Official Hockey discussion thread

I can't even remember who played well last year and who didn't. Howard was good, but there's the unspoken "did your team make the playoffs" criteria that probably screwed Vokoun. He's been simply fantastic.

Did we talk about Garth Snow being a dick to Evgeni Nabokov in here?
 
Howard played excellent, for a team that really suffered from injuries.  I would've pegged him for the Calder.

As for Snow, I would've let Nabokov go.  At least give him a chance.  Sure it might've been smart business-wise with the injuries to goalies the Isles have suffered, at some point you should concede and let it go.
 
Garth Snow is a dick period.
Lundqvist's biggest problem is basically every game being up to him to win it. With the Rangers impotent offense for the past 3 seasons, I think the pressure of every game coming down to his performance might start to be getting to him.

Lundqvist is no Hasek. Hasek is no Broduer. Brodouer is no Roy.  :P
The Isles have had 20+ years of the worse general managing in professional team sports' history. It's like every GM they have had has tried to see how bad they can make that team.
 
Do I have to bust out the statistics again?

Hasek was better than the competition to a degree unheard of in the sport.  Brodeur might make my top 10.  He likely would not.
 
Stats don't make champions. Look at Dan Marino. Poor guy had every passing record in NFL history, but he never won the big one.
Case in point, Mark Messier never put up any outsatnding numbers in his career, but I'd rather have him on my team than Gretzky. Yes, luck does play a small role in making champions, but I firmly believe that championship teams make their own luck.
 
Nigel Tufnel said:
Stats don't make champions. Look at Dan Marino. Poor guy had every passing record in NFL history, but he never won the big one.
Case in point, Mark Messier never put up any outsatnding numbers in his career, but I'd rather have him on my team than Gretzky. Yes, luck does play a small role in making champions, but I firmly believe that championship teams make their own luck.
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First of all, you're crazy.  Second of all, Messier is 2nd all-time in scoring.

Third of all, you say championship teams make their own luck.  Focus on the latter.  Teams win championships, not players.  There's a reason Messier didn't make the playoffs for the last seven years of his career, and it wasn't because he stopped being a "winner".  It's because he stopped playing on good teams.
 
He sure was, in the regular season. One of the great, certainly. Guaranteed Hall of Famer. Unparalleled Vezina domination. Vezina doesn't mean great. Dominance in the regular season doesn't mean great. Look at it over the same period the two men were active, 1993-2002, 9 seasons (excluding the 1992 season, where Hasek played one game, that would be unfair to add in there). This is during Hasek's dominance of the Vezina.

Patrick Roy: GAA: 2.19 S%: .921
Dominik Hasek: GAA: 2.00 S%: .928

It should be noted that Hasek played in approximately half the games Roy did, so Roy played more of his games later in the playoffs, when goal scoring is statistically higher as players get sloppier from the grind - and as you play against better teams. I think these are comparable numbers, when you consider that. And when you consider Roy went all the way three times in that period and Hasek went once (with a super duper team)...

And yeah, Moose was never the best in stats, he just played 24 solid seasons in the highest scoring period in NHL history. Helps for your points margin.

And finally, it comes down to your definition of great. If your definition is numbers? Hasek is probably going to win every time. I don't define greatness just by numbers. It's also accomplishments. It's also pizazz. It's hardware, and it's rings. Roy hangs close to Hasek with the numbers, equals him with pizazz, and blasts by him with rings and hardware (if you count the Conn Smythe as more than Vezinas...which I do). Hasek is close. Easily in the top 3. But he's not Roy.
 
