All Time: Top 5 Goaltenders ever

[Polaris922]

And how do you factor in the Devils playing the trap in front of Brodeur all that time? I'm not saying he's not great, but that moved him down my list. How great would any number of other goaltenders been if they'd had that boring ass system in front of them? I put him at number three ... he's still great, but his numbers benefitted from it.

[ruxpin]

You're all wrong. The best goalie in the universe is, was, and always shall be Bryzgalov.

(he's 6'3" if you're wondering)

[ruxpin]

I've always favored an approach which attempts to answer big questions like "Who are your top 5 goalies ever?" by breaking it down into a number of smaller questions.

Who had the best career value?

Who had the best peak value?

Who had the best collection of prime years?

Who had the best playoff runs?

I think this is fair. But what happens when each question brings a different answer? Aren't you then back to weighing one category over another and reducing it, again, to personal weight of importance?

[JR Ewing]

I think this is fair. But what happens when each question brings a different answer? Aren't you then back to weighing one category over another and reducing it, again, to personal weight of importance?

So long as we choose one answer to each of the questions, we run into this problem. If we arrive at relative rankings for each question, we have a way of sorting through issues like the one you raise. It doesn't even have to be complex. You could ask

1. Which goalie had the best career numbers?

answer: A, B, C, D & E

A gets 5 points, B gets 4, C gets 3... You get the idea.

You move on to the next question, do the same thing and move on to the next until you've asked all of the relevant questions which come to mind. The guy with the most points in the aggregate is probably your best guy, and so on. It allows you to wrangle topics like this without too much fuss.

Or, another different way could be the way I always do things like Hall of Fame topics: a Keltner List re-done for hockey and, in this case, specifically for goaltending:

1. Was he ever regarded as the best player in hockey while he played?

2. Was he ever regarded as the best goalie while he played?

3. Did he have an impact on a number of playoff runs?

4. Was he good enough to play a lot after he passed his prime?

And so on. You can gather a set of players you feel are qualified to belong in a topic like this, and ask those questions and more, and you'll probably do a really fair job of coming up with solid answers.

JR

[ruxpin]

1. Which goalie had the best career numbers?

answer: A, B, C, D & E

A gets 5 points, B gets 4, C gets 3... You get the idea.

Yeah, kind of thought about this after I posted. Thanks for being so patient explaining the painfully obvious.

(Good system, by the way)

[J0e Th0rnton]

And how do you factor in the Devils playing the trap in front of Brodeur all that time? I'm not saying he's not great, but that moved him down my list. How great would any number of other goaltenders been if they'd had that boring ass system in front of them? I put him at number three ... he's still great, but his numbers benefitted from it.

I tend to agree, although Hasek's year in buffalo were behind a trap system as well

[J0e Th0rnton]

I think that consistency over a long time is A yardstick, but not necessarily THE yardstick. When it comes to something like "who are the 5 best goalies ever?", I think the best approach is one which looks at the question from as many angles as possible.

We could ask people which of two men is bigger. One person could say that man #1 is bigger because he's taller. Another person could say that #2 is bigger because he's heavier. Yet another person could point back at man #1 and say that he's biggest because he's wider around the middle (AKA fat). You could give any of those answers, and with respect to which aspect you're speaking of, you'd be correct. The problem, of course, is that you could be incorrect about the others. For my part, I've always favored an approach which attempts to answer big questions like "Who are your top 5 goalies ever?" by breaking it down into a number of smaller questions.

Who had the best career value?

Who had the best peak value?

Who had the best collection of prime years?

Who had the best playoff runs?

And so on and so on. There's a lot of questions we could ask, and the more questions we ask which are relevant, the closer we get to a better answer. Asking one of them only gets us one step closer to the answer, imho.

JR

Agreed, although I rate players by their peak and Prime quite a bit more heavily than I do their career.

For Example, Mike Gartner was a very good player for a log time. Like 20 years. However, in No year that he played was he among the top 10 players in the NHL. Alex Ovechkin could retire tomorrow and I would consider him a better player easily with his 8 years vs Gartner's 20.

