I wouldn't say it was that; rather that the GM's largely valued wins over every other stat when it came to ranking goalie performance.
i think if that were the reason, other seasons would have very different vezina results. theodore would not have won, turco would not have been 2nd in '03, and kiprusoff and luongo would not have been finalists in '04.
'01
hasek: 3rd in wins; 3rd in sv% (among starters)
cechmanek: 8th in wins; 4th in sv%
brodeur: 1st in wins; 16th in sv%
nabokov: 11th in wins; 9th in sv%
roy: 2nd in wins; 11th in sv%
burke: 14th in wins; 2nd in sv%
'02
theodore: 14th in wins; 1st in sv%
roy: 8th in wins; 2nd in sv%
burke: 6th in wins; 4th in sv%. (cechmanek, 3rd in sv%, played only 46 games.)
nabokov: 3rd in wins, 7th in sv%
brodeur: 2nd in wins
hasek: 1st in wins; 8th in sv%
'03
brodeur: 1st in wins; 13th in sv%
turco: 10th in wins; 1st in sv% (55 games)
belfour: 3rd in wins; 4th in sv%
roy: 4th in wins; 5th in sv%
lalime: 2nd in wins
roloson: 17th in wins; 2nd in sv% (50 games)
'04
brodeur: 1st in wins; 11th in sv%
kiprusoff: 16th in wins; 1st in sv% (only 38 games)
luongo: 14th in wins; 3rd in sv%
turco: 2nd in wins; 15th in sv%
raycroft: 10th in wins; 4th in sv%
nabokov: 8th in wins; 6th in sv%
'06
kiprusoff: 2nd in wins; 2nd in sv%
brodeur: 1st in wins; 10th in sv%
lundqvist: 11th in wins; 3rd in sv%
vokoun: 6th in wins; 4th in sv%
legace: 5th in wins; 6th in sv%
turco: 3rd in wins
hasek: 18th in wins; 1st in sv% (only 43 games)
there must be some GMs who weigh wins heavily, but sv% looks like a better predictor.
big outlier is brodeur, but he had already won 2 cups, which is huge for a goalie's reputation, and been a vezina finalist several other times. accumulation of reputation seems to be important to voters for vezina, norris and selke.