"If you ignore the good years, then he's a bad player."
- bluecoconuts

Im not ignoring the good years, I'm saying Lundqvist has the good years too and he's had more of them for a longer period of time. The argument is, goaltending is judged by consistency, not single anomalies. When Quick proves that the amazing season he had is not an anomally from his consistent stats, then he will earn a crown.

Comparing the 2 best goalies in the league is splitting hairs. So when you split hairs everything factors in. All of the little things count. Quality of opponents, duration of excellence, quality of team in front of them, these are all things that normally wouldn't matter as much. But when you are talking about these two guys, these things matter.

2011-2012, again I should have been more clear. I am saying excluding the Stanley Cup year. The only argument you people have revolve around the same 1 season's stats, over and over and over again. Your entire argument is based on that. Its nonsense. Its like Carolina fans telling everyone Cam Ward is the best goalie in the league the year after they won the cup. Again, when your talking about how good a goalie is, you don't just talk about 1 season. You look at the whole picture. Yes, Quick had an amazing year in 11-12. Congrats. Like I said, come back with the same argument when he's done it 5-6 times like Lundqvist has.

When it comes down to it, if you could give a numeric value to Lundqvist and Quick, Hank would be a 100 and Quick would be a 95. Every other starting goalie in the league is 90 at best with most in the 80s. If Quick can post the same type of numbers he had in 11-12 straight through to 2015, then I'll say he's just as good maybe better than Lundqvist. Until he does, its just not proven.
- xcheckmajor

Lundqvist hasn't even put up a string of years with those type of numbers, why would Quick have to for you to consider him "as good" as Hank? Ridiculous.

good2be ...

With regard to regular season:

I'm looking at neither full careers here nor one season. I'm looking at the last 3-5 years of play here, because I think that's A) a big enough sample to make meaningful judgments and B) relatively recent enough to be relevant to the current discussion of who is better. Henrik Lundqvist in my view was a late bloomer and did not become an elite goalie until about four years ago, so it seems to me to make little sense to include what he did 5, 6, 7 years ago in the discussion of who is best today.

Yes, that is an arbitrary cut-off, a judgment call by me based on what should be considered when making that judgment. But look at this: that .005 career difference (nothing to sneeze at) in their regular season stats increases to .008 if you include just the five seasons since Quick became a starter, .009 if you restrict it to the last four years, .007 if you restrict it to the last three years, and .008 if you use just the last two. Over the last handful of years COMBINED, Lundqvist has been a better goalie. Their stats were comparable in 2012, but anytime you add more than just that one season to the sample Lundqvist picks up a sizable advantage.

Maybe that's unfair to Quick, if your argument is that 1) Quick did not become elite until 2012; 2) 2012 represents his sustainable talent level over a long period of time; and 3) his 2013 and ugly, ugly .902 were an abberation. All of which could be true, but it remains to be established in the long-term data.

With regard to the playoffs:

We just plain will not disagree here. We're talking about 50 games for Quick, 67 for Lundqvist. A full season or a little less for both guys. I just don't think that's a meaningful enough sample to be able to say a .009 difference makes one conclusively better than the other. .009 is a big deal when we're talking about hundreds of games and several thousand shots, not as much when we're talking about less than a full season of work. Any yabo (Jim Carey, Roman Cechmanek, Roman Turek, Brian Elliot) can look like Hasek over 50-70 games in the right circumstances.

At best we can say that Quick has played closer to his ceiling during the playoffs, or has made better use of his opportunities. But I don't think it proves he's better, and I also don't think it proves that he will continue to be better in the future. If both guys continue to play in the playoffs for multiple years, given enough time, I would suspect that Lundqvist would eventually catch and pass Quick statistically.

Lundqvist hasn't even put up a string of years with those type of numbers, why would Quick have to for you to consider him "as good" as Hank? Ridiculous.
- PancakesPenner

Here's Quick's GAA vs Lundqvist's stats

Q L
NA 2.24
NA 2.34
3.84 2.23
2.48 2.43
2.54 2.38
2.24 2.28
1.95 1.97
2.45 2.05

Take out the under 2.0 GAA anomally year for both goalies and you can clearly see who is consistently better.