However if you were exceptional for a long time, like Joe Sakic for example. I consider him above both, and do not think twice about it

[JR Ewing]

Agreed, although I rate players by their peak and Prime quite a bit more heavily than I do their career.

For Example, Mike Gartner was a very good player for a log time. Like 20 years. However, in No year that he played was he among the top 10 players in the NHL. Alex Ovechkin could retire tomorrow and I would consider him a better player easily with his 8 years vs Gartner's 20.

However if you were exceptional for a long time, like Joe Sakic for example. I consider him above both, and do not think twice about it

You've known me long enough to figure I'm not opposed to this at all. The first ten years are what makes a player's real HOF case. The rest of his caeer are just padding the numbers.

JR

[J0e Th0rnton]

Not with Sakic or Bourque:)

He was a bit of a freak tho

[goalnut3133]

The game has changed, and certainly so has the equipment.

Yes, this is really an understatement. Hard to compare the skills of the new G's compared to the days of old... :unsure:

[J0e Th0rnton]

Yes, this is really an understatement. Hard to compare the skills of the new G's compared to the days of old... :unsure:

at best, when the era is that big of a gap, all you can do is read old news articles and compare them relative to how they did to their peers and how the news portrayed them

[jammer2]

@J0e Th0rnton I have Leafs tv, they show a bunch of old games, so I form a lot of theories about older players through watching the replays. They show a lot of playoff games also, so that's a plus.

[J0e Th0rnton]

@J0e Th0rnton I have Leafs tv, they show a bunch of old games, so I form a lot of theories about older players through watching the replays. They show a lot of playoff games also, so that's a plus.

yeah, I have been a big fan of old time games. i watch every one can get my hands on

[hf101]

I'm sorry, but the following can NOT be on the list of great goaltenders:

Grant Fuhr

Bernie Parent

Terry Sawchuck

Glenn Hall

The new folks will not understand this (trust me, it's not worth explaining) but the rest will understand that the above goalies were not even six feet tall.

Jacques Plante was only 6'0" and is therefore suspect as well.

lmfao

I also can't figure out why Miller isn't at the top of this list?

[J0e Th0rnton]

Since I work today, ill entertain in other ways

[yave1964]

I disagree, but that's fine. I just always have a hard time getting over:

a] Dryden himself said that his function wasn't so much to win as not to lose. ****ling point, for sure., and the most minor of my three here.

b] The Habs continued to have an excellent record after Dryden left, even though the goaltending duties fell to Bunny Larocque and Denis Herron. The bigger issue, imo, is that the Islanders entered their start of their dynasty.

c] Competitive balance was so screwed up in the 1970s (thanks to expansion but also the league handing the reigns to Sam Pollock, who created rules to benefit the Habs more than anybody else) that it's not always easy to know how to look at some of the players.

JR

LOVE the book the Game. Reread it at least once a year, one of the two or three best Hockey books ever.

I get your argument about Dryden playing not to lose the game, but there are good team goalies and bad team goalies. Dryden was the greatest of the great when it came to playing not to lose for a great team. He understood his role and defined it.

Conversely Dryden's argument about bad team goalies, love it. Players who need to play out of their mind to steal games for their team, but give up the odd softies as well. I have a very good friend who is a Dallas Star fan and I use this argument on Kari Lehtonen, that he is the definition of a bad teams goalie, he swears that Lehtonen deserves elite status because of the team that he plays for and the fact that he keeps his team in a lot of games that they are outplayed. I point out Lehtonen has a wretched record in games that matter, when they absolutely need a victory to make the playoffs he falls apart. We go round and round and my premise is based on Dryden's book.

[jammer2]

@yave1964 I'm just starting to read Probert's book "tough guy, my life on the edge" seems very cool, but I'm only on the first few chapters.

[JR Ewing]

LOVE the book the Game. Reread it at least once a year, one of the two or three best Hockey books ever.

I get your argument about Dryden playing not to lose the game, but there are good team goalies and bad team goalies. Dryden was the greatest of the great when it came to playing not to lose for a great team. He understood his role and defined it.

