Dominik Hasek greatest goalie ever?

[Rhiessan71]

Anyone care to make an argument Roy faced equal or better competition when he was winning 3 Vezinas vs. When Hasek was winning his 6?

The argument for Roy has never been about Vezina's or regular season accomplishments.
No one is going to argue that Roy had better regular season records and accolades than Hasek.

Roy's status among the best has always been about his playoff records and accolades.

Like I have said previously in this thread, Roy may fall short to Hasek in the regular season but Hasek falls short to Roy in the playoffs.
It's then a matter of how much weight one affords between the regular season and playoffs.

 

[quoipourquoi]

Compared to league average:

1988 - 2nd Team
Fuhr: +.001
Barrasso: +.016
Hrudey: +.016
Roy: +.020

1989 - 1st Team
Roy: +.029
Vernon: +.018
McLean: +.012

1990 - 1st Team
Roy: +.031
Puppa: +.022
Moog: +.012

1991 - 2nd Team
Belfour: +.024
Roy: +.020
Richter: +.017

1992 - 1st Team
Roy: +.026
McLean: +.013
Essensa: +.022

2002 - 1st Team
Roy: +.017
Theodore: +.023
Burke: +.012


I'll work on Hasek's next.

 

[ricky0034]

Because Mike Vernon was worth another 14% of the 1986 number you want to use... that's two goalies who were their teams' Conn Smythe favorites comprising 28% of a number you want to call the "league average." And then that number is also mostly derived from the goalies that competed for the Division Title. Eight teams make up 76% of the statistic. That's not what a league average is.

Listen, if you don't get it, you don't get it. Just don't massage the numbers to the point where playoff goaltenders have to chase their own tails just because the below-average goaltenders don't play as much especially when there is a best-of-five round. League average goaltenders cannot be derived from a statistic that is 76% made up by the top eight teams.

you're still missing the point

99 is over 70% the top 8 teams too,this isn't a unique thing

this doesn't change the fact that there's a MASSIVE difference in the goals per game numbers etc between the 86 regular season and Playoffs

this indicates a massive difference in playstyle between the regular season and Playoffs of 86

which makes it completely worthless to mix regular season and Playoff stats for the threshold and average save percentage and try and draw any sort of conclusions at all from the result

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

Compared to league average:

1988 - 2nd Team
Fuhr: +.001
Barrasso: +.016
Hrudey: +.016
Roy: +.020

1989 - 1st Team
Roy: +.029
Vernon: +.018
McLean: +.012

1990 - 1st Team
Roy: +.031
Puppa: +.022
Moog: +.012

1991 - 2nd Team
Belfour: +.024
Roy: +.020
Richter: +.017

1992 - 1st Team
Roy: +.026
McLean: +.013
Essensa: +.022

2002 - 1st Team
Roy: +.017
Theodore: +.023
Burke: +.012


I'll work on Hasek's next.

How are you determining which goalies you are using in the comparison?

 

[quoipourquoi]

1994
Hasek: +.035
Vanbiesbrouck: +.029
Roy: +.023

1995
Hasek: +.029
Belfour: +.005
Carey: +.012

1997
Hasek: +.025
Brodeur: +.021
Roy: +.018

1998
Hasek: +.026
Brodeur: +.011
Barrasso: +.016

1999
Hasek: +.029
Joseph: +.002
Dafoe: +.018

2001
Hasek: +.018
Cechmanek: +.018
Brodeur: +.003

 

[quoipourquoi]

How are you determining which goalies you are using in the comparison?

I'm pretty much just grabbing Vezina nominees. Roy was a 2nd Team All-Star in 1988 but not a Vezina nominee, so that's why there's four goalies listed there.

 

[quoipourquoi]

you're still missing the point

99 is over 70% the top 8 teams too,this isn't a unique thing

It doesn't have to be a unique thing; it's a bad way to determine what a LEAGUE AVERAGE GOALTENDER is. It wasn't a factor in the win threshold number at all. We're just comparing the win threshold to what the average goaltender was doing at the time. Not the average goaltender to make it to the second-round. Not the average goaltender with his season on the line. The league average goaltender.

You are missing the point.

 

[ricky0034]

It doesn't have to be a unique thing; it's a bad way to determine what a LEAGUE AVERAGE GOALTENDER is. It wasn't a factor in the win threshold number at all. We're just comparing the win threshold to what the average goaltender was doing at the time. Not the average goaltender to make it to the second-round. Not the average goaltender with his season on the line. The league average goaltender.

