Yeah- not surprising, I suppose. There's very good sound-wave carry here in the chamber. But let's get this out of the way now, before we get too far off the path...
It's long past time to put the lie to the canard that BERNIE PARENT had an exceptional Peak and scant else that would be of consequence in a Top-100 discussion. A look at Bernie Parent year-by-year suffices to illustrate that he's more-than-worthy of immediate consideration this Round.
1965-66: Breaks into the league 6 months before his 21st birthday, for Boston- in the waning stages of the O-6 competition-furnace. Boston breaks the counter for shots allowed- over 200 more than the next worst team(s). Welcome to the show, rookie! Save percentage is .898. Nothing special-sounding... but keep in mind that the collective rest-of-Boston clocked in at .882.
1966-67: Weirdly cycled between Boston and the Oklahoma farm-team. The plurality of the minutes go to journeyman Eddie Johnston. One would have to conclude that Cheevers (who was also rotated out to the Sooner State) adjusted to the prairie-shuttle better than Parent, as he outperforms Bernie this season, nosing ahead on the depth-chart.
Boston decides their future lay with Cheevers, and expose Parent in the expansion draft, setting up perhaps the last and most interesting 'what-if' we're likely to contemplate before we bid farewell to the Project.
1967-68: First year in freshly-minted expansion Philadelphia. As a team, fellow nominee Johnny Bower's Toronto team leads the league in Save %-- but 22-year-old Bernie Parent's Flyers are 2nd in the league in that stat. In the First Round of the playoffs, Philadelphia falls to St Louis, but Bernie Saves at a .963 clip, perhaps providing a harbinger of what can be expected from the future of 'Playoff Parent.'
1968-69: Another year, another Team 2nd place in Save %. The only individuals to outperform Parent in that stat are these guys named Plante & Hall.
1969-70: Second among starters in Save %, trailing well-known Regular-Season Beast Tony Esposito. Philadelphia cultivates credible back-up in Doug Favell, who will play a role in our story next season...
1970-71: This is the season where Philadelphia decides that Doug Favell will serve adequately as an NHL-starter, and (knowing that Parent is the hotter property) trades him to Toronto. It is only by the standards one would attach to Bernie Parent that this could be considered a disappointing season, falling out of the top-10 in Save % (but still .014 above league average). At this point, a canny observer would surmise that one gets the very best out of Parent if he's spared the mid-season disruptions.
1971-72: More of the same- splitting time with Plante and finishing .014 above league-average in Save %. Toronto, doing what comes naturally to them when it comes to contract matters, leaves Parent receptive to the siren-call of the WHA.
1972-73: Parent's "other" Philadelphia year- the Blazers of the WHA. We're all pretty hard-wired to discount WHA performances... but maybe we shouldn't discount this one so much- since what little evidence we have shows that Parent faced "a barrage of shots" [sourced: Wikipedia] and was no worse than the second most effective goalie in the upstart circuit (and perhaps better than that). Then, something curious happened... evidently, Parent's paycheck delivery was interrupted- shortly after the start of their opening playoff round. Parent, applying what little leverage he had, exited the team. The Blazers responded with a suspension- and in the aftermath, his WHA-rights were shifted from one franchise of dubious solvency to another. Meanwhile, in the NHL's parallel but less entropic universe, Toronto traded Parent's NHL-rights back to the Flyers- and with regards to career-certainty, saved Bernie Parent from a murky future.
And, as long as we've mentioned "saving," Parent would more than square the account when it came to the act of "saving."
What follows the next two years should need no explanation to anyone who takes this project with modest seriousness. It is, quite simply, the finest two year period of sustained goaltending excellence in the entire century-plus history of the Sport.
After this, Fate intervened- not tragically as in the case of Gardiner, or cruelly as in the case of Ace Bailey, but capriciously inasmuch as a neck injury resulted in Parent's shut-down from the start of the season until towards the end of February. Not really regaining form that year, the Flyers '76 playoff run proceeded gamely on with Wayne Stephenson, until it was steamrolled by the dawn of (still) the most recent iteration of Dynasty Montreal.
1976-77: Bernie Parent, working at trying to get back to Bernie Parent performance-standards, has perhaps his least effective year since the farm-carousel year. He doesn't even achieve .900 in Save %... but he's still .010 ahead of league-average that season. Roy's had a few Colorado-years less impressive than that.
1977-78: Consulting once more with The Grandmaster, Plante, Parent returns to form in 1977-78, leading the league in shutouts, and finishing behind only K. Dryden & T. Esposito in Save %, all while The Bullies continue to easily top the league in Power Play Opportunities Against.
If one could retroactively engage the modern stat "High Danger Scoring Chances Denied" percentage, then Parent's greatness would be even more manifest than it already is.
Unfortunately, the Wheel of Misfortune had the final word in this tale, as Bernie Parent's career ends with his eye injury. Happily, though, his place in Hockey History is unassailable, or at least should be by any rights that matter.
I'm not a native to the Delaware Valley... I'm a migrant. Still, ask a Philly Hockey fan of a certain age (say, an age where they will have seen the Flyers' entire history while it happened) who the Greatest Flyer of Them All was, they'd say Clarke. No controversy there. Ask them to name their second on that list, and it's more probable that they'd cite Bernie Parent than Lindros or Mark Howe. They wouldn't be wrong.
Now, I believe that Lindros deserves consideration this Round. He deserved consideration last Round. But, a better option than Bernie Parent he ain't.
If nothing else, hopefully, I've taken the unconscionable ******** *****-***** that Bernie Parent's top-100 credentials are his two Peak seasons and little else with which we need to concern ourselves, and sent that steaming piece of ****-**** off to bed (without supper).