Conversely Dryden's argument about bad team goalies, love it. Players who need to play out of their mind to steal games for their team, but give up the odd softies as well. I have a very good friend who is a Dallas Star fan and I use this argument on Kari Lehtonen, that he is the definition of a bad teams goalie, he swears that Lehtonen deserves elite status because of the team that he plays for and the fact that he keeps his team in a lot of games that they are outplayed. I point out Lehtonen has a wretched record in games that matter, when they absolutely need a victory to make the playoffs he falls apart. We go round and round and my premise is based on Dryden's book.

Great book, though it's been over 20 years since I've read it... Guess it's time to do that again.

JR

[nossagog]

Always a hard topic as many of us did not see someone like Sawchuk play in person. For that reason, I can't truely put them in the top two, and will bias towards players I've actually seen.

1. Roy

2. Hasek

3. Sawchuck

4. Dryden

5. Brodeur

Having lived in Rochester for quite some time, I got to see alot of Hasek with the Sabres. He doesn't get the love'n he should. Technically, he was not the greatest of goalies. But I swear he could read minds. And but for a bad non call in the dreaded "Toe in the Crease" days, he may have single handedly brought a cup to an mediocre Buffalo Sabres team.

I also tend to discount Brodeur a little, because for many years the dreaded Devil's trap I believe inflated his numbers.

Edited July 19, 2013 by nossagog

[flyercanuck]

@nossagog

While the trap certainly didn't hinder Brodeur, he's proven his worth over the last...decade on some mediocre Devils teams.

[J0e Th0rnton]

@nossagog

While the trap certainly didn't hinder Brodeur, he's proven his worth over the last...decade on some mediocre Devils teams.

Oh defnitely. But it certainly inflated the look of his win/Loss ratio and GAA/Shutouts compared to other better goalies.

[nossagog]

@nossagog

While the trap certainly didn't hinder Brodeur, he's proven his worth over the last...decade on some mediocre Devils teams.

Sure, but at its peak, the trap certainly helped he GAA tremendously. There were games where the Dev's got an early lead, and that was it, they simply clogged the neutral zone and dumped the puck long. Those types of numbers were certainly skewed in his favor.

[jammer2]

@nossagog I kind of view Brodeur and Dryden in the same light, they had a jaw dropping skill set, elite tenders who just happend to belong to defesnive minded teams. I was always amazed at how often Dryden stopped clear break aways, he was on his own then, no Big 3 of Lapointe, Savard and Robinson (and in later years Langway was even added, sick...) to save him, just him and the shooter....and he won a lot of the time. Sure, the defensive minded forwards like Charbonneau etc might have made life easier on them, but I have no doubt that either Ken or Marty would be in top 5 regardless of which teams they played for....they were just that good.

[J0e Th0rnton]

@nossagog I kind of view Brodeur and Dryden in the same light, they had a jaw dropping skill set, elite tenders who just happend to belong to defesnive minded teams. I was always amazed at how often Dryden stopped clear break aways, he was on his own then, no Big 3 of Lapointe, Savard and Robinson (and in later years Langway was even added, sick...) to save him, just him and the shooter....and he won a lot of the time. Sure, the defensive minded forwards like Charbonneau etc might have made life easier on them, but I have no doubt that either Ken or Marty would be in top 5 regardless of which teams they played for....they were just that good.

oh Definitely, but like we said, it is more for the people who merely look at stats and GAA and win/loss records that we apply that philosophy to Brodeur.

Some people equate stats with wins. Ed belfour has more wins and a better GAA than terry Sawchuk, but I have never seen a list that rates him higher. Same if you look at Curtis joseph vs Billy Smith.

The point is merely that his wins and GAA don't necessarily make him better than Roy/Hasek. I know I rank him below them

[jammer2]

When Ken Dryden played, not many goalies were 6'5. He just seemed to cover so much net, even in the crouch. I think Dryden played angles better than anyone else. He was a virtuoso at that skill. Never really hear a lot about Ken's older brother Dave Dryden, who played for the Sabres among other teams. In fact, I'd say it's the least known set of brothers where one of the brothers was a star. Who can forget this famous sight, huh?