It's too late now, but it might not be a bad idea to think about throwing out the one highest and one lowest vote for each player in future projects.
We had a discussion about this in the defenseman project and IIRC, overpass and a couple others were fairly strongly against throwing out the lowest votes for each player. The reasoning was that voters are already screened and that minority opinions should be valued.
I find the 7th pretty ridiculous, but you have a point. Without seeing the entire ballot it's hard to draw conclusions.
If they ranked the goalies something like:
1-Hall
2-Brodeur
3-Roy
4-Plante
5-Sawchuk
6-Dryden
7-Hasek
Then at least they were consistent with their voting even if I don't agree with it.
Since this is being released later anyways and has no effect on the project now if I post it, I'll post it. This is exactly what happened. The guy who voted Hasek 7th had him exactly 7th on his Round 1 list. So disagree with him all you want, but he's been consistent in his views. This was clearly not a strategic vote.
Anyway, everything will be out in the open at the end, including the identities of voters.
Of course Hasek has a lot of positives. That's why he received the most first place votes. Doesn't mean he doesn't have negatives. Like I said, it may depend on how risk-averse one is about goalie performance. Some might prefer the sure thing.
I think Hasek at 7th among goalies is more Gretzky at 4th overall than Gretzky 7th among centres.
Great analogy. Outside the bounds of hfboards, I think you'll find people ranking these 7 goalies in any order. Hey, I remember when I first came here 4-5 years ago, a lot of well-informed posters on this board thought you could argue for any of them as #1, depending on what criteria you use.
I remember back on the 2008 list, Hasek had one of the largest spreads of any players. Since then opinion has seemed to converge.
None of this is to say I agree with Hasek in 7th, but I wouldnt' agree with Gretzky in 4th either.