NHL Thread

[Spanky99]

What a scrap by Middleton and Englund... haymakers by 2 big dudes!

[Krylian]

6 games for Wilson

[Spanky99]

6 games for Wilson

 

Figured as much, it was more reactionary than malicious, but he has a long history.

[Spanky99]

Leafs are clowning on the Oilers.

[Spanky99]

Sammy hurt, FML...

 

Keefe says it looked worse than it is, good news I guess.

Edited March 24, 2024 by Spanky99

[Brownie19]

Is Dom Hasek the best goalie of all-time?

[Krylian]

Is Dom Hasek the best goalie of all-time?

 

There's certainly a case to be made. In my lifetime I've never seen a more dominant goalie. Such a shame he did it in Buffalo. Imagine what he could've accomplished on a good team.

[Pendleton]

Is Dom Hasek the best goalie of all-time?

 

I don't think a goalie has had a superior peak. He was a top 3 player (not just goalie) in the sport for a span stretching several years, I don't think another goalie has really done that. There are guys like Roy, Brodeur etc who accumulated enough personal and team accolades to make a conversation for best career, but they were never making an argument for best hockey player on planet earth.

[Laika]

I love how the defining characteristic of Hasek is just that he tried harder than any other goalie, ever.

Like, he just flopped around on the goal line to an extent that skaters did not expect. Or would rush at them on breakaways and take out their legs lmao.

 

 

Did he do anything from a technical perspective that other goalies weren't doing yet? I don't really think so. He was just good and then also tried extremely hard. I guess he had the flexibility and reaction time to do it. Probably had some form of athleticism that other goalies have never had.

 

Tim Thomas was a lot like him in this respect. Thomas' peak was just so tiny because he debuted at like 33 haha.

[Spanky99]

Jiri Chra is the best goalie of all time...

[Laika]

Jiri Chra is the best goalie of all time...

 

he is from Pardubice, I was there in 2008 for the WJ

[Jimcanuck]

Is Dom Hasek the best goalie of all-time?

 

Impossible to answer. An argument can be made for like 10 different goalies, from Vezina himself, to Sawchuk, to Plante, Dryden, Tretiak, Brodeur, Roy, Hasek.

 

Hasek made acrobatic saves, but he wasn't close to being as technically pure as Plante or Roy, who made tough saves look easy.

[Laika]

Impossible to answer. An argument can be made for like 10 different goalies, from Vezina himself, to Sawchuk, to Plante, Dryden, Tretiak, Brodeur, Roy, Hasek.

 

Hasek made acrobatic saves, but he wasn't close to being as technically pure as Plante or Roy, who made tough saves look easy.

 

You can compare some of them

 

Hasek vs. Roy and Brodeur is pretty easy because they overlap so much.

 

Roy and Brodeur never had a SV% over .930 while Hasek did it five times. Only arguments for Roy/Brodeur are counting stats due to Hasek's late debut.

[Krylian]

What a gross defensive display

[Pendleton]

You can compare some of them

 

Hasek vs. Roy and Brodeur is pretty easy because they overlap so much.

 

Roy and Brodeur never had a SV% over .930 while Hasek did it five times. Only arguments for Roy/Brodeur are counting stats due to Hasek's late debut.

 

That span in the late 90s, no goalie has ever been better. Included in that was the '98 Nagano Olympics, best on best competition and Hasek basically won the gold single handedly. Six games isn't a huge sample but a 0.97 and .967 is just ridiculous on that stage, no one had a stronger argument for best player on earth at that time.

[Brownie19]

I love how the defining characteristic of Hasek is just that he tried harder than any other goalie, ever.

Like, he just flopped around on the goal line to an extent that skaters did not expect. Or would rush at them on breakaways and take out their legs lmao.

 

 

Did he do anything from a technical perspective that other goalies weren't doing yet? I don't really think so. He was just good and then also tried extremely hard. I guess he had the flexibility and reaction time to do it. Probably had some form of athleticism that other goalies have never had.

 

Tim Thomas was a lot like him in this respect. Thomas' peak was just so tiny because he debuted at like 33 haha.

 

What's crazy is that Hasek didn't become a starting goalie until he was 29 years old and played until he was 43, finishing his career with a SV% of 0.922 (0.010-0.012 higher than Roy and Brodeur). Dom was posting SV% between 0.920 and 0.937 at the same time that Roy was between 0.894 and 0.923 (typically in the 0.910 range). IMO, Brodeur was a product of their defensive system. Interesting debate. For me, it's Dom by a landslide. I think if Dom is in America and starting in his early 20's like Roy/Brodeur were, it's not contest.

[Laika]

What's crazy is that Hasek didn't become a starting goalie until he was 29 years old and played until he was 43, finishing his career with a SV% of 0.922 (0.010-0.012 higher than Roy and Brodeur). Dom was posting SV% between 0.920 and 0.937 at the same time that Roy was between 0.894 and 0.923 (typically in the 0.910 range). IMO, Brodeur was a product of their defensive system. Interesting debate. For me, it's Dom by a landslide. I think if Dom is in America and starting in his early 20's like Roy/Brodeur were, it's not contest.

 

Yeah it's not close for me, either.

 

But Roy and Brodeur were on better teams so they also have that additional hardware, playoff exposure, and smell of winning. Some people really value that.

[Jimcanuck]

Jacques Plante has two of the three highest save percentage in a season. Hasek has spots 6 and 24.

