All I've heard on the HF boards is how stats are meaningless (GAAA is a good stat not a perfect one overrating goalies who played a lot) and nothing is as sacrosanct as the almighty, omnipotent voting for AS and awards.
You would look a lot better here if you actually argued about what people have actually said to you instead of this nonsense.
GSAA
should reward goalies who play a lot. You wouldn't give the Vezina to a player who had a .946 sv% but only played 28 games. On the other hand, you wouldn't give it to a guy who played 76 games with a .912. If there's guy between those extremes who managed a heavy workload
and performed well, that's the sweet spot.
Also, a player's peak seven seasons are all that matters and you can throw away the rest of his career and that hanging around for a long time was an unpardonable sin along with not having a "signature" playoff run.
OK, I can see you are still emotionally scarred from the Pierre Turgeon conversation. Don't forget that I am more sympathetic to Turgeon's case than anyone except you and two other people. But let's be clear -
no one ever told you that hanging around a long time is an unpardonable sin. Find me one person who ever said that to you, and I will personally call them an idiot and take a flaming infraction on your behalf.
Let me make this as clear as possible so that you don't look foolish in the future arguing against strawmen.
Did Pierre turgeon make his legacy or HHOF case any better by hanging around and increasing his career points total by 16% after 2000-01? No. But it doesn't make him any worse, either.
Did Curtis Joseph make his legacy or HHOF case any better by hanging around and increasing his career win total by 15% after 2003-04? No. But it doesn't make him any worse, either.
I think what you may be missing here is that it's easy using a stat like GSAA, to demonstrate that a goalie made below-average contributions, but there's no way to easily determine that for a forward. Every point scored is another positive added to a counting stat. But it's easily arguable that Turgeon post-lockout was creating negative value or at least below-average value by producing what he did in the roles and opportunities he was given. In both cases, his and Joseph's, it's not their fault that they wanted to keep playing and someone took a chance on them. They'd earned that chance with the careers they'd already had.
So I try to play ball and go along and now it is all about statistical measures and how many down seasons a guy had and rationalizations on how voters just didn't get it right and why Cujo just was way better than his Vezina voting record and Barrasso, of course, the opposite. Just too funny.
Both are important. What you were actually told many times is that stats are meaningless the way
you presented them. And when stats and award voting have such a discrepancy between them, it's absolutely important to try to understand whether there was a good reason for that or not.
I guess in keeping with board tradition, this is where I do the obligatory dismissing of the statistical measure used.
GAAA isn't the be all end all. Is Dan Bouchard really the 18th best goalie of all-time? Tony Esposito the greatest ever? Chico Resch ahead of Carey Price? Mike Palmateer in a virtual tie with Vachon in the 35th spot? Kelly Hrudey placing above Kiprusoff, Liut, Holtby, Cheevers, Giacomin? Only two of the top 50 seasons ever posted in the last decade (Thomas at #24, Price #50)? Bob Froese's 1985-86 season as one of the top 30 in NHL history?
My Best-Carey
GSAA is logically the best single simple stat, and nothing you said changes this. It's nothing more than level of play times sample size.
The fact that you go straight to career totals just underscores that you've learned little from your past arguments in this section.
No, I wouldn't put Dan Bouchard 18th all-time (post-60 NHL only, that is), or Resch ahead of price, or Palmateer 35th, but those were all excellent goalies. And Esposito has an arguable case for the most statistically accomplished regular season goalie of all-time. But, notice when those guys all played. The expansion era until the mid 80s was a time of great disparity from team to team. When looking at goalie stats, the highs tended to be higher and the lows lower. This is why any adjusted save percentage attempts make Parent, Dryden and Esposito look like 3 of the 5 best of all-time, and further analysis is required. GSAA career totals (and top seasons of all time) is therefore going to skew towards players from that time (also, higher scoring eras are going to see higher results; 10% better than average in a 3.5 GAA environment vs 10% above average in a 2.5 GAA environment). Also, back then goalies flamed out fast and never got the chance to post many negative numbers where goalies of the last 30 years did. So career totals are highly imperfect, as they always are. Still, looking at any goalie on a season by season basis to see where they ranked among their peers has a lot of value. I could see great value in a GSAA-vsx type rating. This would bring the Bouchards and Palmateers back to earth and focus more on who was the best in their prime.