Michael Farkas
Grace Personified
Sorry, I wanted to take some time to thoughtfully respond to this...the thread that it is contained is locked, but I still wanted to respond and I still think fruitful conversation can come from it so I didn't want to reduce it to a PM...
@seventieslord
Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Preliminary Discussion Thread (Revenge of Michael Myers)
So I'm not going to rank them, per se. I'm going to use tiers if that's all right. I don't really see the difference between the 6th best goalie and the 8th best goalie...so tiers seems more appropriate and the length of time covered isn't ripe for some minutia...
So I made my list and I consulted with a former pro goalie who I am friends with who I thought would find it interesting...he's one of my main go-tos for goalie dirt and I bounce a lot of ideas off of him because I work without a full-time goalie coach on staff...I made a list, he made a list and then we kind of haggled on some things and here's where we are with some notes...
Talent ranking:
Tier 1
Brodeur
Hasek
Tier 2
Belfour
Holtby
Joseph
Kiprusoff
Lundqvist
Luongo
Price (we both can see Price in the first tier too, it's close...I am just slightly no on that at the end, he's a moderate yes)
Quick
Rask
-- we were near consensus on the first two tiers --
Tier 3
Fleury
Khabibulin
Kolzig
Nabokov (he's a little lower on Nabby than I am, I'm Strelow/Tretiak fan)
Schneider
Varlamov
Tier 4
Bryzgalov
Halak
Lehtonen
Miller (he likes Miller, I don't find him to be anything special...splitting the difference)
Rinne (there was difference here...we're gonna split the difference)
Turco
Vokoun
Tier 5
Anderson
Bobrovsky (he hates Bobrovsky's game...I'm ok with it because the drastic mechanical improvements he made in CBJ...but boy does he revert in the postseason...may be the most mentally weak goalie in the league)
Bishop
Hedberg
Smith
Ward
Bleh-meh:
Backstrom
Biron
Budaj
Crawford
Dubnyk
Giguere
Lalime
Roloson
Second to bottom tier:
Denis
Howard
Legace
Mason
Osgood
Pavelec
Theodore
Bottom tier:
Elliott
Hiller
Niemi
Salo
Thomas
-- bottom tiers were just about consensus as well -- we haggled on which tier one might be on over the other...he wants Osgood on the bottom, I moved him up one...but just minor things like that really...it's pretty obvious who the guys at the very top should be and who the guys at the very bottom should be...those middle tiers are where you get into a little bit more stylistic preference (I like Tretiak school goalies, Finnish glove placement/depth, etc. ...he likes stick discipline, pucks not to go under elbows, etc.)
But this is about where we're at...there wasn't a lot to argue about either...I pinged one goalie coach on this as well, haven't heard back and may not (it's not a small ask, especially this time of year), but if I get something back, I'll post.
Do with the information what you will...
@seventieslord
Thought exercise: These are the 20 goaltenders with the most minutes played since the 1999-2000 season. I don't want you to spend much time on it but can you please rank them, in order, based on your perception of their level of talent, specifically in the 1999-2018 period?
Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Preliminary Discussion Thread (Revenge of Michael Myers)
So I'm not going to rank them, per se. I'm going to use tiers if that's all right. I don't really see the difference between the 6th best goalie and the 8th best goalie...so tiers seems more appropriate and the length of time covered isn't ripe for some minutia...
So I made my list and I consulted with a former pro goalie who I am friends with who I thought would find it interesting...he's one of my main go-tos for goalie dirt and I bounce a lot of ideas off of him because I work without a full-time goalie coach on staff...I made a list, he made a list and then we kind of haggled on some things and here's where we are with some notes...
Talent ranking:
Tier 1
Brodeur
Hasek
Tier 2
Belfour
Holtby
Joseph
Kiprusoff
Lundqvist
Luongo
Price (we both can see Price in the first tier too, it's close...I am just slightly no on that at the end, he's a moderate yes)
Quick
Rask
-- we were near consensus on the first two tiers --
Tier 3
Fleury
Khabibulin
Kolzig
Nabokov (he's a little lower on Nabby than I am, I'm Strelow/Tretiak fan)
Schneider
Varlamov
Tier 4
Bryzgalov
Halak
Lehtonen
Miller (he likes Miller, I don't find him to be anything special...splitting the difference)
Rinne (there was difference here...we're gonna split the difference)
Turco
Vokoun
Tier 5
Anderson
Bobrovsky (he hates Bobrovsky's game...I'm ok with it because the drastic mechanical improvements he made in CBJ...but boy does he revert in the postseason...may be the most mentally weak goalie in the league)
Bishop
Hedberg
Smith
Ward
Bleh-meh:
Backstrom
Biron
Budaj
Crawford
Dubnyk
Giguere
Lalime
Roloson
Second to bottom tier:
Denis
Howard
Legace
Mason
Osgood
Pavelec
Theodore
Bottom tier:
Elliott
Hiller
Niemi
Salo
Thomas
-- bottom tiers were just about consensus as well -- we haggled on which tier one might be on over the other...he wants Osgood on the bottom, I moved him up one...but just minor things like that really...it's pretty obvious who the guys at the very top should be and who the guys at the very bottom should be...those middle tiers are where you get into a little bit more stylistic preference (I like Tretiak school goalies, Finnish glove placement/depth, etc. ...he likes stick discipline, pucks not to go under elbows, etc.)
But this is about where we're at...there wasn't a lot to argue about either...I pinged one goalie coach on this as well, haven't heard back and may not (it's not a small ask, especially this time of year), but if I get something back, I'll post.
Do with the information what you will...