You are missing the point.

you aren't though

you're comparing the win threshold to what the league average goaltender was doing in the regular season which was vastly different than the Playoffs

you might as well be comparing it to average stats from different decades

 

[GuineaPig]

you aren't though

you're comparing the win threshold to what the league average goaltender was doing in the regular season which was vastly different than the Playoffs

you might as well be comparing it to average stats from different decades

Be more dense, please.

This isn't an attack on Hasek, it's just a simple acknowledgement that the larger sample size is preferable because playoff averages can easily be distorted by good (or more rarely, very bad) goaltending.

 

[quoipourquoi]

you aren't though

you're comparing the win threshold to what the league average goaltender was doing in the regular season which was vastly different than the Playoffs

you might as well be comparing it to average stats from different decades

Okay... I'm going to try this one last time to see if you get it.

When you average the accomplishments of a league - with each team playing the same number of games (roughly 70-84, resulting in a large sample size) - you get what is called a league average.

When you take just 16 of those teams and let them play a varying amount of games depending upon how good they are playing at the time, you are no longer generating a number that reflects the league. You're creating a beast that is 1/8th Patrick Roy, 1/8th Mike Vernon, and 1/8th whichever goaltender the Montreal Canadiens are shooting on (they were so poor offensively, their shooting percentage gave the opposition a .899). You're creating a number that doesn't acknowledge the existence of Tom Barrasso, Greg Stefan, and Mark LaForest - goalies who are part of the league and subsequently should be part of a league average.

So when you're asking what kind of goalie a team needed to have an even goal differential, does it make more sense to look at the league average or to look at your disproportional hybrid with chunks of goalies playing at their very best over 20-24 games or very worst over 3-7 games?

Just because no one pulled an Ilya Bryzgalov and dragged the 1986 playoffs down over the course of multiple rounds doesn't make that new number a league average. It's difficult to work with playoff numbers to begin with, but you don't need to compound crazy on top of crazy to abandon a perfectly good sample size that everyone contributed to evenly.

 

[ricky0034]

Okay... I'm going to try this one last time to see if you get it.

When you average the accomplishments of a league - with each team playing the same number of games (roughly 70-84, resulting in a large sample size) - you get what is called a league average.

When you take just 16 of those teams and let them play a varying amount of games depending upon how good they are playing at the time, you are no longer generating a number that reflects the league. You're creating a beast that is 1/8th Patrick Roy, 1/8th Mike Vernon, and 1/8th whichever goaltender the Montreal Canadiens are shooting on (they were so poor offensively, their shooting percentage gave the opposition a .899). You're creating a number that doesn't acknowledge the existence of Tom Barrasso, Greg Stefan, and Mark LaForest - goalies who are part of the league and subsequently should be part of a league average.

So when you're asking what kind of goalie a team needed to have an even goal differential, does it make more sense to look at the league average or to look at your disproportional hybrid with chunks of goalies playing at their very best over 20-24 games or very worst over 3-7 games?

Just because no one pulled an Ilya Bryzgalov and dragged the 1986 playoffs down over the course of multiple rounds doesn't make that new number a league average. It's difficult to work with playoff numbers to begin with, but you don't need to compound crazy on top of crazy to abandon a perfectly good sample size that everyone contributed to evenly.

in all honesty I really do understand and for the most part even agree with you

there are a lot of problems with the Playoff average and to begin with I was really just trying to argue against using the regular season stats,it really shouldn't be used for this

however.... at the same time it's foolish to just ignore the MASSIVE difference in goals per game between the regular season and the Playoffs in 86

the Playoff average probably shouldn't be used....but ignoring the huge goals per game difference and attempting to draw conclusions from regular season averages is even worse

 

[Rhiessan71]

in all honesty I really do understand and for the most part even agree with you

there are a lot of problems with the Playoff average and it really shouldn't be used for this

however.... at the same time it's foolish to just ignore the MASSIVE difference in goals per game between the regular season and the Playoffs in 86

And as others have tried to point out to you, Patrick Roy's amazing performance that playoff accounts for a full 14% of those decreased numbers!

 

[ricky0034]

And as others have tried to point out to you, Patrick Roy's amazing performance that playoff accounts for a full 14% of those decreased numbers!

just going in circles again now

this is about more than just one Goalie,when the difference is THAT big(we're talking about a 1.437 goals per game difference here!) it indicates that there was probably a huge difference in playstyle with a far greater focus on defense

 

[quoipourquoi]

however.... at the same time it's foolish to just ignore the MASSIVE difference in goals per game between the regular season and the Playoffs in 86

That was a year in which teams just so happened to advance on the strength of hot goaltenders.

