i can see the argument for fuhr. here's a guy who lost his career-long 1a (moog off with the olympic team waiting for a trade) and destroyed his own previous career high in games while setting the record for most games played in a single season by a goalie by 4 games, all this coming off three cup runs in four years. that is an amazing workload for an era where practically nobody even played 60 games, though that was soon to change. you could maybe credit '88 fuhr himself for paving the way in that respect, which also deserves kudos.
it's interesting: edmonton had by far the lowest GA in the smythe division, and second least in the campbell conference. but that number only would have been good for 7th (out of 11 teams) in the wales. meanwhile, quebec and buffalo were last in the adams, with 306 and 305 respectively, with a huge margin between them and hartford in 3rd place. only pittsburgh was lower in the wales. but 306 would have been 5th in the campbell, and 305 would have been tied with calgary for 4th. all to say, just looking at fuhr's per game stats in comparison to roy, hayward, barrasso, hrudey, etc isn't so useful. fuhr was 3rd in GAA in his own conference, behind two backups (from the norris) whose workload he more than doubled. he was 8th in SV% in the campbell, 2nd in the smythe division, a fraction behind daniel berthiaume. or put it this way, he destroyed the next best goalie in the smythe, presidents trophy-winner mike vernon, in every statistical category.
as for roy, what i remember foggily is that even as late as '89 there was still the general feeling among the old heads that he was a fluke and eventually everyone was going to figure out that you just had to shoot high on him. '88 was his second straight jennings, both shared in a platoon with hayward. hayward had better stats in '87 and they were basically even in '88. so it's understandable how skeptical GMs talked themselves into questioning whether roy could really be the best goalie in the world, despite his stats, especially considering that he played in the lowest scoring division behind the best defensive team. and then you add the fact that fuhr showed he didn't need moog to share the workload; patrick hadn't shown that he didn't need hayward yet. the 1989 season would make that undeniable though.
if you look at the discrepancy between roy's all-star record in '87 and '88 (4th and 2nd) and his vezina balloting (10th and 8th), it really feels like the opposite of cujo in the '90s, who was a vezina nominee three times but never finished higher than 4th in AST. the hockey establishment just wasn't having this butterfly thing yet.
