The Tretiak Legend
by Bettman's Nightmare on Dec 22, 2010 8:00 AM EST
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He was excellent in international play.
In an international career spanning 207 games from 1968 to 1984, Tretiak put up a GAA of 2.21, capturing 3 Olympic golds (and one silver), 10 IIHF Championships, 13 European Cups, one Canada Cup, and 12 Izvestija Cups. He most famously held together a Soviet team that was haemorrhaging shots-against in the 1972 Summit Series with Canada, and though today's NHL would find his save percentage for the series (88.4%) none too impressive, it was actually very close to NHL league average in a period when NHL goalies weren't facing Team Canada every night. Canadians will also recall his performance in the 1976 Super Series, where he held the tie for a Soviet team that was outshot nearly 3-to-1 by the Montreal Canadiens on New Year's Eve. He was stellar for the bulk of the Series actually, posting a 92.9% save percentage. In the LOES post on "lifetime trophies", Tom Awad commented that he had Tretiak's performance in the '72 & '74 Summit Series and the '76 & '81 Canada Cups at .7 GVT per game, and used Hasek's NHL career as a comparative (.52 GVT per game; .66 GVT in his peak years from 1994 to 2002).
He was very successful in the Soviet League.
CSKA and Tretiak won 13 Soviet League titles during his career, and he won the league's MVP award five times, in 1974, 1975, 1976, 1981, and 1983. If I'm to trust the data on this site (I'll get to that in a bit), Tretiak posted a 2.40 GAA in nearly 500 games, a solid number in any league at that period in time.
Yeah, there's that, too. Canadians respected him because he proved capable even in the hail of bullets that were some of those series in the early to mid-1970s; Americans respected him because he and the rest of the Soviet teams were better than the Americans. You'd probably find similar sentiment in Europe, though the Czechs/Slovaks had a long rivalry with the Soviets and were able to beat them on occasion.
Against:
He played for great teams.
I don't want to present the Soviets or CSKA as a monolithic superstar team, because the fact of the matter is that they had highs and lows like anyone else. But it is hard to say the Soviet Union was anything but spectacular in international competition during Tretiak's career (in 422 games, they went 348-45-29, for an 82.5% winning percentage), and the same for CSKA in the Soviet League (in 595 games, they went 481-69-45, for an 80.8% winning percentage). Tretiak might have won 5 MVP awards, but CSKA players carried 13 of the 15 MVPs won over Tretiak's career, including Boris Mikhailov (2), Valeri Kharlamov (2), Sergei Makarov, Vyacheslav Fetisov, Anatoli Firsov, and Nikolai Drozdetsky. From 1969 to 1984, CSKA led the Soviet League in goals-for every single year except twice (they were 2nd by 9 goals in 1973-74 and 1 goal in 1975-76); they averaged 243 goals-for in those years, while the second-place teams averaged 203. It seems that a major benefit of being on CSKA is that you didn't have to play CSKA!
Finally, when pitted against NHL teams over the same span CSKA held it's own, going 10-4-1.
The numbers don't add up.
The Tretiak year-by-year statistics I referenced earlier are very problematic. Like I said, they give us the portrayal of a goaltender that allowed 2.40 goals per game, on a team in which he wasn't just the primary goaltender but, in his hey-day, the only goaltender. So, what explains the gulf between CSKA's cumulative goals allowed and Tretiak's? For instance, in 1974-75, am I supposed to believe that a CSKA team that played to the tune of 2.97 goals-allowed per-game turned around and gave up 18 goals in the one game Tretiak didn't play? Or, in 1976-77, a 2.80 GAA team giving up 15 goals in one game? Or maybe they allowed 33 empty-net goals in the 4 combined losses in those years. There were similar discrepancies in 1971-72 and 1972-73, at which point I determined that we'd be better served at looking at team goals-against rather than settling for the idea that CSKA just put a board up if Tretiak wasn't able to play. By the 1980s, the data actually started to make sense, so from 1980-81 onward I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Lo-and-behold, we see Tretiak's GAA jump to 2.75, with a 3.07 GAA in the 1970s.
His Russian contemporaries were possibly just as good.
