Canadiens1958
Registered User
You said Roy was 5.
So how did this fact position Hasek behind Roy? After all there are 4 goalies ahead of Roy.
You said Roy was 5.
So how did this fact position Hasek behind Roy? After all there are 4 goalies ahead of Roy.
Considering on how you have been championing anyone that has been a Hab since the start of this project, I'm 99.9% sure that is what you have done. That and saying that Hasek was a flake. He was just as much as a flake as Roy
As much as I don't like it, there's a little bit of a Hasek is Peyton Manning, Roy is Tom Brady thing going on...the only difference being that Manning was mechanically one of the best ever, whereas Hasek was a different animal.
Re: Hasek's Pre-NHL CareerAll this.
9 seasons in Buffalo, substantial injuries in 5. Conceded the starting role for Buffalo’s playoff chances in 1992-93 (Fuhr) and 1996-97 (Shields) - the same would have occurred in 1995-96 after a projected 3-4 week injury in Game 79(ish) but Buffalo missed them (the consolation prize being a marginal save percentage title win while injured over an overworked Puppa who helped the Lightning lock up the final spot). Out for months in 1999-00.
Another month-long absence knocked the 1998-99 Vezina down to one of the smaller voting shares to still result in the trophy (same number of 1st place votes as Dafoe; less than Joseph). Another Vezina in 2000-01 with fewer than 1/3 of the 1st place votes, so those 5th and 6th Vezina Trophies are better bulletpoints 20 years later than they are representations of how voters felt, considering >70% chose someone else.
Erratic behavior in prematurely ending his seasons in 2003-04 and 2005-06 confirmed by teammates and management and team doctors giving an element of validation to some of the feelings from Buffalo teammates in 1997.
Reverse projections of what he would do in the 1980s runs counter to the development (particularly his glove) from working with Mitch Korn in 1992-93 during his injury. More circumstantial evidence lies in the lack of save percentage titles in non-best-on-best tournaments as well as the inability to secure a starting role in Chicago in 1990 or 1991, the latter during Belfour’s contract holdout.
No one can take away 1993-94, the 1995 lockout, or 1997-98 - three of the best seasons the position has ever seen. But everything else is a Forsberg-type per-game asterisk of reliability that largely escapes criticism 20 years later on hockey forums for reasons illustrated up thread by Kyle McMahon: there’s no 80/82 GP baseline for goaltending from which a reflective look can discern that something went wrong.
He’s Guy Lafleur. At their best, insane talent. Both just outside my top-20. Outside of a 5-year window, there’s not a lot of there there. If someone has either as #5, I wouldn’t blink; I just feel a lot differently.
Some quotes from Dominik Hasek’s goaltending coach in Buffalo:
“He was so smart he knew exactly what was going to happen next, but he was too early,” Korn said. “So he showed his hand like a bad poker player, and that gave players a chance to adjust to Dom, and so he just didn’t have enough patience to make greatness of his ability to process what was going on.”
“I believe Dominik Hasek’s one of the few guys that had all thousand pieces,” he said. “I can tell you when I met Dom, almost all of the thousand pieces were spread out all over the table, and they weren’t put together yet.”
So they worked on an array of goaltending skills – skating, handling the puck and even catching it. “Literally, Dom had to learn how to close his glove and catch pucks,” Korn said. “He didn’t really close his glove to catch pucks.”
A player can be both a great prospect at a young age and better than Arturs Irbe in non-best-on-best tournaments and also not have fully developed to the point of being the best goaltender that they will be. No one comes out of the box 100% assembled. Roy was fortunate that he already had a Francois Allaire at 19-years-old for the Calder Cup victory.
If Hasek has a Mitch Korn earlier than 27-years-old, maybe we’re not talking about things he did at 15/16/17 in leagues and tournaments against players that probably won’t make this list as if it’s the equivalent of winning the Stanley Cup or going 20-0 at home in a season. Maybe instead of stealing a best-on-best tournament at 33-years-old, he does it in 1984, 1987, or 1991. But Hasek didn’t because he wasn’t the best goaltender in the 2nd half of the 1980s - or even the first half of the 1990s. And it doesn’t take disliking a player to acknowledge these things. I dislike Ed Belfour, but I’ll give him all the credit in the world when it’s deserved. Look at Hasek in the 1991 Canada Cup and in the 1998 Olympics. Tell me he’s the same goaltender.
