The Best Goalie of the Brodeur-Hasek-Roy Era
The “Best Goalie of the Brodeur-Hasek-Roy Era” debate is interesting. I’ve always felt very passionately about Roy, even though he’s a dick, because he won two Cups in Montreal before melting down against Detroit, demanding a trade, and going on to win two more Cups for the Nordiques West.
I've always felt that Brodeur, while no doubt an all-time great, just never felt to me like the greatest. I always believed that he benefited tremendously from the Devil's system, which pioneered boring-as-shit hockey, protected the cage and inflated Marty’s numbers. The Devils, I think we can agree, played much better defensively than either of the teams Hasek and Roy won Cups with.
And Hasek, as good as he was, was total fucking flopper who seemingly and impossibly managed to keep the puck out of the net in the most unconventional of styles.
So let's take emotion out of the equation and look at numbers, which are shared in this spreadsheet. I’ve pulled metrics from NHL.com, but added a few columns:
• Column K: Wins per games played
• Column L: Projected wins per 1,266 games (Brodeur's lifetime total)
• Column M: Losses per games played
• Column N: Losses + OT Losses per games played
• Column V: Goals per time on ice
I also really like Save Percentage (Column S) and, to a lesser extent, Goals Against Average (Column Q).
(I know that some of these additions are similar to the traditional stats, but they do give a different dimension to the numbers.)
Regular Season
I've added a couple of other goalies whose careers where nearly as long and prolific as the other three: Ed Belfour and Curtis Joseph, two goalies who both have more wins than Hasek. In fact, Hasek ranks 12th all-time, while the others rank 1-4 (Brodeur, Roy, Belfour, Joseph, in that order).
Curtis Joseph is out of the discussion right away, posting both the fewest wins per game and the most loses per game. And it's not even close. He also had the worst save percentage and GAA (tied with Eddie). In his defence, though, he did play for the Leafs. Oh well, that’s just too bad for him. Poor asshole.
Eddie Belfour is pretty much the same, finishing second worst in most offensive categories, including nose hairs (as Harry Doyle would say). But Eddie does beat Roy in lifetime GAA by .04 points, so he's got that going for him. He also has more shutouts than Roy and Joseph. Mostly, though, Belfour's presence in the conversation only serves to make Joseph look like a bigger pussy. Another point for the Eagle.
Ok, so we get down to the Big Three: Marty, King Patrick and The Dominator.
Judging by these numbers, I think we can safely say that Roy has the third best numbers. He leads in just one category, posting the fewest total losses (including those in OT) per game. (He seemingly never played before the advent of the point for the OT loss, so his numbers are the same in both columns L and M.) His goals per time on ice is also too high, posting the second worst number behind Joseph, which makes sense because his GAA is also 0.3 points worse than Brodeur's.
Brodeur has the best numbers in several categories, including games played, wins, wins per games played (obviously), and shutouts. Hasek dominates in categories such as fewest loses (by a long shot), fewest loses by games played (Brodeur is behind Roy here too), goals against, save percentage and goals per time on ice. Hasek also has six Vezinas and two Hart trophies, the latter of which were never won by either Roy or Brodeur.
More considerations for Hasek: He was drafted in '83, but only started playing regularly in the NHL in '92, missing out on some pretty good prime years. And he still had a 16-year NHL career. He actually projects to win 21 games less than Brodeur had they played the same number of games. (Roy projects to win just 13 games less than Brodeur, best of the bunch after Marty.)
So given the regular season, I'd have to go with the following:
How would Roy react to this? Probably with a simple, "I can't hear you, I've got four Stanley Cup rings in my hears."
Or, perhaps he would say, "Look at the playoff statistics, hidiot." So let's.
Playoffs
Here, it's a different story entirely. And if you're a #Habs fan, you're saying that the only column that matters in the spreadsheet is the last, Cups. And perhaps he'd be right. Judging simply by green and red cells on the spreadsheet, Roy is king and Joseph isn't worth talking about. So let's not.
Roy's ranks first in the following categories: games played, wins, wins per game played (duh), fewest losses per games played (even more impressive when you factor in his number of playoff games), time on ice and Cups.
What really stands out, though, is just how many more games Roy played in the playoffs versus all of these other guys – a whopping 42 more playoff games than the next closest on the list. And even with 42 more games under his belt, he still leads in fewest losses per games played AND most wins per games played. And even if you project wins for 247 games played (Roy's total) for the others, Brodeur would project to win 15 less games than Roy, while Hasek would win 16 less games. That's domination. (Sorry, Dominator.)
It's not like Brodeur and Hasek's numbers are bad, quite the opposite. They're tied for best GAA and Hasek has, by far, the best save percentage of the bunch. Brodeur has the most shutouts (one more than Roy), and the best goals per time on ice (tied with Hasek too). Hasek played 128 playoff games less than Roy, probably an indication of the shitty teams he played on for years. Brodeur, Hasek and Belfour all project to win just about an equal number of games had they played the same number of playoffs games as Roy. Thing is, they all come 15 to 16 wins short of King Patrick. And that’s a full run to winning the Stanley Cup.
Any way you slice it, Roy's playoff achievements are out of this world. So, given this, I'd have to go with the following for playoff performance:
And the division between Brodeur and Hasek is just a hair thin.
Conclusion
While initially, I was going to give this title to Hasek given his regular season stats, you've just got to weight the dominance of Roy's playoff numbers in his favour. Once you get into the playoffs, it's pretty clear that Roy was going to give you the best chance to win Cups. And, when you look at it from the perspective of loses, Roy was also going to give his team the best chance not to lose – and by a wide fucking margin.
Brodeur? Dunno. I'd still rank him third of the three. So who's #1? With apologies to both Sabres fans out there, I'd have to go with Roy. The margin by all career numbers might be thin, but given his playoff history, I truly believe he gets the edge. Along with the parades.
And isn’t that what it should come down to?
The Best Goalie of the Brodeur-Hasek-Roy Era
