I refuse to even look at a list that has Brodeur at six. He's the most well rounded, consistent, reliable goalie of all time. 4 Vezinas and a higher Vezina voting percentage then Roy, 3 Stanley Cups, Olympic Gold, Calder, almost every other goalie record..... I know it's been argued to death and I don't expect people to change there opinions on him but six is bat**** crazy.
HOH Top 40 Goaltenders of All Time
- Thread starter TheDevilMadeMe
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MXD
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Doctor No
Registered User
And yet, you did for some reason.
You're free to your opinion, one which I bet aligns well with others from New Brunswick, New Jersey.
quoipourquoi
Goaltender
1. Most of the conversation has been about the value of his 2005-06 season without Julien
2. In his two best seasons, he wasn't 10 points above average; he was 7 and 8 points above the 2nd place goalie
3. Did any of us not see the 2011 Finals? It's not all numbers, and Julien wasn't making those saves. Why would we curb our enthusiasm?
I should have been more blunt. I meant,I discredit any list.
I'm not sure what the criteria was but it definitely was weighted heavily on peak over prime and SV% over other factors.
MXD
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TheDevilMadeMe
Registered User
Read the discussions for Round 2, Vote 1 and Round 2, Vote 2 if you want to know what criteria different voters were using. Save percentage did play a big part in the discussion, but it wasn't the whole thing.
Doctor No
Registered User
seventieslord
Student Of The Game
20 was the number I quoted, not 10, and yeah I could have gone and looked up the actual number, but the actual numbers weren't the point; they were just quoted as "for instance" figures.
Do you think his Julien-era numbers are straight up comparable with those of any other goalie without added consideration to team factors?
Oh, I watched 'em alright. They were awesome. He was awesome. The finals were also 7 games long. If the conversation is about his proper placement on a "top 40 goaltenders of all-time" list then larger samples are going to be much more useful, which is why the conversation should start with determining just how impressive his most impressive regular seasons really were.
Michael Farkas
Celebrate 68
Too much emphasis put on saves. It took a heroic effort from the Bruins offensively and defensively to overcome Thomas in those playoffs. Yeah, he made a bunch of saves. He also should have lost in the first round. Not too many goalies would be able to give up this many bad goals in a playoff, because they would have been eliminated. He's Jeremy Jacobs' MVP for sure, look at how many extra home games he created out of nothing
Brutal rebounds, brutal timing, brutal positioning, brutal technique, brutal hockey sense...and you get all kinds of wacky, unpredictable goals going in and any ol' time. That's not good enough. Shots from below the circle, shots from outside the dots, VL4 goes unscreened five hole on him from 40 feet, he dives out of the net in OT of a SCF game to put his team in the hole...I mean, people look at save pct. and go "omg, how could NHL scouts passed him by for a decade (!) before giving him a shot?!?!?" It's because they watched him and they saw crap like this going in. A good portion of these goals simply can't happen at the NHL, particularly on a regular basis, particularly in the playoffs.
It's just not good enough. That's why, despite playing in very visible places and being in NHL camps - no one wanted him for a decade. Strings together a couple non-consecutive seasons of note (in the middle, the rookie goalie also dominates statistically - sans the horrid goals against) and then he's right back out the door...
Saves don't win games, goals against lose games. I've said it a thousand times. Nothing worse for a bench than a bad goal against. And yeah, being out of position and having to dive headlong at a puck to make a save looks cool, it's not a sustainable style of play...Thomas, Cechmanek, two, three seasons, and that's it...flukes.
You can't say enough about the 2011 Boston Bruins as a group, to overcome that kind of goaltending, that's Detroit Red Wings-esque right there having to tow Osgood around all these years...the word is "heroic" that's the effort it took to overcome the stuff in that video.
To be fair, I made one for Jonathan Quick too for 2012:
Never left anything in doubt. Plus, he made great saves throughout. The good goalies can make great saves without the caveat of "well, I have to give up a bushel of bad goals too." - that's what bad goalies do, goalies that don't hang around in the league for very long.
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Kyle McMahon
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Boston scored a phenomenal amount of goals in their wins, and Thomas completely blew one of the games they lost with that terrible OT goal against. In spite of the terrific numbers, he wasn't the reason they beat Vancouver.
Rhiessan71
Just a Fool
And he was the reason they were almost put out by the Habs in the first round. He was terrible vs the Habs.
Luckily for the Bruin's, Bergeron saved their bacon in that series from both a terrible Thomas and a Kreji/Horton/Lucic line that did squat.
I firmly believe if Bergeron doesn't get hurt in the Tampa series and isn't playing hurt in the Finals, his name would be on the Conn, not Thomas'.
Patrice was their best player and one of the ONLY reasons they even made it out of the first round.
Kyle McMahon
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Thomas came up big in the OT sessions in Game 4 and 5 against Montreal though, I'll give him that. He wasn't good in the first three games, although the entire Bruins team was very flat to open that series.