I would never argue the fact that I am crazy. I am just saying, season by season, Messier never had an outstanding regular season, stats wise. He never led the league in points, goals or assisits. He did get 2 Hart trophies. You are right that no individual can win it on their own, but there are key players on any championship teams, that people know that team would never have won if they had'nt had that guy etc. There are certain intangible qualities that make those type of players stand above everyone else. Toewes had it last year. Crosby and Malkin had it the year before. Joe Thornton and Dany Heatley don't. I believe it is the will to win. The belief that you can overcome any obstacle that is put before you like the bad play a teammate makes, a soft goal that your goaltender gives up or a bullshit call by the ref.
Plus the regular season champions don't get their name on the Cup
 
LooseCannon said:
He sure was, in the regular season. One of the great, certainly. Guaranteed Hall of Famer. Unparalleled Vezina domination. Vezina doesn't mean great. Dominance in the regular season doesn't mean great. Look at it over the same period the two men were active, 1993-2002, 9 seasons (excluding the 1992 season, where Hasek played one game, that would be unfair to add in there). This is during Hasek's dominance of the Vezina.

Patrick Roy: GAA: 2.19 S%: .921
Dominik Hasek: GAA: 2.00 S%: .928

It should be noted that Hasek played in approximately half the games Roy did, so Roy played more of his games later in the playoffs, when goal scoring is statistically higher as players get sloppier from the grind - and as you play against better teams. I think these are comparable numbers, when you consider that. And when you consider Roy went all the way three times in that period and Hasek went once (with a super duper team)...

And yeah, Moose was never the best in stats, he just played 24 solid seasons in the highest scoring period in NHL history. Helps for your points margin.

And finally, it comes down to your definition of great. If your definition is numbers? Hasek is probably going to win every time. I don't define greatness just by numbers. It's also accomplishments. It's also pizazz. It's hardware, and it's rings. Roy hangs close to Hasek with the numbers, equals him with pizazz, and blasts by him with rings and hardware (if you count the Conn Smythe as more than Vezinas...which I do). Hasek is close. Easily in the top 3. But he's not Roy.
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To preface this, I'd like to see some sort of reference to this.  I've honestly never heard this before.  I thought that it was more typical to see less scoring later in the playoffs.  Interesting to see how gut reactions fair versus statistical analysis (which is basically what we're talking about).

Secondly, I'm sort of confused as to how you claim Roy is a better playoff goalie than Hasek when he let in more goals/100 shots on much superior teams.  Being a goalie is about stopping the puck.  Hasek did it better.  Roy had vastly superior goal support.  Is it any surprise that Mogilny and Zhitnik are a poor alternative to Sakic and Blake?

As to being "great", yes I do consider the numbers to be important.  In the most simplified metric, the best goalie is the one who is the best at stopping pucks, and there is no one who has done that better than Hasek.  Of course other things are important when taking measure of a player, but to me that's overwhelmingly the most critical element of a goalie.  Can he stop pucks better than the other guy? 

When you bring Stanley Cups into the argument, you're using an indicator of team success as an indicator of individual success.  When you're attempting to gauge individual performance, that's very misleading.  Hasek's individual performance was far better than Roy's in the regular season and better in the playoffs.  I don't see how the number of Stanley Cups he won can overcome this gulf.

Nigel Tufnel said:
I would never argue the fact that I am crazy. I am just saying, season by season, Messier never had an outstanding regular season, stats wise. He never led the league in points, goals or assisits. He did get 2 Hart trophies. You are right that no individual can win it on their own, but there are key players on any championship teams, that people know that team would never have won if they had'nt had that guy etc. There are certain intangible qualities that make those type of players stand above everyone else. Toewes had it last year. Crosby and Malkin had it the year before. Joe Thornton and Dany Heatley don't. I believe it is the will to win. The belief that you can overcome any obstacle that is put before you like the bad play a teammate makes, a soft goal that your goaltender gives up or a bullshit call by the ref.
Plus the regular season champions don't get their name on the Cup
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Thornton is an interesting case of a guy who's regular season and playoff performance are a study in contrast.  One could argue that it is psychological; maybe tougher defence factors into it. 

But if you're saying Messier had the "will to win" and that's why he won 5 Stanley Cups on stacked Oilers teams, and then ignoring the fact that for his last seven years he failed to make the playoffs is simply belying the importance of individual vs. team performance. 
 
