27 SO
Without Julien: 63-67-18 (.486), 2.96 GAA, .908 save pct., 4 SO (plus, ya know, not being NHL caliber for most of it, despite a number of attempts to break in)

Just lacked the technical ability and hockey sense to properly adapt to non-perfect situations. The Bruins system was designed to allow long, low quality shots...and, in part, because Thomas had such poor rebound control, they all collapsed back to take care of it. Thomas, to his credit, was a human mop...so his unusual "battle-fly" (because he fights against every shot) style could be effective down low against players and teams that didn't take the time to do the advanced scout on him.

Thomas had a short career because he wasn't good enough.

 

[jigglysquishy]

Bobrovsky and Thomas are similar goalies in that regard. Neither good technically, but in perfect storm situations they excel.

Bobrovsky this year played on one of the best defensive teams in the league (which we're seeing these playoffs). Maybe second best behind Carolina at shot impression.

Stolarz having insane numbers as a backup helps show that.

Together they have four Vezinas. How much better would history look back on that era of goaltending if Rinne picks up an extra Vezina in 2011 and Lundqvist in 2013.

 

[Michael Farkas]

The 400 wins/2 vezinas club is an unbelievably small fraternity (Brodeur, Roy, Belfour). He's 4 wins away.

That sounds nice, and in some ways it is...but I don't really care for raw career totals. He also has picked up an undue amount of wins compared to most goalies in history because he played in an era where a winner was awarded in every game. Almost everyone else in history had to deal with ties.

With goaltending in this era, the key isn't random peaks. The key is high-level consistency and adaptability.

The talent gap from say, the 6th best goalie to the 24th best goalie in the NHL has been quite narrow over the past 15 years...maybe more narrow than it had ever been. So, goaltenders are more or less situational. That's why we see completely random players crop up for outrageous seasons here and there (the aforementioned Thomas, Steve Mason, Niklas Backstrom, Brian Elliott has like the two best save pct. seasons ever* and he's not good, Hell...we had a Niemi vs Leighton Stanley Cup Final...).

The goalies that you want are the goalies that can bring their talent to the forefront with the most consistency. Henrik Lundqvist, Carey Price, Roberto Luongo...those are the names that you want. The evaluation process is really key with goalies and even fewer people seem to be able to do that, so there's a lot of averaging stat dependency unfortunately...but I understand why that's attractive.

Bobrovsky's mental game is too weak for me. I wouldn't be sad if he put together a nice late career run and made it, but...meh...

 

[seventieslord]

Jesus, how did he get to 14th in career wins already? I had no idea he was up there.

I mean, MAF was already getting some isolated HOF chatter when he got up around that number of career wins, and by then he had been 5th, 7th, 8th in vezina voting - Bobrovsky without the two 1sts.

I always had the perception that Bobrovsky kind of came out of nowhere to win his two Vezinas and went back to being an average-to-below-average goaltender in the other seasons. Kind of a "when he's bad he's really bad" record. Now that I look at each season in his career, I don't know that I can really back that up.

2012, 2016 and 2020 were bad, 2023 wasn't good, and on the other side of the spectrum he has the Vezina years, then 2014, 2018 and 2023 were excellent. Aside from that, he's got 6 seasons that were more or less average where he just came to work and did his job. And you put that all in a masher and he's up at 88 GSAA for his career - which is not easy to do.

And he did this playing for three different franchises, and significant time for six different coaches. He's had excellent, good, middling, and terrible teams in front of him. His career has run the gamut. We can't just dismiss his numbers as being a martyr goalie on a bad team, or a guy who's insulated by a strong system. Maybe there's some of each factor at different times, but no description defines his career.

But I don't want to overstate the impressiveness of that GSAA number, either. It is just 12th among goalies whose careers began after the year 2000. After Lundqvist, Rask, Thomas, Rinne, Hellebuyck, Price, Vasi, Varlamov, Crawford, Bishop and Miller. That list reads like a who's who of the best post-lockout goalies in rough order, aside from a couple names one may think belong lower or higher. Probably the top seven on that list at least deserve careful consideration for the HHOF, while the other five generally do not. And Bobrovsky comes right after those five.

