Top-100 Hockey Players of All-Time - Round 2, Vote 2

overpass

Registered User
Jun 7, 2007
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The other thing with Hasek ... and this is killing me when trying to place him... the dude quit on his team. Numerous times. I think if you ask the Sabres, they'd prefer Hasek at 90% over whoever his backup was (Fuhr? Roloson?) at 100%. But Hasek wouldn't play if he wasn't 100%. That... damn that ****ing bugs me. I can't imagine any other player on this vote who wouldn't play on one leg if they thought it would give their team a better chance to win except for him.

Hasek was amazing for the Ottawa Senators in 2005-06. But his injury saga in the latter part of the season and the playoffs brought down the Senators.

The killer was the uncertainty. The team was always thinking he was about to come back, he was skating in practice, just another week...and then he still didn’t play. By the end at least some of his teammates were fed up with him.

The Senators had been playing a more aggressive offensive style and counting on Hasek to make the big saves behind them. If they knew Hasek wouldn’t be back, they could have gone all in with Ray Emery, given him the full vote of confidence, and adjusted to playing a more defensive style. As they did in 2006-07, tightening up the defence around Emery, clearing rebounds and limiting chances more effectively, and making to the Finals with a bit less talent than the 2005-06 team. But in 2006 they kept waiting for Hasek and Emery just got ventilated by the Sabres.

There’s enough blame to go around — Brian Murray and the coaching staff could and should have known better than to rely on Hasek returning. But the whole situation became such a distraction.
 

BraveCanadian

Registered User
Jun 30, 2010
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240 or 300, the comparability potential of PO games vs. RS games is vastly different.

For any statistical purposes RS is simply much better population than PO.

And since we are talking about Roy and Hasek, the "players don't giver their best in RS" argument does not apply. They were both psychos who would kill a man to win a meaningless RS game.

By definition, the better teams are playing in the playoffs. So you'd expect them to be tougher games in general, and Roy has the best playoff resume of a goalie ever.
 

MXD

Original #4
Oct 27, 2005
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240 or 300, the comparability potential of PO games vs. RS games is vastly different.

For any statistical purposes RS is simply much better population than PO.

And since we are talking about Roy and Hasek, the "players don't giver their best in RS" argument does not apply. They were both psychos who would kill a man to win a meaningless RS game.

Let's assume that your argument makes sense.

How are you comparing, say, Howie Morenz to Jean Beliveau?
 

Captain Bowie

Registered User
Jan 18, 2012
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240 or 300, the comparability potential of PO games vs. RS games is vastly different.

For any statistical purposes RS is simply much better population than PO.

And since we are talking about Roy and Hasek, the "players don't giver their best in RS" argument does not apply. They were both psychos who would kill a man to win a meaningless RS game.
Why are you ignoring the multiple responses to your insane Thornton/Williams comparison?
 

DannyGallivan

Your world frightens and confuses me
Aug 25, 2017
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Worth a note: two of Hasek’s Vezina Trophies came with just 8 out of 27 1st-place vote and 9 out of 30 1st-place votes - so less than one-third of the voters thought he should win.
Even if we eliminated those Vezinas altogether, he would still have four.
...and in the last round of this very poll, Gordie Howe finished ahead of Bobby Orr for second place despite having only 3 first place votes compared to Orr's 5. ;)
 

billingtons ghost

Registered User
Nov 29, 2010
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Has a single person brought forward "wins" as a way to rank goaltenders in this? It's widely regarded as a ****ty stat for goalies that few people take seriously.

You have somehow found a worse metric than wins, so congrats?

Far better to hang your hat on something that is completely dependent upon how many nips the home shot-counter had? Something where "dump-in from the blueline" == "breakaway"?

And I guess GAA has nothing to do with the team game either.

All goaltender statistics are as good as any other because they will all continue to suck until we have qualified shots and something that measures control of gameplay, rebound control etc. You can throw them all in the same bucket of slop for me; use them with a grain of salt; and look at the overall player and how effective he was at "being a goaltender".
 
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Canadiens1958

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Nov 30, 2007
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I'm not ignoring it at all, you just showed exactly why I was correct that Hasek and Roy are not the same in terms of managed starts! Hasek actually has the same % of career GP that come from back-to-back starts as Brodeur:

Brodeur: 180 B2B starts in 1266 career GP, 14%
Hasek: 103 B2B starts in 735 career GP, 14%
Roy: 91 B2B starts in 1029 career GP, 9%

Secondly, GAA doesn't tell us which goalie is better, it merely tells us which goalie and team combination is better. Also, whether goalies are playing at home or on the road matters a lot for their GAAs.