Ever hear of Viktor Konovalenko? The premier Soviet goaltender of the 1960s, Konovalenko essentially was the guy who passed the torch to Tretiak after 1971. His GAA in international competition from 1969 through 1971? 2.22. There was even a goalie who played alongside Tretiak in the 1970s, Aleksandr Sidelnikov, who was quite talented as well. He played for one of the few teams to break the death-grip CSKA held on the Soviet League in the 1970s, Krylya Sovetov. During the 1973-74 season, he was the primary goaltender on a team that allowed 87 goals in 32 games, with the next closest team (Dynamo Moscow) allowing 114. Playing most of his 38 international games against Finland and Poland (Finland was 5th/6th best in the world in the 1970s; Poland 7th/8th), he put up a 2.26 GAA. A third contemporary, Vladimir Shepovalov, posted a 1.78 GAA over 14 international games, but most of his competition was weaker. What we see is that, in general, this was a transcendent Soviet team that performed quite well regardless of who was between the pipes. To highlight the losses in 1972 and 1980 ignores the larger body of work.
Within the Soviet League itself are more interesting data. For as dominant as CSKA was over Tretiak's career, they did not always have the fewest goals allowed:
Year --- Goals-Against Rank (Soviet League) --- # Goals Allowed --- # GA League Leader (or 2nd place)
1969-70 --- 2nd --- 121 --- 119
1970-71 --- 1st --- 95 --- 116
1971-72 --- 1st --- 94 --- 95
1972-73 --- 2nd --- 102 --- 82
1973-74 --- 3rd --- 121 --- 87
1974-75 --- 2nd --- 122 --- 120
1975-76 --- 2nd --- 116 --- 105
1976-77 --- 4th --- 113 --- 103
1977-78 --- 2nd --- 109 --- 104
1978-79 --- 2nd --- 131 --- 124
1979-80 --- 1st --- 118 --- 127
1980-81 --- 1st --- 113 --- 134
1981-82 --- 1st --- 91 --- 135
1982-83 --- 1st --- 73 --- 93
1983-84 --- 1st --- 80 --- 109
In his final season, Tretiak only played half of CSKA's games. His backup, Aleksandr Tyzhnych, put up identical numbers.
As you can see, CSKA truly became dominant again with the maturation of Sergei Makarov, Igor Larionov, Vladimir Krutov, Vyacheslav Fetisov, Nikolai Drozdetsky, and Alexei Kasatonov, among others. In the 1970s, CSKA was constantly challenged by Dynamo Moscow for fewest goals allowed, as well as Khimik Voskresensk (with occasional CCCP and, before 1974, Dynamo goaltender Aleksandr Pashkov) and Sidelnikov's Krylya Sovetov. Yet the goaltending for those teams was rarely given the spotlight that Tretiak was, and the international accomplishments are a large part of that. But could it be possible that Tretiak was viewed as a "clutch" goalie and used internationally regardless of his contemporaries? Or that politics/propaganda were involved (he was the primary goaltender on a team that represented the Soviet Army, and other teams were affiliated with political and military institutions)?
If nothing else, I'd argue that Tretiak and the prominence of the CSKA teams has cast a shadow over a number of other great players in the Soviet League, particularly goaltenders. Those of us that know a bit about Soviet hockey history can name guys like Aleksandr Maltsev, Helmut Balderis, Aleksandr Yakushev, and maybe a couple of other skaters, but goalies like Aleksandr Sidelnikov and Aleksandr Pashkov need to enter the conversation as well.
Vladislav Tretiak's career is incredible in that he did so much in such a small amount of time. In the process, he challenged some of the giants of the game, and was often able to come away a winner (or at least the most respected player on the ice). There is no doubt in my mind that those pinnacles of achievement are noteworthy and great enough to give him a place in the Hall of Fame, but I have some doubts when the conversation turns to the "best goaltender in hockey history."
Many thanks to CCCP Hockey International and Arthur Chidlovski for a good chunk of the data; the remainder was pulled from hockeydb.com and the links I've provided.
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I think we’re entering into an area where we honestly won’t ever know the answer to the question. I mean, it’s like claiming Georges Vezina was the first great goaltender, yet when he died, George Hainsworth came in out of Saskatoon and posted a record for shutouts that still stands today. How good were these players? We don’t really know, because the amount of times they were challenged by alleged peers wasn’t really well recorded.