Playoff GAA

NA 4.40
NA 2.07
NA 2.57
3.50 3.00
3.16 2.26
1.41 1.82
1.86 2.14

Looking at the playoffs, you can say Quick has been the better playoff goalie the last 2 seasons. Thats the ONLY thing he has going for him. Lundqvist has so many other PLUS factors. Quick needs to post around a 2.2 - 2.3 GAA regular season for another 2-3 years and needs to post at least a 2.2 or better in the next 2-3 playoffs. Then you can undeniably say he is as good or better than Hank.

This is only 1 statistical category.

Im not ignoring the good years, I'm saying Lundqvist has the good years too and he's had more of them for a longer period of time. The argument is, goaltending is judged by consistency, not single anomalies. When Quick proves that the amazing season he had is not an anomally from his consistent stats, then he will earn a crown.

Comparing the 2 best goalies in the league is splitting hairs. So when you split hairs everything factors in. All of the little things count. Quality of opponents, duration of excellence, quality of team in front of them, these are all things that normally wouldn't matter as much. But when you are talking about these two guys, these things matter.
- xcheckmajor

Of course Lundqvist is going to have more years of being a top goaltender, he plays in a large market in the East. You know who else plays in a large market in the East? Price, MAF, etc. And for years fans in the East said they were top tier goalies too.

Now that's not to say that Lundqvist is on the the same level of those two, because he's obviously better. However Quick has been ignored, people pretend like he was a bad goalie until they went on the run, because nobody knew about him. He should have been in the all-star game the year before, but Kopitar was the only King that went. Just because he's been ignored by the media doesn't mean he wasn't good. Stats don't tell the entire story either, but Quick has been stealing games, and playing out of his mind for a while now.

You guys are saying that everything factors in, but then trying to brush off playoff numbers like they're not valuable because it's not as many games. Fact of the matter is regular season it's easy to pad stats against awful teams, and even if there are guys like Crosby and Ovechkin in the East, teams as a whole in the West are stronger and balanced better, so winning games in the West is just as hard as in the East. It's easier to play against a team when there's one or two guys that you need to worry about instead of fifteen.

Saying that the Rangers team is weak is frankly laughable, there are plenty of great players on the Rangers, and the parity in the NHL is enough that there's not nearly as much of a difference between most teams, thus making that argument a pretty poor one.

Here's Quick's GAA vs Lundqvist's stats

Q L
NA 2.24
NA 2.34
3.84 2.23
2.48 2.43
2.54 2.38
2.24 2.28
1.95 1.97
2.45 2.05

Take out the under 2.0 GAA anomally year for both goalies and you can clearly see who is consistently better.

Playoff GAA

NA 4.40
NA 2.07
NA 2.57
3.50 3.00
3.16 2.26
1.41 1.82
1.86 2.14

Looking at the playoffs, you can say Quick has been the better playoff goalie the last 2 seasons. Thats the ONLY thing he has going for him. Lundqvist has so many other PLUS factors. Quick needs to post around a 2.2 - 2.3 GAA regular season for another 2-3 years and needs to post at least a 2.2 or better in the next 2-3 playoffs. Then you can undeniably say he is as good or better than Hank.
- xcheckmajor

You're seriously trying to count a year in which Quick played 3 games in the NHL? That completely skews things.

First 4 years as a starter, which is a far better measure:

Q L
2.54 2.24
2.24 2.34
1.95 2.23
2.45 2.43



Playoffs:

Q L
3.50 4.40
3.16 2.07
1.41 2.57
1.86 3.00

Of course Lundqvist is going to have more years of being a top goaltender, he plays in a large market in the East. You know who else plays in a large market in the East? Price, MAF, etc. And for years fans in the East said they were top tier goalies too.

Now that's not to say that Lundqvist is on the the same level of those two, because he's obviously better. However Quick has been ignored, people pretend like he was a bad goalie until they went on the run, because nobody knew about him. He should have been in the all-star game the year before, but Kopitar was the only King that went. Just because he's been ignored by the media doesn't mean he wasn't good. Stats don't tell the entire story either, but Quick has been stealing games, and playing out of his mind for a while now.