But even assuming that Brodeur is better in back-to-backs, that doesn't make up for the fact that he is significantly worse in games involving all other kinds of rest. You seem to have a tendency to fixate on certain stats (zero days rest, first goal, etc.). Those things are important, but they are only a portion of the entire total, I'm not sure making ranking decisions based on a single microstat is advisable.

Focus on what actually matters. Bigger sample space, Brodeur won over half of his B2B starts, Hasek did not win half of his B2B starts. Actual difference +44 wins for Brodeur.

Nor is it advisable to make decisions on data that only works on paper without practical applications or benefits.
 
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The Macho King

Back* to Back** World Champion
Jun 22, 2011
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If we were talking about players well outside of memory it would make more sense, but I think everyone in this discussion has probably seen at least 100 games themselves with these two goalies. Esoteric metrics seem very out of place.
 

Michael Farkas

Grace Personified
Jun 28, 2006
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Whether it's true or not - can you argue the worth/value of this?

Pretty simple really. It's about adaptability and consistency, two of the most important traits for players to possess. There are playoff games that happen on back to back games. There are stretches where you're trying to make the playoffs and have to play 16, 18, 20 straight starts down the stretch....assuredly, there's going to be b2b games in there...Pittsburgh, for instance, had 38 of their games in b2b situations last season...if you don't have a reliable goaltender who can pull you through any and all situations, what do you really have...?

Again, note the struggles...even with the backup goaltender long instituted...even with ice time allocation for youth development...even with modern travel, nutrition, training, etc. Goalies, as a whole, struggle in b2b situations...would be nice to have a guy I could go to on a Saturday night/Sunday night situation when I need four points...

Brodeur offers that, in addition to an overall package that already puts him - for me, in the top 3 goalies of all-time...
 

Kyle McMahon

Registered User
May 10, 2006
13,301
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Similar to my last post – I wanted to do a deeper dive on playoff PPG margins over each player’s playoffs. I’m once again piggybacking on @Art of Sedinery excellent post earlier in this thread where he posted all of this data, post#368.

I sorted out the results by PPG margins. There are 2 tables for Beliveau to capture two different dynasties.

PlayerSeasonsGamesPointsPPGMarginPPG Margin
Bobby Hull60/61-70/71991181.19100.00%
Gordie Howe60/61-70/7159681.15173.50%103.40%
Stan Mikita60/61-70/711001031.03114.60%115.70%
Jean Beliveau60/61-70/7199980.99120.40%120.40%
Frank Mahovlich60/61-70/7186720.84163.90%142.40%
[TBODY] [/TBODY]
PlayerSeasonsGamesPointsPPGMarginPPG Margin
Jean Beliveau53/54/57/5852661.27184.80%79.40%
Maurice Richard43/44-57/581211221.01100.00%
Bernie Geoffrion50/51/57/5887830.95147.00%105.70%
Gordie Howe46/47-57/5889840.94145.20%106.80%
Ted Lindsay44/45-56/57116850.73143.50%137.60%
[TBODY] [/TBODY]
PlayerSeasonsGamesPointsPPGMarginPPG Margin
Cooney Weiland28/29/33/3425210.84104.80%70.80%
Charlie Conacher30/31-33/3423160.7137.50%85.50%
Frank Boucher26/27-33/3441280.6878.60%87.10%
Howie Morenz23/24-33/3437220.59100.00%
Bill Cook26/27-33/3442210.5104.80%118.90%
[TBODY] [/TBODY]
PlayerSeasonsGamesPointsPPGMarginPPG Margin
Jean Beliveau53/54-57/5852661.27100.00%
Bernie Geoffrion53/54-57/5853671.2698.50%100.40%
Gordie Howe53/54-57/5842501.19132.00%106.60%
Maurice Richard53/54-57/5841431.05153.50%121.00%
Dickie Moore53/54-57/5853490.92134.70%137.30%
[TBODY] [/TBODY]
PlayerSeasonsGamesPointsPPGMarginPPG Margin
Bobby Hull64/65-70/7163731.16116.40%95.30%
Jean Beliveau64/65-70/7177851.1100.00%
Phil Esposito64/65-70/7160661.1128.80%100.40%
Stan Mikita64/65-70/7163570.9149.10%122.00%
Yvan Cournoyer64/65-70/7179610.77139.30%143.00%
[TBODY] [/TBODY]
PlayerSeasonsGamesPointsPPGMarginPPG Margin
Sidney Crosby07/08-17/181551801.16100.00%
Evgeni Malkin07/08-17/181531611.05111.80%110.40%
Patrick Kane08/09-16/171271230.97146.30%119.90%
Alex Ovechkin07/08-17/181211170.97153.80%120.10%
Jonathan Toews08/09-16/171281100.86163.60%135.10%
[TBODY] [/TBODY]
Conclusions drawn:
- Bobby Hull looks great, better than expected even at #1. 42% over 5th place, and 3.4% over 2nd place.