But Bobrovsky has those two Vezinas, which is twice as many as those other five have combined. And it's gonna be hard to keep out a guy with those two bullet point achievements. It would fly in the face of how they've handled all other inductions - aside from Thomas, of course, but with Thomas, it's defensible on the basis that his NHL career was half the length of all these other guys.

 

[MadLuke]

He also has picked up an undue amount of wins compared to most goalies in history because he played in an era where a winner was awarded in every game.

This will see how voters will look at it, but no tie era big wins total will be quite common.

400 wins is a lot all time but, 4 goaltender have more since 2005, Quick is about tie.

Carey Price without playing on a powerhouse and having quite the difficult career in term of playings and early retirement has 361 wins, more than Vachon, billy Smith, about the same has Barrasso-Moog that played it seem forever.

Consistency could become what really make or not goaltender if some achieve to do it, otherwise maybe the 2 vezina, bright flash will be what win it.

But if the position continue to be noisy, the Lundqvist/Rinne type that did it, year after year in a sea of ever changing competition will look more and more better, versus when that was just expected to be the case.

 

[BM67]

Just to mess with your head, Bobrovsky has one of the best playoff OT records of all-time. Of his 31 playoff wins, 16 have come in OT. That is over half his wins, and is tied for 4th most. He's only 2 behind Fuhr for 3rd.

He has tied Roy's record of 12 straight OT wins, and is 16-4 overall.

 

[Michael Farkas]

In a sport full of crazy stuff, stats, and trivia...that one really ranks. It makes absolutely no sense from a hockey perspective and it's just mathematically unlikely too...

I saw you bump that playoff OT thread the other day, @BM67 and just didn't have words for it haha

 

[CokenoPepsi]

If he doesn't get in I don't want to see guys like MAF in.

And even guys like Luongo...he was consistently good but never won a thing in the NHL.

Bob is inconsistent but should retire top 4 in goalie wins, 2 vezinas and has a "Cup run"

 

[MadLuke]

If he doesn't get in I don't want to see guys like MAF in.

And even guys like Luongo...he was consistently good but never won a thing in the NHL.

I would propose to you to not look.

 

[WarriorofTime]

Jesus, how did he get to 14th in career wins already? I had no idea he was up there.

Because he's had elite longevity and managed to stay a Number 1 Goaltender that has rated highly in the League in wins through many coaching changes. He has eight seasons where he was Top 10 in the League in wins, which has been by default because the League has been at 30-32 his whole career. Whether it was run and gun teams that left him out to dry or defensive teams where he could pick up a big save %, he's always been back there and done a good job of backstopping a team to good win totals.

I mean, MAF was already getting some isolated HOF chatter when he got up around that number of career wins, and by then he had been 5th, 7th, 8th in vezina voting - Bobrovsky without the two 1sts.

I always had the perception that Bobrovsky kind of came out of nowhere to win his two Vezinas and went back to being an average-to-below-average goaltender in the other seasons. Kind of a "when he's bad he's really bad" record. Now that I look at each season in his career, I don't know that I can really back that up.

When goaltenders are "when he's bad he's really bad" they get demoted, very quickly. They are perhaps the position more than anyone else that is in constant competition, your backup can't outplay you and give the team a better chance to win, no matter your contract, what you did five years ago, etc. There's just too much chatter and pressure for changes. You are much better off being a mediocre 1st line forward and continuing to get ice time, or you get "demoted" to 2nd line and get more ice time, you continue to add to your stats and people say "he had some points, good for him."

With Goaltenders, people have a tendency to take a mediocre starting goaltender, people will overblow how bad you are and not give the same level of deference for holding your crease or giving your team a chance to win.

2012, 2016 and 2020 were bad, 2023 wasn't good, and on the other side of the spectrum he has the Vezina years, then 2014, 2018 and 2023 were excellent. Aside from that, he's got 6 seasons that were more or less average where he just came to work and did his job. And you put that all in a masher and he's up at 88 GSAA for his career - which is not easy to do.

88 GSAA speaks to very good longevity and a couple elite peak seasons.

And he did this playing for three different franchises, and significant time for six different coaches. He's had excellent, good, middling, and terrible teams in front of him. His career has run the gamut. We can't just dismiss his numbers as being a martyr goalie on a bad team, or a guy who's insulated by a strong system. Maybe there's some of each factor at different times, but no description defines his career.