You guys are saying that everything factors in, but then trying to brush off playoff numbers like they're not valuable because it's not as many games. Fact of the matter is regular season it's easy to pad stats against awful teams, and even if there are guys like Crosby and Ovechkin in the East, teams as a whole in the West are stronger and balanced better, so winning games in the West is just as hard as in the East. It's easier to play against a team when there's one or two guys that you need to worry about instead of fifteen.

Saying that the Rangers team is weak is frankly laughable, there are plenty of great players on the Rangers, and the parity in the NHL is enough that there's not nearly as much of a difference between most teams, thus making that argument a pretty poor one.
- bluecoconuts

You bring up a great point. Quick has played in traditionally one of the weakest divisions in the league. Lundqvist has played predominantly in the most powerful and against the top scorers of the league more often.

You touch upon the nature of advanced Metrics, something more and more coaches and GMs are using in their decision making. We can argue until we're blue about the basic stats like SV% and GAA, but the truth is, Advanced Metrics are what the big brains in the league are using now. These are categories that weigh a lot when your talking about choosing a Vezina winner with a 1.89 GAA or a 1.91 GAA:

Bill Jame's Point Shares
Defense Independant Goalie Rating
Vollman's QS or Quality Starts
Vollman's Bail Outs
Vollman's RBS (really bad starts)
GVT (goals versus threshold)

These are just some of the adv. metrics that are being used. They begin to hold much more deeper meaning because hockey is a non linear sport. It holds too many variables that influence performance.

Here's Quick's GAA vs Lundqvist's stats

Q L
NA 2.24
NA 2.34
3.84 2.23
2.48 2.43
2.54 2.38
2.24 2.28
1.95 1.97
2.45 2.05

Take out the under 2.0 GAA anomally year for both goalies and you can clearly see who is consistently better.
- xcheckmajor

For me this is how that list should look, comparing their first years as a starter. The word that keeps getting thrown around is consistency. Consistency requires time. Lundqvist has Quick beat in that, but also has three more years starting at the NHL level, with a couple more years starting in the SEL. 9 years ago Lunqvist was starting the SEL, Quick was playing high school hockey, yet now he is an elite goalie, with himself and Lundqvist in a league of their own, a Veniza finalist and Conn Smythe. It seems to me he is progressing at the same rate as, perhaps even faster than, Lundqvist and is putting up similar numbers now.

Even though I strongly believe Quick prove the 2012 year wasn't a fluke, and in turn end up better than Lundqvist, there is literally no way to prove that. Only time can tell. And comparing the two is almost pointless, since they play in different conferences which are vastly different in playing style, and are four years apart in age. To each their own I suppose. I'm just home sick from work and thoroughly bored, so I figured I'd waste my time here.

Q L

1 3.84* 2.24
2 2.48 2.34
3 2.54 2.23
4 2.24 2.43
5 1.95 2.38
6 2.45 2.28
7 NA 1.97
8 NA 2.05

*he played 3 games. c'mon.

You're seriously trying to count a year in which Quick played 3 games in the NHL? That completely skews things.

First 4 years as a starter, which is a far better measure:

Q L
2.54 2.24
2.24 2.34
1.95 2.23
2.45 2.43



Playoffs:

Q L
3.50 4.40
3.16 2.07
1.41 2.57
1.86 3.00
- bluecoconuts

Well, isn't that just another statement showing how great Lundqvist is? Stepping in and performing right off the bat as a rookie?

Well, isn't that just another statement showing how great Lundqvist is? Stepping in and performing right off the bat as a rookie?
- xcheckmajor

A "rookie" who started the two previous years in the SEL after sharing time the three years before that.

Fact of the matter is regular season it's easy to pad stats against awful teams, and even if there are guys like Crosby and Ovechkin in the East, teams as a whole in the West are stronger and balanced better, so winning games in the West is just as hard as in the East. It's easier to play against a team when there's one or two guys that you need to worry about instead of fifteen.
- bluecoconuts

I would actually suspect it's easier to put up great stats as a goalie (not necessarily in every situation, but for the most part) in the West because Western teams employ better defenses and play more defensively on average. Generally speaking, the more highly skilled your league is (and the NHL has been operating almost on a two-league system with it's unbalanced schedules) the lower scoring it will be. That's why there are more goals per game in the East than West, and more in the AHL than NHL, and more in the ECHL than AHL.

