28 Comments

Did he bang your wife or something god damn

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Really?? Ken Dryden is an all time great, but you would be “one of those” that would state his success because of being on great teams. He was great, as is Fleury!!! As a goaltender myself, his movement was exceptional, including when with the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles. He WAS the draw!!!!

It would be interesting to see you stay categories with stars like Tony O or Cheevers, or Plante and Parent (or many others).

It seems like you have it in for the best teammate of all time, not to mention HOF goalie.

Go back to your desk job...

Did you ever play goal for at least a Jr.A or college team??

I thought not...

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Dryden has 5 Vezinas, a Calder, 6 Cups as a starter, and a Conn Smythe

Esposito has 3 Vezinas and a Calder

Plante has 7 Vezinas, 6 Cups as a starter, and a Hart

Parent has 2 Vezinas, 2 Cups as a starter, and 2 Conn Smythes

Fleury has 1 Cup as a starter. that's it. he was top 5 in vezina voting twice.

No comparison, and this post is a perfect example of the insane blind spot people have for the guy because he's a nice fella who played for some great teams. We're talking about the Hall of Fame, whether his movement was great in junior and sold tickets doesn't really matter to me. If you were never the best even in one year, you're not one of the best ever.

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Look at the teams in front of them. Plante won 5 cups with Monteal the best team at the time. same for Dryden . Both great goalies and Parent had the Broad Street Bullies in front of him. Fleury started in Pittsburg at 18 and they had a terrible team. Crosby and crew came later. Hockey is a team sport and the team can make or break a goalie. Many goalies played on bad teams but were great goalies example Gump Worsley.

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author

Read the post again. Please. Those goalies did have great teams in front of them, but still won many individual awards for being the best at their position. If Fleury had 3 Vezinas behind the Penguins, it would be one thing. But he was (rightly) considered average or just a bit above average for most of his time with the Penguins, and awful in the playoffs for half a decade.

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Jun 22, 2023·edited Jun 22, 2023

You are aware that the Vezina was not an individual award before 1981, right?

If anything, the Vezinas (i.e., Jenningses) won by the other goalies simply goes to show how dominant the teams they were playing for were, as the vast majority of the time the player(s) that win the Jennings do not win the Vezina.

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I am sure you have been told what to do with that trophy before but besides your fabulous statistics charts you have provided, Fleury came to a town that had no professional sports per say and along with him and several others enlightened a community that suffered a major loss and united them into a robust fan base that are not fair weather fans and show up win or lose. So don't care if they lose, he still leads a team that can get thru this and continues to bond with this small town of over 2 million. So again take your trophy and......

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Goalies, like all players have ups and downs. Goalie is a position that shows those ups and downs as a game and season wear on. Just look at the flame out of Tristan Jarry in the playoffs this year. Buried in that story is the fact that the Penguins top 6 only scored a handful of times but no one seems to be putting much blame on Crosby or Malkin. The Islanders have used two goalies in the playoffs. On any given night either of them can look like world beaters or sieves. The best rule of goaltending is when you've got a hot one strap the saddle on him and ride him until he dies because it might never happen again. Case in point, nearly every goaltender discussed below.

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And looks like now he’s going too win the Vezina this season. This article didn’t age too well for you did it? Moron

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After almost 2 decades of being mostly mediocre, has it?

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Hes a total jealous sociopath

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"Muh Fleury" isn't an argument that holds too much water against stats and mathematical equations

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Would actually like to see Lundqvist's stats...how do you gather all that information??

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Would love to see a similar analysis on Price.

He obviously had a really strong year in 2014, but apart from that, it always felt that he was never able to back-up his "best goalie in the world" narrative.

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He still has a first class ticket to the hall fo fame. Regardless of all those number he still got wins. You think the coaches cared how? He did enough to get the job done and did that a lot

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This did not age well lol. Won a vezina with HIGH stats. Got dished to Chicago and even on a god awful team makes amazing saves and keeps them in games. #HOF

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This article is the biggest piece of crap I think I have ever read. You should be embarrassed of this. Just looking to get some attention any way you can I suppose.

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Plain truth and facts buddy. Good goalie but should never be mentioned as a goat or elite. Guy should be thanking his teammates every day for his success.

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This is a ridic article cuz for #1 im pretty sure he leads this season for expected goals saved .but the biggest reason is get over shit ! There's a HELLUVA LOT of people that have won individual awards that I'd pay if I were a gm to get off my team that won trophys that don't deserve them or shouldve never received them .or hell are just head scratchers. Guys that are snubbed .so you can take those awards and shove them quite honestly .I could give you a large list of Norris trophy winners that are terrible and overrated and some selke winners that won cuz of their name NOT the years stats .so BIG EFFIN DEAL .he by far deserves that trophy this yr .Lalalala ..Price was good maybe a couple yrs .so overrated .theres def more .

Did you ever get past 8th grade hockey ?

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I love how you completely focused on a trash narrative about "how many unworthy trophies" missing the point of this article, which is that he's statistically never been the best (up until 20-21 I guess) and for the majority of his seasons have been mediocre or trash behind teams that are very competitive for both Pittsburgh and Las Vegas. Worse, you then ignored the guy has been to like 16 post seasons and has only ever been good in like 4 of them and for half of the 2010s he was clearly holding the penguins back. Guy has been so awful in playoffs the he has been benched multiple times in his career for Vokoun, Murray, and Lehner. Btw, the fact that NHL execs. never considered worthy of a Vezina up until 2021 kinda proves he's overrated to hell and back.

PS: He just choked a series away again and got benched for Lehner in an elimination game

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Hard to top (or bottom) Tim Thomas or Crawford as being more overrated. I.have long raised the argument that since 1980, the best goalies in the league have been the Cup winners.

If you look at that list, maybe 2 or 3 would be your first overall pick in a fantasy league. Roy? Quick? Hasek & Belfour won long past their primes. And don't even mention the Maytag repairman of goalies in NJ, the king of the 6 save shutout, who never won playoff MVP (even his losing opponent did) because a crate of eggs on a chair wouldn't have even had a shell broken in that crease.

Osgood? Ward? Vernon? Regular season Billy Smith?

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Thomas had arguably the greatest goaltending season in NHL history in 2011 and another Vezina on top of that. Crawford actually was a very good starter right up until he retired.

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Thomas, like Niemi, was SO valuable to their Cup winning teams that there was zero interest in bringing them back. Thomas usually wound up flat on his back in the corner on most goals he gave up and Crawford gave up some of the worst goals I have ever seen in over 50 years of watching the NHL. He looked like a bear flailing around on slippery rocks trying to snare a fish most of the time, waving as they passed by. I could only have imagined his performance this year had he played for NJ - they would have had to replace the red light after every game.

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I don't know what to tell you, Thomas literally won the Conn Smythe and Vezina that year so yeah I'm gonna say he was valuable. And Crawford's results behind a horrible Chicago defence in recent years (especially 2019-20) were excellent.

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Among players (including some ex-NHLers) I have played with over the years, both of these guys are laughingstocks. One NJ fan I know cringed when he heard Crawford had signed this year and was ecstatic when he heard he retired.

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Wow, if there's one guy I trust to know a lot about the recent performance of a Blackhawks goalie it's a Devils fan

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Crawford's "performances' were on full display many times as the Hawks playoff games were on, as well as their regular appearances for years as NBCSN darlings.....seeing him flopping around waving as floaters waffled by him and bad-angle shots stumped him were pretty common occurrences. For all fans, not just the few hundred NJ fans.

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Should read have NOT been the Cup winner.

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