Thomas' biggest sin that spring in my eyes was the Tampa Bay series, Game 4 in particular. That series never should have gone 7 games.
BraveCanadian
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- Jun 30, 2010
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Your analysis of goaltenders is always.. entertaining.
The Bruins had to overcome a goaltender with a .940 through 25 playoff games.. yeah, ok.
Most players have some ups and downs over 25 games, and goaltenders are in the spotlight more than most for their mistakes, but I don't see how you can even get going on this...
MXD
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Canadiens1958
Registered User
First Round
Point was and is that in the first round against the Canadiens Thomas allowed 17 goals in 7 games vs 34 goals in the remaining three series over 18 games.
Canadiens tied the Bruins 17 - 17 in goals for/allowed and Price(.934 SV%) actually outplayed Thomas(.926 SV%). Post first round Thomas had a (.945 SV%) allowing 34 goals in 18 games. Thomas was app five goals better per series during the last three series. Huge difference.
Point was and is that in the first round against the Canadiens Thomas allowed 17 goals in 7 games vs 34 goals in the remaining three series over 18 games.
Canadiens tied the Bruins 17 - 17 in goals for/allowed and Price(.934 SV%) actually outplayed Thomas(.926 SV%). Post first round Thomas had a (.945 SV%) allowing 34 goals in 18 games. Thomas was app five goals better per series during the last three series. Huge difference.
McGuillicuddy
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Too much emphasis put on saves. It took a heroic effort from the Bruins offensively and defensively to overcome Thomas in those playoffs. Yeah, he made a bunch of saves. He also should have lost in the first round. Not too many goalies would be able to give up this many bad goals in a playoff, because they would have been eliminated. He's Jeremy Jacobs' MVP for sure, look at how many extra home games he created out of nothing
Brutal rebounds, brutal timing, brutal positioning, brutal technique, brutal hockey sense...and you get all kinds of wacky, unpredictable goals going in and any ol' time. That's not good enough. Shots from below the circle, shots from outside the dots, VL4 goes unscreened five hole on him from 40 feet, he dives out of the net in OT of a SCF game to put his team in the hole...I mean, people look at save pct. and go "omg, how could NHL scouts passed him by for a decade (!) before giving him a shot?!?!?" It's because they watched him and they saw crap like this going in. A good portion of these goals simply can't happen at the NHL, particularly on a regular basis, particularly in the playoffs.
It's just not good enough. That's why, despite playing in very visible places and being in NHL camps - no one wanted him for a decade. Strings together a couple non-consecutive seasons of note (in the middle, the rookie goalie also dominates statistically - sans the horrid goals against) and then he's right back out the door...
Saves don't win games, goals against lose games. I've said it a thousand times. Nothing worse for a bench than a bad goal against. And yeah, being out of position and having to dive headlong at a puck to make a save looks cool, it's not a sustainable style of play...Thomas, Cechmanek, two, three seasons, and that's it...flukes.
You can't say enough about the 2011 Boston Bruins as a group, to overcome that kind of goaltending, that's Detroit Red Wings-esque right there having to tow Osgood around all these years...the word is "heroic" that's the effort it took to overcome the stuff in that video.
I don't necessarily disagree with your point (no opinion at all actually) but in that first video, a number of those goals were perfectly respectable. Many did not fit into a video called "Tim Thomas Bad Goals". I think a few were shown just because they were early in the game, but that doesn't mean they are the goalie's fault!
Sorry for OT but I simply cannot ignore your yet another slandering of a goalie who dominated everywhere and consistently for a period of 7-8 seasons.
Cechmanek was almost 30 years old when he entered NHL. When he stopped being top 10 NHL goalie he was simply too old and out of his prime. His style had nothing to do with it.
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McGuillicuddy
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Say what? He had 3 statistically good seasons in the NHL (at least as far as SV% goes). Before and after that he played in the Czech league, which is pretty much irrelevant for this discussion. He also had a back-breaking tendency to let in crappy goals. Like Tim Thomas.
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I admit that I didn´t see see him playing in Czech league, but in international games he was first ouplayed by Turek (who I still see better goalie as Cechmanek) and then by Hnilicka. And I do remember that he got his chances. Also I believe that it did have something to do with his technique.
To a certain extent I agree what Mike Farkas is saying about Thomas (though give me a compilation of goals scored against goalie where he looks great
).I did see Tim Thomas playing a lot in Finland. I mean there is bit of Hasekian in him, but in many cases he did need his defenceman to save him. He had luck to play some of the best defensive corps/systems to ever assembled in Finland.
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Of course quality of Czech extraleague or international competition in 90s are well below NHL quality of play during the same time.
Because of this you would expect from Cechmanek to completely and consistently dominate that competition over longer period of time - which he did.
He was the best non-NHL goalie for a period of 5 years and his incredibly fast adjustment to NHL in advanced age is telling you that his 95-00 form would be just as good and delivered the same results as his 00-03 NHL form - if not even better.