The guys who are really padding their stats out east are the high-skill forwards, particularly those out in the Southeast Division. I am less convinced that playing goal for an Atlantic team is a significant advantage over playing goal in the Pacific, and in fact the reverse may be true.

good2be ...

With regard to regular season:

I'm looking at neither full careers here nor one season. I'm looking at the last 3-5 years of play here, because I think that's A) a big enough sample to make meaningful judgments and B) relatively recent enough to be relevant to the current discussion of who is better. Henrik Lundqvist in my view was a late bloomer and did not become an elite goalie until about four years ago, so it seems to me to make little sense to include what he did 5, 6, 7 years ago in the discussion of who is best today.

Yes, that is an arbitrary cut-off, a judgment call by me based on what should be considered when making that judgment. But look at this: that .005 career difference (nothing to sneeze at) in their regular season stats increases to .008 if you include just the five seasons since Quick became a starter, .009 if you restrict it to the last four years, .007 if you restrict it to the last three years, and .008 if you use just the last two. Over the last handful of years COMBINED, Lundqvist has been a better goalie. Their stats were comparable in 2012, but anytime you add more than just that one season to the sample Lundqvist picks up a sizable advantage.

Maybe that's unfair to Quick, if your argument is that 1) Quick did not become elite until 2012; 2) 2012 represents his sustainable talent level over a long period of time; and 3) his 2013 and ugly, ugly .902 were an abberation. All of which could be true, but it remains to be established in the long-term data.

With regard to the playoffs:

We just plain will not disagree here. We're talking about 50 games for Quick, 67 for Lundqvist. A full season or a little less for both guys. I just don't think that's a meaningful enough sample to be able to say a .009 difference makes one conclusively better than the other. .009 is a big deal when we're talking about hundreds of games and several thousand shots, not as much when we're talking about less than a full season of work. Any yabo (Jim Carey, Roman Cechmanek, Roman Turek, Brian Elliot) can look like Hasek over 50-70 games in the right circumstances.

At best we can say that Quick has played closer to his ceiling during the playoffs, or has made better use of his opportunities. But I don't think it proves he's better, and I also don't think it proves that he will continue to be better in the future. If both guys continue to play in the playoffs for multiple years, given enough time, I would suspect that Lundqvist would eventually catch and pass Quick statistically.
- Sven22

good job shaping the argument to numbers that support your agenda and
like i said, when the numbers are in quicks favor they dont count. yay!

if we talk about playoffs it doesnt count.
if we talk about 2011-2012 it doesnt count.
if we talk about career you dont want to count hanks early yrs as hes a "late bloomer"
if we talk about a cup its the team
if we talk about the conn smyth its only a 20 game strech of games.
if we talk about clutch...clutch doesnt exist

if we talk about about that we're comparing quicks 23-26 yrs to hanks 28-31 years you say that since hanks been better before he'll keep on being better which is especially funny because when we finally get you to talk playoffs you say that despite whats happened before if hank was given enough time he will catch and pass quick.

lol. yeah...excuse me if i withdraw from this no win situation.
whats really funny is even after reading this you'll see nothing wrong with any of the above.

good job shaping the argument to numbers that support your agenda and
like i said, when the numbers are in quicks favor they dont count. yay!

if we talk about playoffs it doesnt count.
if we talk about 2011-2012 it doesnt count.
if we talk about career you dont want to count hanks early yrs as hes a "late bloomer"
if we talk about a cup its the team
if we talk about the conn smyth its only a 20 game strech of games.
if we talk about clutch...clutch doesnt exist

if we talk about about that we're comparing quicks 23-26 yrs to hanks 28-31 years you say that since hanks been better before he'll keep on being better which is especially funny because when we finally get you to talk playoffs you say that despite whats happened before if hank was given enough time he will catch and pass quick.

lol. yeah...excuse me if i withdraw from this no win situation.
whats really funny is even after reading this you'll see nothing wrong with any of the above.
- good2b_the_king

Wow, your dense. How about I make it easy for you. 30 GMs, hockey professionals, pretty much think Lundqvist is the best goalie in the world. End of Story, deal with it.

