Your first NHL game and other prominent games you attended

[Huysmans]

Originally Posted by goldenage

Goaltenders don't win games. Good teams win games. Marty Broduer won lots of games making 20 saves a night. Would Marty have won all those games playing for the Buffalo Sabres facing 35 shots a night ?

Hasek wasn't given a chance when he first entered the league. Chicago had him as a backup to Ed Belfour and Buffalo even had Fuhr start ahead of him in a playoff series. Go check out Fuhr and Hasek's numbers in that series. It was a joke that they wouldn't give Hasek a fair shot. Go watch game 6 of the Chicago-Penguins series when Belfour was pulled and Hasek replaced him. It wasn't even close who the better goaltender was. Hasek stoned Lemeiux on two breakaways. Which was impossible back in that day.

There was a Canadian goaltender bias back in that day. Europeans were not given the same chance the way Canadians were. Same with coaching back in the day, and pretty much even up till now. Most coaches have to be Canadian or American to get a good coaching job, but the player side has got better over the years. Not knocking it, just saying what the data shows us.

Durnan never faced a curved stick, or a Bobby or Brett Hull slapshot.
Would love to see Durnan face an Ovie or Chara shot with a fiberglass stick. He'd be toast.

Tim Thomas was one of the greatest goaltenders all time. No one gave him a shot out of high school or college. He was always a back up. On team USA in the Olympics he backed up Ryan Miller. On the Bruins it was always him and Rask. BTW, Thomas and Rask are in the Top 5 save percentage all time, so yes, I do see them as two of the greatest ever.

Tim Thomas lifetime playoff and regular season save percentage numbers are considerably better than Patrick Roy's, and you're going to tell me that Patrick Roy was a better shot stopper than Tim Thomas ? No. Tim Thomas stopped the puck better than Patrick Roy.

Not sure if you ever looked at the 2001 playoff numbers for Thomas, but they aren't even human. He belonged in another league with Bobby Orr.

With all due respect, the majority of what you said is meaningless....

save percentage means absolutely nothing if your team loses games.
Nothing.
Your team loses, you go nowhere and win nothing.... but hey, what a great save percentage!

And "no one gave him (Thomas) a shot out of high school or college"
Is that how it's supposed to work? Everyone is given a shot??
Its a BUSINESS, EARN your spot, there's no handouts or free rides.

And your assumption regarding Bill Durnan is spurious to say the least, ridiculous at most.
With your logic, Bobby Orr wouldn't have been able to do anything and would be useless with an old, solid one-piece stick like players used in the earlier days, or Tim Thomas wouldn't be able to stop a single puck wearing much smaller and heavier antiquated goaltending equipment.