1. Henrik Lundqvist
2. Roberto Luongo
3. Martin Brodeur
4. Miikka Kiprusoff
5. Ryan Miller
6. Tomas Vokoun
7. Cam Ward
8. Marc Andre Fleury
9. Carey Price
10. Niklas Backstrom
HM:
-Tim Thomas (very few GP even in his big years. He's the opposite of consistent but so dynamic when he does play)
-Ilya Bryzgalov
-(Pekka Rinne, Jonathan Quick, Jimmy Howard) --> Joined the NHL in 08/09 so they missed a number of pertinent seasons
Last edited by HockeyThoughts: 12-10-2012 at 08:52 AM.
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Exhibit A as to how hockey doesn't matter on ESPN:
Last night an ESPN program was discussing how the Detroit Pistons needed a hero citing the heroes on the Detroit Tigers, Detroit Lions and no mention of the Detroit Red Wings. All this despite the Red Wings probably being the most succesful team in Detroit right now.
LOL at Thomas not being included on the first two top 10 lists. The only guy that has any type of argument against him is Lundqvist. Even then, I don't think Lundqvist compares. Lundqvist has been more consistent, but Thomas has been a lot better in the playoffs, as well as putting together two ridiculously good seasons that Lundqvist hasn't equaled.
LOL at Thomas not being included on the first two top 10 lists. The only guy that has any type of argument against him is Lundqvist. Even then, I don't think Lundqvist compares. Lundqvist has been more consistent, but Thomas has been a lot better in the playoffs, as well as putting together two ridiculously good seasons that Lundqvist hasn't equaled.
Games played comes into the discussion when talking about the most consistent goalies imo.
Games played comes into the discussion when talking about the most consistent goalies imo.
Thomas broke into the league late in the 05/06 season and got a very heavy workload to end that season. Since then, he has one season where he's played under 54 games, and played one season where he played nearly 70.
And yet you include Rinne who has played in only 4 seasons, 3 of which are comparable to Thomas' usual workload, and only last season did he see 70+ games.
And then you have Backstrom, who also only played one 70+ game season, and all the rest were between 41-60 games.
And we're not even getting into how much Thomas has outplayed them. How do you justify that? Is Backstrom's average of 1 more game per season than Thomas that crucial to you in determining who has been a better goalie?
I'm pretty sure only one of Brodeur's four Vezina's came pre-lockout. I don't see why he shouldn't be number one on most lists because off the top of my head, thats the most post lockout.
There was basically 7 seasons since the lockout, Thomas sucked for 3 of those seasons and was good to dominant for the other 4. He should at least be considered, but it's hard to call him the best since he wasn't consistantly good for that whole stretch. The same goes for Brodeur: he really has only had two dominant seasons since the last lock out, the rest he's varied from good to average to bad.
Lundqvist, despite not winning any trophys, has had 4 relatively dominant seasons. Even in the other 3 he was over a 0.910 S% with under a 2.50 GAA. Luongo is the other prime candidate, he has the best post lockout stats of any goalie. Again, he has nothing but a Jennings Trophy to show for it, but he's had Vezna nominations, a Hart nominations, and 4 relatively dominant seasons out of the 7.
It really depends on how you look at it. Thomas has the most hardware with his pair of Veznas, his Jennings, and his Conn Smythe trophy. Yet, he hasn't has as good of stats as Luongo or Lundqvist since the last lockout. I'd say it's a 3 horse race, I'm not even sure why guys like Miller or Kiprusoff are getting votes here.
1. Lundqvist - most consistent goalie since the lockout. He's been a top 10 goalie every year.
2. Thomas - doesn't have the consistency, but he did have 2 dominant seasons where he was the clear-cut best goalie in the league.
3. Brodeur - was great until 2010 with 2 Vezinas, then started to slow down and show his age, although he still had a great playoff run in 2012
4. Luongo - very consistent regular season goalie, would have had a Vezina in 2007 if Brodeur hadn't also had the best season of his career. Also had a great playoffs in 2007. His post-2007 playoff play has been up and down though.
5. Miller - one great season plus a few other good ones. Also great at the Olympics.
6. Kiprusoff - Vezina in 2006. Although he's still good, hasn't reached that level of play since.
7. Vokoun - underrated due to being stuck on a non-playoff team. However, his numbers were always good, and he has played well for the Czech national team at WCs and Olympics (which is probably the most meaningful hockey he's played since the lockout).
8. Ward - Cup and a Smythe in 2006, and fairly good despite being on a bad team since then. I'm ranking him here because he has one less year as a starter than the others on this list (since it took him until the playoffs in 2006 to claim the starting job from Gerber for good).
9. Fleury - has shown flashes of brilliance, but he's also stunk it up quite a bit in the '10 and '12 playoffs. And unlike Luongo, he doesn't have the regular season consistency to make up for it.
10. Nabokov - he was a pretty good goalie in San Jose, despite his playoff disappointments. He was also decent for a bad Islanders team after he came back from the KHL.
Most of the guys on the list if not all (after last lockout) could hold Timmys jock.