Wow, your dense. How about I make it easy for you. 30 GMs, hockey professionals, pretty much think Lundqvist is the best goalie in the world. End of Story, deal with it.
- xcheckmajor

30 GMs, hockey professionals, pretty much think Bob is a better goalie than Lundqvist, if this most recent Vezina is to be trusted. Deal with it.

Wow, your dense. How about I make it easy for you. 30 GMs, hockey professionals, pretty much think Lundqvist is the best goalie in the world. End of Story, deal with it.
- xcheckmajor

Actually 17 said that, and many people talked about how he got votes because he had been nominated so many times. FYI, 17 also said that Bobrovsky was the best goalie last year. 17 said Tim Thomas was 2 years ago. 23 said Miller was 3 years ago.

So I guess Miller, who had more votes, is better than Lundqvist right?

Well, isn't that just another statement showing how great Lundqvist is? Stepping in and performing right off the bat as a rookie?
- xcheckmajor

He wasn't really a rookie, he had what? 5 years in the SEL? Sure the level isn't the same, but it's better than the 5 years Quick had before becoming a starter... 2 years in the AHL, one in the ECHL, and 2 in college. Before that he was in high school.

Wow, your dense. How about I make it easy for you. 30 GMs, hockey professionals, pretty much think Lundqvist is the best goalie in the world. End of Story, deal with it.
- xcheckmajor

cool story bro. lol.

the only thing i have to deal with is a way better playoff goalie who's won us kings fans a cup.
ill also deal with the fact that hes just entering his prime and that i wouldnt trade him for any goalie in the world.
poor me.

dont worry though...you got the best regular season goalie in the world going for you. then the playoffs come but they dont really matter...right?

what a tool.

I would actually suspect it's easier to put up great stats as a goalie (not necessarily in every situation, but for the most part) in the West because Western teams employ better defenses and play more defensively on average. Generally speaking, the more highly skilled your league is (and the NHL has been operating almost on a two-league system with it's unbalanced schedules) the lower scoring it will be. That's why there are more goals per game in the East than West, and more in the AHL than NHL, and more in the ECHL than AHL.

The guys who are really padding their stats out east are the high-skill forwards, particularly those out in the Southeast Division. I am less convinced that playing goal for an Atlantic team is a significant advantage over playing goal in the Pacific, and in fact the reverse may be true.
- Sven22

Things like travel balance that out plenty. The West, specifically the Kings is constantly among the league leaders in miles traveled, and the East, specifically the Rangers are among the least traveled teams. Those miles really start to wear on a team and a goalie. Especially when you have more back to backs thrown in.

Do you want me to admit that Quick has played better in the playoffs than Lundqvist, to this point? Okay, here it goes:

Up to this point, Jonathan Quick has been better in the playoffs than Henrik Ludqvist.

There. I said it. It's true.

Here's what I think that proves: over this arbitrarily selected 50 games Jonathan Quick has been better than this arbitrarily selected group of 67 games from Henrik Lundqvist.

The question I'm attempting to answer is, does that mean Quick is a better or more talented goalie than Lundqvist? Does it mean Quick is a "clutcher" goalie than Lundqvist? Does it mean that, in upcoming seasons, we would expect Quick to continue to outperform Lundqvist, at least in playoff games, because he is an inherently better or clutcher goalie?

Or is it just that, in the relatively small sample that is their playoff careers so far, Quick has managed to play a little better than Lundqvist and catch more breaks?

Quick has had a better playoff career so far than Lundqvist. You can also argue that he had a better 2011-12 than Lundqvist if you lump playoffs and regular season together.

You can also argue that, if Quick is considered currently elite (which I'm skeptical of but is possible), he's reached "eliteness" at an earlier age than Lundqvist and that might indicate that, when all is said and done, he'll wind up with the better career. I wouldn't necessarily say that's likely, but it wouldn't surprise me either.