Re: Hasek's Pre-NHL Career
He played 5 seasons in the top Czech league during his 20s (age 20 to 25). He was named top goaltender of the league in all 5 of these seasons, and was named MVP of the league in 3 of these seasons. He was also named top goalie at the World Championships in 3 of these seasons, even though the Czechs weren't very strong during this period.
And he was already probably the best Czech hockey player of all-time before coming to North America in 1990.
As with Peter Stastny, Hasek had many of his best years in Czechoslovakia, before coming to the NHL. (Stastny was also a top player in the world pre-NHL)
All this.
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Reverse projections of what he would do in the 1980s runs counter to the development (particularly his glove) from working with Mitch Korn in 1992-93 during his injury. More circumstantial evidence lies in the lack of save percentage titles in non-best-on-best tournaments as well as the inability to secure a starting role in Chicago in 1990 or 1991, the latter during Belfour’s contract holdout.
No one can take away 1993-94, the 1995 lockout, or 1997-98 - three of the best seasons the position has ever seen. But everything else is a Forsberg-type per-game asterisk of reliability that largely escapes criticism 20 years later on hockey forums for reasons illustrated up thread by Kyle McMahon: there’s no 80/82 GP baseline for goaltending from which a reflective look can discern that something went wrong.
He’s Guy Lafleur. At their best, insane talent. Both just outside my top-20. Outside of a 5-year window, there’s not a lot of there there. If someone has either as #5, I wouldn’t blink; I just feel a lot differently.
Same style, same highlight reel saves, but an absence of refinement that was exploited at the best-on-best level by the same North American shooters that Hasek claimed were better than Soviet Union shooters (a quote acknowledged by John Davidson during the 6 GA game vs. Canada where Gretzky blasted a slapshot from the wing over what may have been an unopened glove).
Check the Otto goal at the start of the 2nd period (but stay for the frantic saves throughout that undoubtedly left a positive impression). You ever see 1998 Hasek starting off square to the shooter and then chase a poke check to the point that he’s standing upright with one foot behind the goal line and the other at the bottom of the circle when the obvious centering pass gets tapped in?
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Just a couple of points:
- Hasek has a save percentage title from WHC 1987.
- Lack of additional save percentage titles from other major international tournaments should in no way be held against him. Disparity in strength of 1980s USSR team and Czechoslovakia, Sweden, non-best WHC Canada etc. was much much larger than in the 1970s. Mylnikov and Konovalenko were posting higher SV% than Tretiak, yet no one in the world tries to argue that those two provided better goaltending to Soviets.
- Czechs, nor Hasek did not care or prepare too much on the Canada Cup 1991 for various reasons (non-hockey related too). That is, of course, no excuse for relatively weak perfomance of Hasek or Czechoslovak team as a whole. I raised this just to point out that what constitutes "best-on-best" tournament for North Americans does not always translates to other nations - particularly for Soviets and Czechs in this case of ´91 Canada Cup.
- If I read you correctly, you seem to give no value for Hasek´s pre-NHL accomplishments. Do you think that the European goaltending 1986-1990 was so weak that the best one of them would not be able to even crack into, say, top 10 of either Vezina or AST voting during this period?
I have him dipped. From #4 to #5. Simply the best goalkeeper ever.I'm not sure what "flake" represents in this context...but Hasek was the one that was routinely doused by marginal talents...which isn't to say he had a powerhouse in front of him, but long after that dust has settled, it's easy to forget that there's blood on his hands in Buffalo too. Maybe not during the regular year, but in a series, where it mattered...you weren't really sure. His last goal against as a Sabre is a good example...you don't know when that one was going to go in. At least with Roy, only Cam Neely beat him from there haha...
As much as I don't like it, there's a little bit of a Hasek is Peyton Manning, Roy is Tom Brady thing going on...the only difference being that Manning was mechanically one of the best ever, whereas Hasek was a different animal.