We know Tretiak was excellent. But we don’t know how good his peers were. The data is just too unreliable.
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While that may be true, this analysis brings us closer to the answer.
You can rarely get a definitive answer about anything in this field (example), but I think the point of objective analysis is to get closer.
Here’s what I can say with complete confidence: the standings and goals-for/goals-against data I can trust out of the Soviet League. The guy who put together the CCCP International and Russian hockey sites has been studying Russian hockey for years. And somebody was stopping pucks without having 75% of the dominant Soviet national team on their squad. In the case of Khimik Voskresensk and Krylya Sovetov, we’re talking virtually no one on the national team.
Case in point, you bring up Vezina. Iain Fyffe had an excellent piece noting the tendency for the Hall of Fame to venerate players who died early in organized hockey history, and that might have heightened our perception of who was “great” in that early period. Looking at the team goals-against in this period, when a goalie like Clint Benedict went to poorer teams you can tell he was a huge talent, and at least Vezina’s equal. In fact, Benedict was doing the same thing in relation to Hainsworth after Vezina passed.
What I’m essentially doing is getting as sense of the talent of the league to place alongside Tretiak’s (and CSKA’s) numbers. Hainsworth’s numbers were incredible by today’s standards, but not necessarily by the NHL standards of the time (the best offense in the league in Hainsworth’s 22-shutout season scored 2.02 goals-per-game; Tiny Thompson had a 1.15 GAA, as did Roy Worters).
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by Bettman's Nightmare on Dec 22, 2010 2:09 PM EST up reply actions
I’m guessing you already thought of this, but just in case …. the only thing I can think of regarding Tretiak’s stats is that sometimes the games played and games dressed statistics get mixed up when bring stats over from Europe.
Jonas Gustavsson is a decent example of this. If you go to hockey-reference, they show him as playing 42 games in 08-09. if you go to hockeydb, they show him playing 50 games in 08-09. Eurohockeynet explains the difference by showing that he played 42 games but dressed in 50.
Looking up Tretiak on Eurohockeynet, it seems as though they only have one set of numbers for him. They’re all listed as games played, but I just wonder if that’s correct given the discrepancy that you indicate.
I tried to rely as much on Chidlovski’s data as possible, as he’s done a lot of research on the area; hockeydb.com was really suspect – as you might’ve noticed they somehow have Reinhard Divis playing 55 games in 2008-09, and I know that isn’t right.
I’m pretty confident in the numbers on Tretiak as all the sites have the same # of games played; and I can accept that his backups might’ve done worse, but for them to essentially be a repository for 11.00 GAA, 15.00 GAA, or 8.00 GAA in 3 separate seasons is a leap of faith I’m not about to take.
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by Bettman's Nightmare on Dec 22, 2010 1:45 PM EST up reply actions
Still waiting for the Fulbright paperwork to come through…
Seriously, though, if I wasn’t so embroiled in research here and I had the opportunity, I would do just that.
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by Bettman's Nightmare on Dec 22, 2010 2:15 PM EST up reply actions
You’d have a tough time finding anything. The Soviet television had a bad habit of reusing tapes, so most of the old hockey, on the rare occasion it was actually recorded, is pretty much gone. The few things that have survived are the super series games, since there were copies over here, and some national team games.
BTW, I’m glad that Peter Sidorkiewicz recalls such fond memories for people.
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by Bettman's Nightmare on Dec 22, 2010 5:44 PM EST reply actions
Fuzzy math
Right, so you’re using fuzzy math in equaling Tretiak’s stats to the team’s.
You look at the 71-72 stats, see the 30 games played and assume that the team mythically conceded the remainder in the 2 other games. What in fact happened was that Tretiak was pulled in blowouts. The 2 backups for Tretiak that season, Tolstikov and Karmanov, combined for 9 games and 16 goals conceded, a rather realistic statistic.
Now, in fact Tretiak’s GAA gets boosted because he didn’t play 60 minutes, but that’s a limitation of the statistic, not the fault of the player.