But when we talk about RIGHT NOW, which goalie do I think is better, which one do I think has the stronger overall track record, which one would I pick to be in my team's net? I think Lundqvist has the majority of the numbers on his side.

Over the sum total of their career output, spanning many seasons and thousands of shots, Lundqvist's numbers (.005) are a fair amount better. Over the recent past (whether you count the last 1 year (a whoping .024), 2 years combined (.008), 3 years combined (.007), 4 years combined, (.009) 5 years combined (.008) Lundqvist's numbers are even better by comparison.

In 8 years, Lundqvist's numbers have been what I would call elite or very near elite (.920+) 5 times, above average (.917 and .916) twice, and average (.912) once. In 5 years Quick has had elite numbers once, above average numbers once, average numbers once, below average numbers once, and awful numbers once (last year).

But hey, he's been great in 50 playoff games, so he must be better.

30 GMs, hockey professionals, pretty much think Bob is a better goalie than Lundqvist, if this most recent Vezina is to be trusted. Deal with it.
- xcheckmajor

ill end it with this copy and paste from yesterdays blog.

ive always laughed at the know-it-alls on the east coast who are in bed when our games are on yet still insist theyre better able to tell us how good or bad our players are...too funny.

their entire career stats in totality(not cherry picked)

regular
Quick-286g-2.32gaa-.915sv-25shutouts
Hank-510g-2.25gaa-.920sv-45shutouts

playoffs
Quick-50g-2.03gas-.929sv-7shutouts
Hank-67g-2.28gaa-.920sv-8shutouts

you guys can be happy and take the slightly better reg season goalie(by 0.07gaa, .005sv). we'll be happy with the more than slightly better playoff goalie(by 0.25gaa, .009sv). everyones happy. right?

now, you can keep telling yourself that winning a cup has nothing to do with the equation and ill keep laughing. just like if you were to say that the playoffs dont count...or that putting up one of the best playoff runs ever for a goalie doesnt count. i mean giving up 29 goals in 20 games against the 1,2,3 seeds of the west and the east winner seems like it should count to me. or more exactly putting up 1.41gaa, .946sv with 3 shutouts in 20 playoff games seems like it should count. well guess what? it does and thats something that needs to be dealt with too.

Do you want me to admit that Quick has played better in the playoffs than Lundqvist, to this point? Okay, here it goes:

Up to this point, Jonathan Quick has been better in the playoffs than Henrik Ludqvist.

There. I said it. It's true.

Here's what I think that proves: over this arbitrarily selected 50 games Jonathan Quick has been better than this arbitrarily selected group of 67 games from Henrik Lundqvist.

The question I'm attempting to answer is, does that mean Quick is a better or more talented goalie than Lundqvist? Does it mean Quick is a "clutcher" goalie than Lundqvist? Does it mean that, in upcoming seasons, we would expect Quick to continue to outperform Lundqvist, at least in playoff games, because he is an inherently better or clutcher goalie?

Or is it just that, in the relatively small sample that is their playoff careers so far, Quick has managed to play a little better than Lundqvist and catch more breaks?

Quick has had a better playoff career so far than Lundqvist. You can also argue that he had a better 2011-12 than Lundqvist if you lump playoffs and regular season together.

You can also argue that, if Quick is considered currently elite (which I'm skeptical of but is possible), he's reached "eliteness" at an earlier age than Lundqvist and that might indicate that, when all is said and done, he'll wind up with the better career. I wouldn't necessarily say that's likely, but it wouldn't surprise me either.

But when we talk about RIGHT NOW, which goalie do I think is better, which one do I think has the stronger overall track record, which one would I pick to be in my team's net? I think Lundqvist has the majority of the numbers on his side.

Over the sum total of their career output, spanning many seasons and thousands of shots, Lundqvist's numbers (.005) are a fair amount better. Over the recent past (whether you count the last 1 year (a whoping .024), 2 years combined (.008), 3 years combined (.007), 4 years combined, (.009) 5 years combined (.008) Lundqvist's numbers are even better by comparison.