Finalists
Roy: .923 (+.049)
Vernon: .897 (+.023)

Conference Finalists
Millen: .912 (+.038)
Vanbiesbrouck: .897 (+.023)
Wamsley: .879 (+.005)

Division Finalists
Liut: .938 (+.064)
Peeters: .905 (+.031)
Wregget: .901 (+.027)
Fuhr: .897 (+.023)


Not every year works out like that though. Sometimes goalies playing poorly last longer then 5 games, like in 1988:

Finalists
Lemelin: .895 (+.015)
Fuhr: .883 (+.003)

Conference Finalists
Burke: .889 (+.009)
Hanlon: .871 (-.009)
Stefan: .864 (-.016)

Division Finalists
Peeters: .896 (+.016)
Hayward: .894 (+.014)
Roy: .890 (+.010)
Millen: .849 (-.031)
Vernon: .838 (-.042)


And that's why we use league averages.

 

[ricky0034]

That was a year in which teams just so happened to advance on the strength of hot goaltenders.

Finalists
Roy: .923 (+.049)
Vernon: .897 (+.023)

Conference Finalists
Millen: .912 (+.038)
Vanbiesbrouck: .897 (+.023)
Wamsley: .879 (+.005)

Division Finalists
Liut: .938 (+.064)
Peeters: .905 (+.031)
Wregget: .901 (+.027)
Fuhr: .897 (+.023)


Not every year works out like that though. Sometimes goalies playing poorly last longer then 5 games, like in 1988:

Finalists
Lemelin: .895 (+.015)
Fuhr: .883 (+.003)

Conference Finalists
Burke: .889 (+.009)
Hanlon: .871 (-.009)
Stefan: .864 (-.016)

Division Finalists
Peeters: .896 (+.016)
Hayward: .894 (+.014)
Roy: .890 (+.010)
Millen: .849 (-.031)
Vernon: .838 (-.042)


And that's why we use league averages.

see here's the thing though....did the teams advance on the strength of hot Goaltenders or did the Goaltenders simply have better stats due to an increased focus on defensive play compared to the regular season?

when increased numbers are as widespread across the board as they were that year it suggests the latter is the more likely reason

 

[quoipourquoi]

just going in circles again now

this is about more than just one Goalie,when the difference is THAT big(we're talking about a 1.437 goals per game difference here!) it indicates that there was probably a huge difference in playstyle with a far greater focus on defense

It's a big difference because it's a low sample size. That's part of the reason why we don't use playoff averages. Extremes (both high and low) make bigger impacts. And it is about more than just one goalie... but it's still only about just eight or nine goalies, and not the ones from the majority of teams that missed the playoffs or played terrible in the first round.

 

[quoipourquoi]

see here's the thing though....did the teams advance on the strength of hot Goaltenders or did the Goaltenders simply have better stats due to an increased focus on defensive play compared to the regular season?

when increased numbers are as widespread across the board as they were that year it suggests the latter is the more likely reason

Are you asking if teams colluded after Game 80 to play a completely different style?

If so, no one gave the first-round losers the memo:

Beaupre: .892 (+.018)
Froese: .880 (+.006)
Riggin: .870 (-.004)
Sauve: .869 (-.005)
Malarchuk: .864 (-.010)
Brodeur: .848 (-.026)
Ranford: .841 (-.033)
Hayward: .806 (-.068)
Bannerman: .775 (-.099)


But with the first-round being a three-game sweep in all but two series, they made minimal impact on the playoff average.

 

[ricky0034]

Are you asking if teams colluded after Game 80 to play a completely different style?

If so, no one gave the first-round losers the memo:

Beaupre: .892 (+.018)
Froese: .880 (+.006)
Riggin: .870 (-.004)
Sauve: .869 (-.005)
Malarchuk: .864 (-.010)
Brodeur: .848 (-.026)
Ranford: .841 (-.033)
Hayward: .806 (-.068)
Bannerman: .775 (-.099)


But with the first-round being a three-game sweep in all but two series, they made minimal impact on the playoff average.

i'm sure their poor stats had nothing to do with their teams being hopelessly outmatched....

 

[quoipourquoi]

i'm sure their poor stats had nothing to do with their teams being hopelessly outmatched....

And with that statement, you've completely missed the point...

The playoff goaltenders that lost in first-round (and with the exception of Beaupre and Froese, because of their below-average play) contributed to a total of 24 games to a playoff average that you would rather use than the league average. You're essentially pretending that because their teams were so bad that they only accounted for 24 games, those nine goalies are worth as much as one Mike Vernon to your idea of a league average goalie.

So no, you shouldn't be too surprised if the goalies playing for the Division Title are universally above the league average save percentage some years, especially if they've had a short first-round and are playing in a two-goalie system (13 of the 16 teams were) thus lowering their sample size for when they finally bow out.