In other words, Tolstikov and Karmanov were able to compile 1.78 GAA with the same team? Or even a team that’s also benched Mikhailov, Kharlamov, etc.? Teams that are behind tend to take more shots…
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by Bettman's Nightmare on Dec 23, 2010 12:17 AM EST up reply actions
Or, if as you are proposing it was during a blowout, then Tretiak was pulled and those players really only played about 3 games’ worth of minutes across those 9 games. Which still puts them at a 5+ GAA…
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by Bettman's Nightmare on Dec 23, 2010 12:23 AM EST up reply actions
Or, if CSKA for whatever reason decided that Tretiak could be pulled after the 1st period, they played 6 games’ worth of minutes across 9 games, essentially matching Tretiak’s GAA with the same team or weaker, likely facing an equal or greater volume of shots.
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by Bettman's Nightmare on Dec 23, 2010 12:32 AM EST up reply actions
If you look at some of the scorelines, it’s not improbable. 9:5, 8:6, 8:5, 13:3 in some of the matches.
I’m not saying this is what has happened, I wasn’t alive and I’m not going to dig up old soviet newspapers to read the game recap, but imagine a 7:1 scoreline at the end of the 2nd period. You pull Tretiak, and maybe even the first 2 lines to give them some rest. You end up with players like Mikhail Kovalev getting ice time. Ever heard of him? Neither have I, he had 4 games that year. Yury Blokhin? 16 games. Alexey Volchenkov. Ended up with 5 career games for the national team, but in 71/72 he was 18 years old, and he played 20 games on defense.
So that 7:1 scoreline can grow to as much as 9:5 or 8:6, when you put the farm team on the ice instead of the guys that got all the Olympic medals around their chest.
PS:
And when talking of pulling the first 2 lines, you have to remember that at the time they didn’t play in lines of 3 forwards and 2 defensemen interchangeably, they were 5-man lines, so if you pull your first 2 lines, there go your top 4 defensemen – guys like Gusev, Tsygankov, Kuzkin – legends, all.
I can buy it happening a couple of times, but not every time.
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by Bettman's Nightmare on Dec 23, 2010 9:39 AM EST up reply actions
So how else would the backups have gotten 9 games played, if not this way?
By the way, you are also, assuming some sort of parity between the top goalies and those that ended up as backups.
Looking merely at the stats of other goalies in the league, you see that there really is a giant chasm between the starters and reserves. Alexander Pashkov, the starter of Dynamo Moscow (2nd place in 1971-72) that season had a 2.69 GAA in 29 games. His backup, Polupanov played in 4 games and conceded 17. In this case, we can deduce that one match was in mop-up duty, but 3 were his for 60 minutes, and the result? 17 conceded goals in about 200 minutes. What are the odds that all those matches were against CSKA? Unlikely. So, against lesser competition, he just plain sucked.
I’m not completely discounting your story, merely saying that you take undue license in interpreting the statistics.
As I mentioned before, the data I’m questioning assumes Tretiak played the full 60 minutes across all of the games. You would question that, too. And if that questionable data gives a 2.40 GAA, you would agree that that’s too low, because it doesn’t account for partial games.
What I’m saying is that, by default, the backups are being assigned all of the leftover goals (aka “deducing”). In no league on earth are you going to see the backups consistently giving up 5 to 10 to 18 goals per game when their teammates, playing on the same team, are giving up 2.5. I’ll believe 3.00, and even 4.00, but consistently being well above that, no.
But let’s entertain that for a moment, and say that’s the status quo across the league: you still have the notion that Dynamo Moscow, Krylya Sovetov, and Khimik Voskresensk were giving up the same amount of goals despite having less talented players (and having to play CSKA). In Dynamo’s case, they were winning at an incredibly high rate as well, and Krylya and Khimik were usually competitive.
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by Bettman's Nightmare on Dec 23, 2010 11:34 AM EST up reply actions
I understand your point, and that is a limitation of the statistic, in this case GAA. Just like ERA is an archaic stat, GAA is even more so. There are no ice time breakdowns, so we have no clue what the true statistic is, but it’s also incorrect to say that leftovers are automatically assigned to the backups, because that’s not the case. The statistics are there – Tolstikov played in 6 matches and conceded 9 goals; Karmanov played in 3 and conceded 7. There is no “default,” these guys conceded this many, Tretiak conceded 78.