Yes, exactly, someone is saying Thomas sucks because he was only good with one coach when they were an elite defensive team, Bobrovsky is the opposite of that.

But I don't want to overstate the impressiveness of that GSAA number, either. It is just 12th among goalies whose careers began after the year 2000. After Lundqvist, Rask, Thomas, Rinne, Hellebuyck, Price, Vasi, Varlamov, Crawford, Bishop and Miller. That list reads like a who's who of the best post-lockout goalies in rough order, aside from a couple names one may think belong lower or higher. Probably the top seven on that list at least deserve careful consideration for the HHOF, while the other five generally do not. And Bobrovsky comes right after those five.

But Bobrovsky has those two Vezinas, which is twice as many as those other five have combined. And it's gonna be hard to keep out a guy with those two bullet point achievements. It would fly in the face of how they've handled all other inductions - aside from Thomas, of course, but with Thomas, it's defensible on the basis that his NHL career was half the length of all these other guys.

Peak + Longevity should be Hall of Fame, but I think people get too caught up in things like "7-year prime, 10-year prime" etc. and fall in love with that.

 

[CokenoPepsi]

I would propose to you to not look.

Oh, I know he is in.

But it looking like Sergei is going to pass him, he already has in many aspects

 

[jackp0t]

Lundqvist and Luongo are the last 2 from the 2000-10s to make it it and they both had 0 cups.

So this guarantees that Price makes it.

Quick,Rask,Fleury as well due to cup(s) and longevity.

Vasilevsky eventually.

If Bobrovsky makes it you need to consider guys like Rinne/Miller as well. It just feels like a lot...

 

[Melrose Munch]

no

 

[Felidae]

Thomas was not a good goalie that played behind a great defensive team in DPE 2.0. Thomas getting in should make people consider Roman Cechmanek...

As a reminder, with Julien: 151-78-31 (.640), 2.28 GAA, .926 save pct., 27 SO
Without Julien: 63-67-18 (.486), 2.96 GAA, .908 save pct., 4 SO (plus, ya know, not being NHL caliber for most of it, despite a number of attempts to break in)

Yeah.. sorry this comes across pretty far off from being fair representation.

The year before Julien's first season as a bruins coach, they were the 2nd worst team in the league defensively (and all around bad), ranking 29th in GA. Thomas finished the season with a .905 sv% playing 60+ games, which was average. But still significantly better than his backup who posted an awful .875sv%

The year before that they were much better but still bottom 10 in GA(20th), and wouldn't you know, Thomas in 38 games had a .917 sv% good for 7th best in the league


You can't just say he was propped up by Julien's teams, then not acknowledge the fact that the teams preceding his tenure were bad defensively (and in general) and thus, affecting Thomas statistically.

then there's Tuuka Rask, who playing alongside Thomas in 2010-11, had a much lower sv%. And in general, while Rask was more consistent year to year, never really had a RS comparable to Thomas in 2010-11. And Rask was someone who had plenty of solid seasons outside the Julien years, including being runner up to the Vezina.

 

[Crosby2010]

He's not done yet. He's 35, looks to have at least a bit of hockey in him. The only thing I'll say is that his big years are scattered a bit and there isn't a lot of greatness in between them. But two years of being in the top 5 in Hart voting, two Vezinas, 396 wins, a Stanley Cup final appearance. That's a lot of bread right there.

I think he is similar to the likes of Rask and Rinne. Neither of those guys were Hall of Famers I don't think. There just hasn't been the elite goalies in this era that stood out. Both of them are at the Hall of Very Good level though and Bob is even with them both I think. Jonathan Quick is at their level but with a different resume than the other ones. My thing is he is still playing and is playing on a great team who looks good out there and can add more to his resume. Prior to 2023 I would have said a hard no, but he did the one thing that held him back, he had a wicked Cup run.

We'll see. He's behind the likes of Luongo, Price, Fleury, Lundqvist. Those are the Hall of Famers from this era in my opinion, and all got there differently. Is Bob the 5th worthy guy? I don't know yet. But unlike the others he is still able to add more to his resume (Quick is basically relegated to back up mode now)