Players that are the key guys on championship teams have the ability to make their whole team better. When Moose went to Vancouver he was 36 years old and in the twighlight of his career.
No one can argue the fact that when Patrick Roy got in the zone and put the forcefield up, there was no one better than him. Hasek was a great goaltender, but if it came down to having a big game goaltender with everything on the line, I would have Roy in net.
 
Nigel Tufnel said:
Players that are the key guys on championship teams have the ability to make their whole team better. When Moose went to Vancouver he was 36 years old and in the twighlight of his career.
No one can argue the fact that when Patrick Roy got in the zone and put the forcefield up, there was no one better than him. Hasek was a great goaltender, but if it came down to having a big game goaltender with everything on the line, I would have Roy in net.
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Unless he's facing Hasek...  :innocent:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsiUJQVIV94

I repeat:

GuineaPig said:
Game 7 Save %:
Hasek .946, Brodeur .928, Belfour .921, Roy .907, Cujo .900

Head-to-head record Game 7s:
Belfour .833, Hasek .667, Cujo .571, Brodeur .500, Roy .462
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Roy's stats aren't bad, especially considering the era in which he played.  But maybe this mythic "find a way to win" does not correspond to reality.  Roy's career playoff performance is great.  But he, like all goalies, relies on his team playing well also.  One shouldn't confuse anecdotes or small sample sizes with the larger picture.  Hasek's performance at the '98 Olympics is imo the greatest goaltending performance of all time, but that itself does not make him a great goalie, let alone the best one.
 
GuineaPig said:
The Rangers would win if they had a great goalie.  Lundqvist isn't a great goalie because he doesn't win.  :innocent:
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Doesn't win? He's only the only goalie in NHL history to win at least 30 games in his first 5 seasons and he already has 26 this season...

As for all the other crap I missed today:

Yes, Snow is a dick

We will NEVER agree on the hasek v roy debate, it's a matter of taste like choosing vanilla over chocolate at this point.

Messier won his last cup in edm on an OK team and without Gretzky and won on an relatively good team in NYR... again without Gretzky. But Gretzky NEVER won again without his precious Oilers.... I've said it many times and my rant is still in here somewhere.

How about them Pens pushing people to OT and managing at least a point with like 9 regulars out of the line-up?
 
Lundqvist aslo stood on his head in the 06 Torino games to help Sweeden win the gold.
Fleury has been the man in Pittsburg.
Patrick Roy is the only player to win the Conn Smythe 3 times and the only player to win it on 2 different teams.
 
Onhell said:
Doesn't win? He's only the only goalie in NHL history to win at least 30 games in his first 5 seasons and he already has 26 this season...
Click to expand...

I was being facetious.  Lundqvist is a very good goalie, and his best season came when his team didn't make the playoffs.  The focus on goaltender wins is silly, because it is more an indicator of the strength of the team than the strength of the goalie.  Did Brodeur all of a sudden stop being a "winner" at the start of this year, and then decide to be a "winner" at Christmas?  Or did his team start playing better as a whole?  When goaltenders like Roman Turek, Chris Osgood, Marc-Andre Fleury (although he's been quite good this year) and Patrick Lalime start racking up multiple 35 win seasons, you have to start asking yourself whether wins are the measure of a good goalie or a good team.
 
All I know is that Montreal is locking out Tampa Bay right now, fantastic hockey from every player on the team. Same sort of hockey they played last playoffs. This Montreal team could win the Cup. Too bad it only turns out 1 game out of every 2.
 
Nice to see the Black Hawks start to kick it into gear at the right time.  It looks like they may have solved their defensive problems that have plagued them all year.  Toews has been playing at a stellar level the past several weeks. 
 
They did make a great jump from 9th to 4th... hope they keep it strong. NY MASSACRED Philly 7-0... wow.
 
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