Now, I don’t know that this one game was one of the ones that Tretiak didn’t start, but it would fit the bill. One of the losses of CSKA came against Torpedo Gorky, who ended up in 8th place (out of 9 teams). A crappy team. In that game, CSKA lost 3:8. Their next game (if my source has them sequential), they won 10:2. Now either Tretiak, and the dozen or so other hockey greats had a really crappy night, or they weren’t there. Who knows, maybe the national team had a game or practice time and this was a game that could be sacrificed.
Now, if Tretiak didn’t play in that game, there go 8 goals out of the 16 that the backups conceded collectively.
Statistics, especially those going back that far are pretty useless to begin with. I’d put much more stock in contemporary accounts that said he was the greatest. It’s not like he can be judged against the modern goaltenders with equipment that covers 90% of the goal.
I’m not comparing him to modern goaltenders; I’m comparing him to his contemporaries!
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by Bettman's Nightmare on Dec 23, 2010 3:47 PM EST up reply actions
Fine, in that case, here’s a stat:
At the time of the 1972 Summit Series, Tony Esposito was as dominant a goaltender as you could possibly find. At the peak of his career in the 71-72 season, he had a 1.77 GAA in the NHL with 9 shutouts. After the end of that season was the Summit Series. 8 games – Soviet Union vs Canada. Two teams that were equally matched offensively. 8 forwards ended up in the NHL hall of fame for Canada.
Tretiak played in all 8 games – 0.884 save percentage.
Esposito played in 4 – 0.882 save percentage.
Ken Dryden, hall of famer himself, played in the other 4 games – 0.838 save percentage.
In the 75-76 Super Series (NHL vs. CSKA), Tretiak had a 0.933 save percentage. Dryden led the NHL that year with a 0.927. Dryden led by playing the entire NHL (Kansas City Scouts?). Tretiak had 4 away games with 3 games against the top 3 teams in the NHL that year, and the 4th against the Rangers at MSG.
The man was a machine. Stats don’t begin to tell the story.
And that’s precisely why I did this post. I wanted to look at the longue duree, rather than rely on a handful of games (and a bunch of wins and trophies) to tell me the story. And that tells that either Tretiak was pulled before a large amount of goals were scored (and, as you suggest, so was Pashkov with Dynamo) and therefore at least Dynamo had equivalent goaltending, or Tretiak’s numbers were closer to CSKA’s goals allowed and it pulls them close to Khimik and Krylya Sovetov as well. It’s no coincidence that, when the public eye came closer to the Soviet League performance in the early 1980s, the numbers all of a sudden started to make sense.
Don’t get me started on Dryden; I think you’re right to compare Tretiak and Dryden, but not for reasons that you’d agree with.
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by Bettman's Nightmare on Dec 24, 2010 10:30 AM EST up reply actions
My point is simply that it’s impossible to find out how great Tretiak was. Whether he was the greatest ever, or merely in the top-10, or 20. Simply because the statistics at that time were not only scarce, but somewhat questionable to begin with.
Therefore your longue duree look is tainted with a giant dollop of poor base stats.
You say:
“For instance, in 1974-75, am I supposed to believe that a CSKA team that played to the tune of 2.97 goals-allowed per-game turned around and gave up 18 goals in the one game Tretiak didn’t play? "
The stats say:
Tretiak played in 35 games, allowed 104.
Nikolai Adonin played in 7 games, allowed 18 goals.
Now, I don’t know how he managed that in limited play, but how can I systematically assume that this statistic is incorrect without any other facts?
You say:
“Or, in 1976-77, a 2.80 GAA team giving up 15 goals in one game? "
The stats say:
Tretiak played in 35 games, allowed 98 goals.
Nikolai Adonin played in 5 games, allowed 9 goals.
Alexander Tyzhnykh played in 2 games, allowed 6 goals.
How? No clue. But it’s in the stats. So if you choose to not use it, how can you in good conscience use any statistic from that era?