I still rate Hasek highly, but as I've studied the game more and gain a greater understanding, his stock is one of the ones that dips...which, again, like Shore, doesn't mean that I think he's not a top 100 player...but just relative to the lofty status of popular opinion...I see some people have him at #5 overall...that's a rough way to go in my eyes...
I think he's in my top 4 goalies still...but I could easily entertain Hall, Plante, Brodeur and Roy ahead of him...
Hasek has a save percentage title from WHC 1987.
Czechs, nor Hasek did not care or prepare too much on the Canada Cup 1991 for various reasons (non-hockey related too). That is, of course, no excuse for relatively weak perfomance of Hasek or Czechoslovak team as a whole. I raised this just to point out that what constitutes "best-on-best" tournament for North Americans does not always translates to other nations - particularly for Soviets and Czechs in this case of ´91 Canada Cup.
If I read you correctly, you seem to give no value for Hasek´s pre-NHL accomplishments. Do you think that the European goaltending 1986-1990 was so weak that the best one of them would not be able to even crack into, say, top 10 of either Vezina or AST voting during this period?
To my understanding, Evgeny Belosheikin was marginally ahead. If I’m mistaken on this, I don’t know that it changes my point about how he wasn’t exactly sweeping the category to the extent that he would later in the NHL and in Nagano on teams that were hardly favorites either against much stronger competition for individual accolades.
He’s a month out from the season where his best competition for a starting job (Ed Belfour) is a contract holdout, playing in a tournament in which his head coach Mike Keenan is highly invested. If there’s any semblance of apathy on his part, it’s not a good look.
Of course I give value to it. It’s essentially what separates him from Ken Dryden (who for my money, had a better 8/9-year run because while I’d take Hasek’s regular seasons by a little, Dryden was exceptional in the playoffs).
Huge difference between giving zero value and asserting that someone was literally the best goaltender of the late-1980s.
There’s a whole spectrum there that even could have included a Vezina nomination or win - but it also could have included more opportunities to show what Hasek “did not care” about, which if we’re adding the 1991 Canada Cup to the list, is becoming a bigger set of bulletpoints than any of the other 120 players we’re naming.
Dominik Hasek is Shawn Michaels. Flashy, athletic, but he’ll skip WrestleMania in 1997 with a suspect injury. Patrick Roy is Bret “The Hitman” Hart. Technically sound, a bridge between styles, never misses a show, but somewhat formulaic.
...I, um, don’t really follow other real sports, so that’s the best I got.
SV% is very far from a defining statistic.
Point is having the tools to properly evaluate all European players in domestic and regional European competition.
Specifically domestic league and regional event schedules and results.
Key comparables pertaining to domestic top 10 scoring and goaltending.
Recently released NHL archival data is very telling in this regard.
Nighbor, Seibert, Clapper, Boucher, Geoffrion, Hall, Makarov...
If any of those ain't in your top-100 then the list ought to be thrown out!
SV% is very far from a defining statistic.
Point is having the tools to properly evaluate all European players in domestic and regional European competition.
Specifically domestic league and regional event schedules and results.
Key comparables pertaining to domestic top 10 scoring and goaltending.
Recently released NHL archival data is very telling in this regard.
To my understanding, Evgeny Belosheikin was marginally ahead. If I’m mistaken on this, I don’t know that it changes my point about how he wasn’t exactly sweeping the category to the extent that he would later in the NHL and in Nagano on teams that were hardly favorites either against much stronger competition for individual accolades.
He’s a month out from the season where his best competition for a starting job (Ed Belfour) is a contract holdout, playing in a tournament in which his head coach Mike Keenan is highly invested. If there’s any semblance of apathy on his part, it’s not a good look.
Of course I give value to it. It’s essentially what separates him from Ken Dryden (who for my money, had a better 8/9-year run because while I’d take Hasek’s regular seasons by a little, Dryden was exceptional in the playoffs).
Huge difference between giving zero value and asserting that someone was literally the best goaltender of the late-1980s.
There’s a whole spectrum there that even could have included a Vezina nomination or win - but it also could have included more opportunities to show what Hasek “did not care” about, which if we’re adding the 1991 Canada Cup to the list, is becoming a bigger set of bulletpoints than any of the other 120 players we’re naming.
Can you put a link to this archival data?