Even as a habs fan you had to marvel at his compete level , you gotta respect hextall but billy smith did it better longer and in the playoffs he kicked it up notches unseen.
I wouldnt want to stand in the blue in front of either of them, but forced to choose id take hextall. Hextall had the badass vibe about him, Billy smith was, at times, seemingly crazy.
Dude in '87 Hextall gave what was probably the best performance in HISTORY by a goaltender. The gritty, rough and tough Flyers almsot ended the Gretzky Oilers' dynasty.
Dude in '87 Hextall gave what was probably the best performance in HISTORY by a goaltender. The gritty, rough and tough Flyers almsot ended the Gretzky Oilers' dynasty.
Probaly the best ?. Seriously ? Roy says hi.
When the isles dynasty was going billy smith was there every year.yes the isles had tons of talent but smith did what you want play big in the playoffs, make the saves to keep you in games and your opponent out of it. He won the last one against the oil, going 13 and 3 and a gaa about two and a half and won a conn smythe.
Hextall was great, but a lot of goalies go hot for short amounts of time (js guigerre).
We're running out of character goalies in the NHL. Or maybe goalies who show their emotions on ice. I've seen Quick swing the lumber and Varlamov do that one knee first pump celebration. I'm hoping Petr Mrazek makes it to the NHL just so we can see him do crazy stuff. I like how Lundqvist though brings a new stylized version of goaltending to the NHL. Something a lil different.
Thanks for bumping. Man was he an awesome goalie.. thanks for reminding me of just how awesome he was. Gotta love a goalie who stcks up for himself and his teammates instead of just falling down and whining. Dude got **** done himself.
People tend to forget the Ron Hextall of the 80's. This guy didn't just have a dominant playoffs in '87 but was actually really good up until he started getting hurt all the time (groin). He was an acrobatic/athletic type of goalie for someone his size so you can see why his play started to deteriorate once he started having chronic groin problems.
Gretzky said "probably the best goaltender I've ever played against in the NHL" and that was around '88 that he said that. Last i checked Gretzky also played against Billy Smith.
He played back in the day when a player who was 6'3'' was an enforcer. Add in the fact that he used his goalie stick like a fly swatter and it is clear how he was so intimidating as an enforcer, yes i said enforcer. Hextall was amazing at times, but his career started too late. If he played in the early 80's he would have been a HOFer.
one thing is for sure, there will never be a goalie like him.