Some data (goals-for/goals-against for teams) are safer than others. And like I said, the numbers miraculously make sense in the 1980s.
But you can read the article again if you’d like, because I never said “I’m going to prove that Tretiak isn’t great” or “Tretiak is the greatest”; I said there are some reasons to question his legendary status. You should be questioning it too, if you are proposing that no data from that era can be used “in good conscience.” I suspect you think he’s great (despite your emphasis on statistics, you are basing that on a handful of games as well as wins, trophies), and feel the need to defend it. But there’s nothing to defend. Tretiak was a great goaltender.
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by Bettman's Nightmare on Dec 24, 2010 5:41 PM EST up reply actions
All I’m saying is that stats are impossible to put in perspective, which you need to compare him to anyone but himself, when you’re looking at the Soviet league, 40 years ago, with no statistics except for goals and games played. It’s an impossible task.
Here’s a challenge for you, if you think it’s possible.
Define the historical significance, if any, his comparative “greatness” or lack thereof, of Vsevolod Bobrov. He played hockey for CSKA and VVS clubs between 1946 and 1953. (Supposedly, he saw the game of hockey for the first time in 1945, when the Dynamo Moscow soccer club was touring England.) The statistic that exist for him is that he scored 254 goals in 130 games. For the national team in various competitions he scored 89 goals in 59 games. In the 1947-48 Soviet league he scored 52 goals in 18 games.
How in the world can you compare him to anything, anyone, using just those stats, from a league no one has seen? Did they play with a 2 inch puck and a 10 foot goal? Maybe they just forgot to have goalies? What the fuck happened there?
The same, to a lesser degree, can be said of Tretiak’s age in the 70s. We have a better idea, because those teams sometimes played NHL teams, which gives some sense to the relative strength of the league and the players, but it’s still a clusterfuck trying to judge that era.
Well, considering you haven’t offered the performance of anybody else that played in that same period, under similar conditions, as Bobrov, of course it’s difficult. You aren’t giving us CSKA’s performance within the Soviet League vis-a-vis other Soviet League teams, so we don’t have any idea of the strength of the league.
That’s not the case with Tretiak.
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by Bettman's Nightmare on Dec 24, 2010 8:34 PM EST up reply actions
1947-48
CSKA (CDKA at the time)
16 wins, 1 draw, 1 loss. 108 scored, 25 conceded.
Spartak Moscow
14 wins, 2 draws, 2 losses. 87 scored, 30 conceded.
Dynamo Moscow
11 wins, 4 draws, 3 losses. 91 scored, 37 conceded.
Dynamo Riga
11 wins, 2 draws, 5 losses. 81 scored, 48 conceded.
6 more teams, if you want, I can list their stats as well.
Top Goalscorers that year:
Vsevolod Bobrov – 52 (CDKA)
I. Novikov – 32 (Spartak M)
V. Trofimov – 32 (Dynamo M)
E. Zigmund – 28 (Spartak M)
P Shulmans – 24 (Dynamo R)
A. Tarasov – 23 (CDKA)
Now why would you have chosen Bobrov if he didn’t appeal to you based on the difference in the number of goals he scored versus the number of goals scored by the others? We can see, clearly, that he was the best scorer in 1947-48; incidentally, we can also suggest that Spartak Moscow might’ve stolen a few games because of their defense/goaltending. Could even wager a guess that Spartak had a goaltending season comparable to CDKA’s, though 18 games is a little less than anyone would like to work with. The case you present with Bobrov and the rest of the scorers in the Soviet League shows that Bobrov (at least in 1947-48) clearly had transcendent offensive numbers. I’m not 100% sold that Tretiak was similarly transcendent in the 1970s, though it’s less about him not being great (which I’ve never said) and more about there being a couple of other Soviet goaltenders who were also great.
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by Bettman's Nightmare on Dec 25, 2010 12:51 AM EST up reply actions
You miss the point.
Without knowing what they were playing, how can anyone say what the quality was?
Bobrov was the best Soviet hockey player of his generation, that is without a doubt. He was also the best Soviet soccer player of his generation, but that is a different story.
However, that 47-48 season was just the second of organized top level hockey in the country.