- Richard is 37% above Lindsay and approx. 6% over Howe and Geoffrion. Beliveau does look much better than him in this stretch – but in less games & years played.

- Morezn takes a hit here, big time. His out of this world domination of offense in regular season doesn’t hold up come playoff time. He is 4th among peers during those years.

- Beliveau in both stretches looks pretty dominant over 5th place (37% and 43% margins). Still at the very top, he’s practically tied with Geoffrion in the first dynasty years – and is outscored by Hull from 65-71.

- Crosby has by far the largest sample (155 games – even adding both of Beliveau’s stretches he’s at 129 games). All of his contemporaries have large enough sample sizes to be compared to (nothing like Beliveau vs Richard in half the games), and he does very well over all of them. 10% over 2nd place is the largest gap here, as is 19% over 3rd place. At 35% over 5th place he loses ground and is 5th, but it’s still pretty close to most numbers (37%-43%) in a much bigger sample size of games played.

To me Crosby once again comes out ahead in playoffs PPG.

If I had to combine the last 2 posts I made, taking everything into account (competition, games played, domination, etc) I would rank in regular season PPG domination over prime:

1. Crosby
2. Morenz
3. Beliveau
4. Hull
5. Richard

For playoffs it would be:

1. Crosby
2. Beliveau
3. Hull
4. Richard
5. Morenz

I think you could almost inverse Hull and Beliveau at 2 and 3 for playoffs. I ended up giving Beliveau the edge due to more games played, but in terms of %’s Hull actually should be #2.

A fine effort, appreciate all this data.

My concern is that this doesn't take into account strength of opposition at all. For the Original Six guys, this is less of a concern. The league was small so they were mainly playing against the same teams, and the playoff format was stable. While year-to-year fluctuations are going to be large, they all have a large enough sample size that things should generally smooth out over the course of an entire career. To the point that, while we should be mindful that the Habs stars didn't have to play against...the Habs....we can probably account for this mentally and call it good.

The peculiar 1930s playoff format causes all sorts of problems here. Regular season success was almost certain to deflate scoring totals for the players on the best teams, since a great regular season got you a first round matchup against the best or next-best team in the league. Also, the two game total goals format changed strategic implications. If a team won the first game 2-0, scoring any further goals in the second game was less important than preventing them, and going into a defensive shell was considered reasonable strategy. Unlike every other playoff game in history, the second half of a two-game series was not a must-win situation for the team that led after game one. Overall statistics will devalue a player whose objective is merely to either draw or even lose a game by a small margin rather than produce any offense.

The post-expansion playoff format introduces wildly different strengths of schedules for various teams. Division and conference formats move the goal posts around. Two similarly good teams may be beneficiaries or victims or circumstances beyond their control. A player like Crosby is going to benefit on the scoresheet by feasting on weak early-round Eastern opponents up until around 2014. Afterwards, he is going to be suppressed by a new playoff format that forces the Penguins and Capitals into a matchup in the early going.

I'm going to take a look at the strength of playoff opposition for the available candidates and see if it provides any big talking points, beyond the theoretical ones I have laid out.
 
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VanIslander

A 19-year ATDer on HfBoards
Sep 4, 2004
35,134
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Some of the goalie analysis seems very hair splitting and straw reaching.

But given how I have a hard time stopping the pendulum between Hasek & Roy - or better: treat them like flapjacks...

I entered this round with 12% of a plan, and got a bit into the minutiae.
 
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