[Jimcanuck]

https://records.nhl.com/records/goaltender-records/save-percentage-players-who-debuted-in-1955-56-or-later/highest-save-percentage-season

[Laika]

Found some cool info when searching for era-adjusted save%. Some dude on hfboards did it for goalies. Here is the top 10, career:

 

Player Min SA Saves Sv%

Ken Dryden* 24,105 11,301 10,559

93.4%​

Dominik Hasek* 44,465 22,090 20,434

92.5%​

Tony Esposito* 54,387 27,782 25,613

92.2%​

Patrick Roy* 62,369 30,475 28,036

92.0%​

Bernie Parent* 37,214 18,100 16,650

92.0%​

Johnny Bower* 31,983 16,202 14,885

91.9%​

Billy Smith* 39,460 19,617 17,988

91.7%​

Glenn Resch 33,023 16,442 15,066

91.6%​

Jacques Plante* 51,842 24,846 22,758

91.6%​

Tim Thomas 24,448 13,037 11,932

91.5%​

 

Martin Brodeur is actually way down the list. At like rank 35, with 91.0%​ adjusted career save%.

 

Patrick Roy jumps up A LOT because the league average sv% in the late 80s was like 88%, and his at the time was about 90% on average. Shows the importance of era-adjusting this stat.

 

Also interesting, the same poster did adjusted sv% for playoff performances. This added some really interesting perspective on Roy:

 

Patrick Roy is tied for the second highest career save percentage out of any goalie who faced at least 1,000 shots (Roy faced more shots than the other top five goalies combined). He's also faced 33% more shots than the next closest goalie (Brodeur). No goalie during the past thirty years has surpassed (or even approached) Roy's combination of an extremely high level of performance, and longevity.

...

As I said in the previous post, there is little doubt that Roy is the greatest playoff goalie of the past three decades. He has three of the top seven performances, and five of the top thirty-three. He performed at an exceptionally high level on five different occasions where his team made the Stanley Cup finals, and he was a major reason why they were victorious four times.

 

https://forums.hfboards.com/threads/adjusted-save-percentage-regular-season-1956-2022.2510213/

 

https://forums.hfboards.com/threads/goalies-adjusted-playoff-save-percentage-1984-2022.1185967/

[BTS]

Hasek is the only goalie I've ever seen that felt next to impossible to beat. I don't know what fancy stats say, but my perception is that he's the most dominant player I've seen in 30+ years watching hockey. I have no idea how that compares to Dryden/Brodeur/Roy.

[Jimcanuck]

I was reading that save percentage in hockey is like ERA in baseball.

 

Cannot find any xSvPct stats going back to Haseks time.

[Jimcanuck]

For example I expect Dryden gained significant benefit from having perhaps the best 6 man defense corps ever assembled.

[Laika]

I was reading that save percentage in hockey is like ERA in baseball.

 

Cannot find any xSvPct stats going back to Haseks time.

 

Yeah it's a lot like ERA.

 

Easy to adjust for era. Hard to adjust for team quality.

[Laika]

Hasek is the only goalie I've ever seen that felt next to impossible to beat. I don't know what fancy stats say, but my perception is that he's the most dominant player I've seen in 30+ years watching hockey. I have no idea how that compares to Dryden/Brodeur/Roy.

 

The fancy stats probably agree. But, the fancy stats also give Patrick Roy a huge boost.

 

Upon further investigation Hasek and Roy are pretty close. Roy's peak was about as dominant as Hasek's peak, it's just harder to see because league-wide save% rose so much in the late 80s, early 90s. So Roy was dominating on a league-relative basis with a .912 sv%, while Hasek did it with .930s a half decade later.

 

Roy lead the league in save% four times in five years, vs. Hasek's six straight. Kind of cool that Roy more or less passed the torch to Hasek as their peaks almost touch.

 

But Roy also tacked dominant playoff performances on top of that. That matters a lot.

 

I also love Ed Belfour showing up as the league sv% leader in both 91 and 2000. At ages 25 and 34.

[Jimcanuck]

The fancy stats probably agree. But, the fancy stats also give Patrick Roy a huge boost.

 

Upon further investigation Hasek and Roy are pretty close. Roy's peak was about as dominant as Hasek's peak, it's just harder to see because league-wide save% rose so much in the late 80s, early 90s. So Roy was dominating on a league-relative basis with a .912 sv%, while Hasek did it with .930s a half decade later.

 

Roy lead the league in save% four times in five years, vs. Hasek's six straight. Kind of cool that Roy more or less passed the torch to Hasek as their peaks almost touch.

 

But Roy also tacked dominant playoff performances on top of that. That matters a lot.

 

I also love Ed Belfour showing up as the league sv% leader in both 91 and 2000. At ages 25 and 34.

 

If Roy the best in his era, and Hasek the best in his, then going back, probably Plante best in his, maybe Dryden in the 70's but a case can be made for others of that time like Espo who like Hasek was the best player on his team

[Laika]

If Roy the best in his era, and Hasek the best in his, then going back, probably Plante best in his, maybe Dryden in the 70's but a case can be made for others of that time like Espo who like Hasek was the best player on his team

 

It almost becomes archeological when you go back to some of these guys. Smaller league, smaller equipment, different styles... how much do you correct a goalie's stats because they played for some dominant dynasty their entire career, like Dryden and Bower...

 

In my head, it basically was not even the same sport until after the league started expanding.

 

So, the Maple Leafs have never won the league. In my head. They won some like, winter field hockey trophies decades ago in the proto-NHL.

[Pendleton]

For example I expect Dryden gained significant benefit from having perhaps the best 6 man defense corps ever assembled.

 

Brodeur as well, spent a large portion of his career almost always having one of their two HoF defensemen on the ice.

[Jimcanuck]

It's between Plante, Roy, and Hasek for me. But as I said earlier, impossible to answer. How does one compare Plante with Hasek?

[Spanky99]

You know who looked like was going to be a dominant tendy, Pelle Lindbergh. Till he got wasted and drove into a wall. Sad, really.