The year before, CDKA played a 7 game season, the team scored 16 goals. Bobrov scored just 3. Leading scorer had 14. Did Bobrov not know how to skate yet? Or maybe he was holding the stick wrong?
In 48-49, they played an 18 game season again. CDKA scored 80 goals now, with Bobrov scoring 27, only good for second on the scoring charts. Was he injured? Did they find a way to neutralize him? Did they suddenly start learning defense bit by bit, this, remember is just year 3 of hockey?
What hockey were they playing? We can not possibly know, and the stats can not possibly tell us. We know CDKA scored 80 goals. But were those 80 goals from 300 shots or 600 or 1200. Did they play with 2 defensemen, 1, or 3? Or perhaps they had some Frankensteinian experiment with interchangeable positions. A total-hockey, if you will.
No clue.
And so we’re back to Tretiak.
1973-74 season.
Tretiak conceded 94 goals in 27 games.
Alexander Sidelnikov conceded 80 in 31 games.
No matter how you look at it, Sidelnikov had the better stats.
So why doesn’t he win the award for best goaltender that year? Inertia? People thought Tretiak was the best, so he probably was, damn the stats? Political pressure to support the favored team? I don’t know, but he didn’t win.
Perhaps the writers, who make the decisions, saw something in the different styles of play. Perhaps Tretiak was saving 40 shots a match, while Sidelnikov was saddled with scarcely a dozen shots. Unlikely, considering the giants on the defensive line of CSKA, but who knows?
Let’s agree to disagree. I take popular opinion of the time at its word, that Tretiak was beyond brilliant for his era. You have reservations about it. Let’s be done with it.
The irony is I’m not disagreeing. I am making no definitive statement.
Your biggest disagreement is with yourself, as you’re essentially saying that you don’t like GAA because it’s not trustworthy data, but you’ll say that Tretiak is “beyond brilliant” based on the record of CSKA/CCCP when he played, small sample sizes, and the All-Star selections of Soviet League officials/writers when teams have governmental affiliations in a country where you can be imprisoned and blacklisted for political subversion.
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by Bettman's Nightmare on Dec 25, 2010 11:32 AM EST up reply actions
No, what I’m saying is I have no fucking clue. However, I’ve heard a lot of other people, who have seen him play consistently, tell me that he was “beyond brilliant.” I trust those people’s opinion on hockey far more than I do limited statistics from that era.
And, not that awards mean a hell of a lot either, but I have no reason to distrust an award from 1974, when Tretiak, just 22 at the time, wasn’t yet the legend he was by the early 80s.It’s not as if the CSKA players were mandatorily given every single honor there was de facto. That same year, two Dynamo Moscow players were also laureates of that award (For the top 6 players in the league, 3 forwards, 2 defensemen, 1 goalie).
Dynamo was also governmentally affiliated, with the KGB.
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Co-Manager at Behind the Net
by Bettman's Nightmare on Dec 26, 2010 2:18 PM EST up reply actions
And Krylja Sovetov was the government owned aircraft industry team.
There was no “private” team. Perhaps Spartak can be counted that, but it had plenty of protector in government in its own right.
Do you think that if there was such a strict control of sports, they would have let Krylja Sovetov win the league, but then became so petty as to force the awards to go to the Dynamo and CSKA players?
Yes.
Does he call it Luongo underwear?
Co-Manager at Behind the Net
by Bettman's Nightmare on Dec 27, 2010 12:51 AM EST up reply actions
Not to mention the stats I’m question record that Tretiak played the full 60 in those 30 games…
Does he call it Luongo underwear?
Co-Manager at Behind the Net
by Bettman's Nightmare on Dec 23, 2010 12:51 AM EST up reply actions
*questioning
Does he call it Luongo underwear?
Co-Manager at Behind the Net
by Bettman's Nightmare on Dec 23, 2010 12:51 AM EST up reply actions
That’s one part that I think has to be taken as unbelievable / incorrect. I’m guessing that when the stats were compiled, as a simplifying assumption to fill in the blanks, it was assumed to be 60 minutes played per game, not that it is what Tretiak actually played.
It’s basically assuming that he never got injured and never got pulled in almost 500 games. I think you’re right to state that those numbers have to be mistaken.
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