You raise a legit point, but what are we considering Roy's peak?
He was a 1st/2nd Team All-Star and ranked 1st in save percentage four times and 2nd on the other occasion across five seasons from 1987-88 through 1991-92.
Roy, just like Hasek, took four years in the league to even sniff his first Vezina.
That makes it sound like they had similar paths to establishing themselves. Roy was the Conn Smythe winner for a Stanley Cup champion in Year One while Hasek - even with Belfour out of the way in Year Two - couldn’t earn a starting role over Jimmy Waite, and his pulled stomach muscle in Year Three necessitated Buffalo trading Dave Andreychuk for another goaltender.
They may have both won their 1st Vezina in Year Four, but Roy was already on his 2nd Final, his 3rd Jennings, his 2nd-consecutive save percentage title, and his 2nd-consecutive All-Star selection by the time Alan Thicke called him up on stage for that Vezina.
But you look at who the competition was for both players when they broke out, and it's not even close. Roy's first two Vezinas were won against some incredibly mediocre competition.
Again, I think you’re letting the marquee value of the names retroactively dictate what is and is not good competition.
Hart nominees
Ed Belfour,
Grant Fuhr,
John Vanbiesbrouck,
Pete Peeters; Pearson winner
Mike Liut; Pearson nominee
Sean Burke; and Conn Smythe winners
Bill Ranford,
Mike Vernon, and
Ron Hextall all played in 1988-89, but I’m not going to pretend that their existence gives Roy’s 1988-89 any more validation. Patrick Roy went 20-0 at home that year; it’s not exactly a season that needs to be compared to other goaltenders to be considered good.
Hell, I distinctly remember huge questions being raised about whether Roy had "lost it" during the early rounds of one of his Av's runs.
It’s true. People were pretty upset that during Colorado’s sweep of Vancouver, Roy had 19/23 and 20/23 games to go along with the 18/19 and 22/23 ones. But that begs the question of how high of a standard you have to set that people are calling for your retirement after a 2-2 split of quality games.
Hasek and the Red Wings beat that same Vancouver times in 6 games despite Hasek’s 3-3 split of quality games (including 15/19, 22/26, and 25/29 games). So maybe Vancouver and the West Coast Express were just explosive.
Anyway, like you said, Roy’s rounds 2-4 were pretty good:
Top Round 2-4 Performances
EvE, 1980-2017
1. John Vanbiesbrouck, 1996 (52.1% on 558 shots)
2. Patrick Roy, 2001 (55.7% on 534 shots)
3. Tuukka Rask, 2013 (56.0% on 527 shots)
4. Patrick Roy, 1996 (57.2% on 493 shots)
5. Tim Thomas, 2011 (57.6% on 620 shots)
6. Arturs Irbe, 2002 (57.9% on 394 shots)
7. Pelle Lindbergh, 1985 (58.2% on 385 shots)
8. Patrick Roy, 1993 (60.1% on 444 shots)
9. Patrick Roy, 1986 (61.3% on 426 shots)
10. Kirk McLean, 1994 (62.1% on 598 shots)