Here are Cechmanek´s acomplischments and stats in his full prime:
1994-95
- 1st league title, best extraleague goalie award
- Turek´s backup in WC 95, played one game (90,24 %)
1995-96
- 2nd league title, best extraleague goalie award
- gold medal in WC 96, Turek´s backup, didn´t play
1996-97
- 3rd league title, best extraleague goalie award, play-off MVP
- bronze medal in WC 97, played as a starter, eight games and 92,92 %
1997-98
- 4th league title, best extraleague goalie award
- gold medal in Nagano 98, Hasek´s backup, didn´t play
- bronze medal in WC 98, Hnilicka´s backup, played two games (92,86 %)
1998-99
- 5th league title, best extraleague goalie award
- gold medal in WC 99, co-starters with Hnilicka, played five games (90,00 %)
1999-00
- did not win title (Vsetin lost finals to Sparta), did not win best extraleague goalie award (lost to Briza I think, Sparta´s goalie)
- gold medal in WC 2000, played as a starter, won Directoriate´s best goalie award, also named All-star goalie of the tournament, played eight games (92,45 %)
-- Came to Philadelphia, immediately became a starter --
2000-01
- 2nd All-star NHL goalie, 2nd in Vezina (behind Hasek), 4th in Hart voting, 3rd best save percentage and GSAA
2001-02
- Hasek´s backup in Salt lake city 02, didn´ t play
- 6th in All-star voting, 3rd best save percentage, 7th best GSAA
2002-03
- 5th in All-star voting, 7th in Vezina voting, won Jennings trophy, 3rd best save percentage and 4th best GSAA
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I admit that I didn´t see see him playing in Czech league, but in international games he was first ouplayed by Turek (who I still see better goalie as Cechmanek) and then by Hnilicka. And I do remember that he got his chances. Also I believe that it did have something to do with his technique.
To a certain extent I agree what Mike Farkas is saying about Thomas (though give me a compilation of goals scored against goalie where he looks great
I did see Tim Thomas playing a lot in Finland. I mean there is bit of Hasekian in him, but in many cases he did need his defenceman to save him. He had luck to play some of the best defensive corps/systems to ever assembled in Finland.
No Turek actually never outplayed Cechmanek in their primes. When they were both playing in Extraleague (two seasons: 95 and 96, Turek went to NHL afterwards), it was Cechmanek who was winning best goalie awards and league titles. When they were both playing in NHL Turek may have outplayed Cechmanek only once in 03-04 - statistically Turek was better but he played only 18 games that season...
Turek had only one great season in NHL. Cechmanek had three of those.
Of course Turek was the starter over Cechmanek at WC 95 and 96. But it was not for "outplaying" Cechmanek, he was simply older (slightly though) and more proven since he started earlier in NT and never really failed (outside World cup 96). Turek was great in 94, 95 when he became all-star, 96 when he won gold medal, best goalie award and all-star nod. There was no reason for coaches to try new things, even though Cechmanek was already outplaying Turek domestically.
Hnilicka? In 97 Cechmanek was clear starter. In 98 (after Nagano where he was Hasek´s backup) was a starter but played only first two games against Japan and Belarus. He received three goals and had 0.9286, doesn´t look bad to me.. The most likely scenerio is that he got injured and Hnilicka replaced him - not that Hnilicka outplayed him.
In 99 Cechmanek really did lost his starting position to Hnilicka. Played all three games in group, then lost subsequent game against Russia (three fast goals in the 1st period) and Hnilicka simply got a chance in next game and led his team to gold afterwards. (Of course, Cechmanek again won everything domestically over Hnilicka though)
00 is obviously the best performance Cechmanek ever put on international scene. Gold medal + Best goalie award + All-star goalie.
So there you have it. I don´t think Cechmanek was ever really outplayed by any other Czech goalie not named Hasek during his prime.
(And of course I watched him in late 90s as a kid, he was great and extremely fun to watch. I was a big fan of him.. but my feelings are not important, what matters are his results which seems to be almost forgotten these days.)
Turek played 96 season in Germany and Briza was also playing abroad during those years that he won the domestic awards. But like I said I´m not the right person to say about his play in Czech league.
And I think you may be correct about the 98 WHC. Now that you say it, I think I remember he may have injured himself.
Overall I watched international hockey pretty religiously at the time. Memory and eye test are not always the best tools, but I do remember him blowing several chances by felling apart. Turek even when he was bit of oldshool goalie himself was always technically more stable. And at the end Cechmanek was the last of the three to get his chance in NA.
I love Czech goalies of that era, but we are drifting from the top 40 all-time.
I love Czech goalies of that era, but we are drifting from the top 40 all-time.
Sure, I wasn´t arguing for that.
Captain Bowie
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- Jan 18, 2012
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I'm sure your discrediting means a lot to the people who put hours of research and debate into putting this list together.
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