If you don't get it, I give up. We're not even talking about hockey anymore; this is just math.

 

[SnowblindNYR]

I hope this question wasn't asked before. Do you guys think that if Hasek had identical stats while playing the butterfly and made it look easy like Roy, he'd be considered as good as he is now? Does Hasek's style overrate him a little bit as a goalie?

 

[GuineaPig]

I hope this question wasn't asked before. Do you guys think that if Hasek had identical stats while playing the butterfly and made it look easy like Roy, he'd be considered as good as he is now? Does Hasek's style overrate him a little bit as a goalie?

No. Hasek's style is unorthodox and interesting. Even though there are people who like him less because of it, many more take the opposite view.

 

[SnowblindNYR]

No. Hasek's style is unorthodox and interesting. Even though there are people who like him less because of it, many more take the opposite view.

No to the first question (would he be considered as good) or the second question (is he overrated)?

 

[GuineaPig]

No to the first question (would he be considered as good) or the second question (is he overrated)?

I think he would be considered just as good had he been all butterfly, and I don't think he his overrated due to his style.

The people who make the case for Hasek as the best of all time typically base it around one thing: he was the best at stopping pucks. I suppose Hasek's style might inform this reasoning; after all, stopping pucks is ultimately what goaltending is about.

People often credit Roy for the popularization of the butterfly, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone ever say "Hasek is better because he played an unorthodox style."

 

[SnowblindNYR]

I think he would be considered just as good had he been all butterfly, and I don't think he his overrated due to his style.

The people who make the case for Hasek as the best of all time typically base it around one thing: he was the best at stopping pucks. I suppose Hasek's style might inform this reasoning; after all, stopping pucks is ultimately what goaltending is about.

People often credit Roy for the popularization of the butterfly, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone ever say "Hasek is better because he played an unorthodox style."

But if Hasek was square to a shooter and made 5 difficult saves in a game look easy wouldn't people not think he had a better game than if he made 5 saves look incredible. I don't think it would be a conscious overrating. More like him making saves look incredible, making him look better than if he made the saves look ordinary.

 

[quoipourquoi]

But if Hasek was square to a shooter and made 5 difficult saves in a game look easy wouldn't people not think he had a better game than if he made 5 saves look incredible. I don't think it would be a conscious overrating. More like him making saves look incredible, making him look better than if he made the saves look ordinary.

No, I don't think this is the case, and I'll tell you why: I think the side arguing for Dominik Hasek as the greatest goaltender of all-time has increased in numbers since both Roy's retirement and Hasek's initial retirement. From what I can tell, there are far more people arguing for Hasek as #1 now than there were in 2002-2004, and I think the reason for this is because people are arguing more with raw numbers and less with visual preference.

I don't think that Hasek, while spectacular visually, gains as much from looking outside the numbers as a Patrick Roy (leadership), a Grant Fuhr (clutch play), or a Martin Brodeur (puck control). Added to that, Patrick Roy is losing GP-based NHL records by the handful as time goes by. It reminds me of the near-universal media opinion that Patrick Roy (from 1997-2000) was seizing the #1 goalie position from Terry Sawchuk specifically. Once Sawchuk's high-water mark was broken, not only did Patrick Roy trend upwards in public opinion, but Sawchuk seemingly trended downward behind Jacques Plante. I believe we are seeing that same effect take place now with the stock in Roy's legend going down - not just in comparison to the man breaking his records, but with Hasek as well.


I am curious as to what effect the media's opinion on these goaltenders has on people. Granted there are guys like Scott Burnside who will flip-flop on who is the best, but for all the 1st Team All-Star selections and Hart Trophies they've given him (which are often a large element of the Hasek argument), Hasek hasn't really been the media darling when it comes to them naming the #1 goalie. Do we believe that to be an over-reliance on GP-based statistics?

The reason I ask is because after 2003-04 when THN did its Great Debates issue (just three seasons removed from Hasek's 6th 1st Team selection and two seasons removed from Hasek's Stanley Cup), Roy was named the best by a 41 writer panel by a large margin:

Roy (19)
Hasek (7)
Sawchuk (5)
Plante (3)
Brodeur (2)
Dryden (2)
Hall (2)
Tretiak (1)

What is it that makes us entrust the PHWA with All-Star selections and Hart selections but not with the cumulation of multiple years in recent history when they're so decisive? I certainly don't always agree with the PHWA, but it seems unusual for some people to defer to the two Hart trophies but ignore the fact that the people who awarded those trophies largely did not feel Hasek was the best of his generation.