In 8 years, Lundqvist's numbers have been what I would call elite or very near elite (.920+) 5 times, above average (.917 and .916) twice, and average (.912) once. In 5 years Quick has had elite numbers once, above average numbers once, average numbers once, below average numbers once, and awful numbers once (last year).

But hey, he's been great in 50 playoff games, so he must be better.
- Sven22

A sample is not arbitrarily chosen when it is the entirety of a given stat. Quick's 50 games and Hank's 67 are their entire playoff sampling. Nothing arbitrary about it. If you were to, say, pick a stretch in the middle of a season to prove a point, that would be arbitrary. Seems to me someone already did that in this thread.

A sample is not arbitrarily chosen when it is the entirety of a given stat. Quick's 50 games and Hank's 67 are their entire playoff sampling. Nothing arbitrary about it. If you were to, say, pick a stretch in the middle of a season to prove a point, that would be arbitrary. Seems to me someone already did that in this thread.
- PancakesPenner

The point was that 20 straight playoff games and 20 straight regular season games are equally arbitrary. 20 games of .946 hockey, while indicative of excellent play over that timeframe, is not especially rare. Great and even merely good goalies will equal or better that rate many times over the course of a career.

The difference is that many of you believe the fact that it happened once for Quick in the playoffs and not for Lundqvist is indicative of the fact that Quick is an inherently better playoff goalie, that the difference is based on the fact that, despite his inferior regular season performance, Quick has a special mental or physical skill whereby he suddenly becomes invincible once the postseason starts. Whereas I think the fact that Quick has had better playoff numbers so far is because he got hot at the right time with the right team.

20 or even 50 or 67 games is not a meaningful enough sample to judge which goalie is inherently better and likely to play better in the future. Sergei Bobrovsky is probably not an elite goalie but sometimes okay goalies have elite numbers for a season. Antti Niemi, Chris Osgood, and Marc-Andre Fleury are not elite goalies but all have won Cups. Michael Leighton damn near won a Cup. Michael Leighton!

As a player (and especially as a goalie), you establish greatness only after demonstrating great play for an extended period of time. Lundqvist has done this. Quick has not, at least not yet.

The point was that 20 straight playoff games and 20 straight regular season games are equally arbitrary. 20 games of .946 hockey, while indicative of excellent play over that timeframe, is not especially rare. Great and even merely good goalies will equal or better that rate many times over the course of a career.

The difference is that many of you believe the fact that it happened once for Quick in the playoffs and not for Lundqvist is indicative of the fact that Quick is an inherently better playoff goalie, that the difference is based on the fact that, despite his inferior regular season performance, Quick has a special mental or physical skill whereby he suddenly becomes invincible once the postseason starts. Whereas I think the fact that Quick has had better playoff numbers so far is because he got hot at the right time with the right team.

20 or even 50 or 67 games is not a meaningful enough sample to judge which goalie is inherently better and likely to play better in the future. Sergei Bobrovsky is probably not an elite goalie but sometimes okay goalies have elite numbers for a season. Antti Niemi, Chris Osgood, and Marc-Andre Fleury are not elite goalies but all have won Cups. Michael Leighton damn near won a Cup. Michael Leighton!

As a player (and especially as a goalie), you establish greatness only after demonstrating great play for an extended period of time. Lundqvist has done this. Quick has not, at least not yet.
- Sven22

No they're not, the playoffs are a totally different animal than the regular season, to pretend like they are is incredibly short sighted.

The point was that 20 straight playoff games and 20 straight regular season games are equally arbitrary. 20 games of .946 hockey, while indicative of excellent play over that timeframe, is not especially rare. Great and even merely good goalies will equal or better that rate many times over the course of a career.

The difference is that many of you believe the fact that it happened once for Quick in the playoffs and not for Lundqvist is indicative of the fact that Quick is an inherently better playoff goalie, that the difference is based on the fact that, despite his inferior regular season performance, Quick has a special mental or physical skill whereby he suddenly becomes invincible once the postseason starts. Whereas I think the fact that Quick has had better playoff numbers so far is because he got hot at the right time with the right team.

20 or even 50 or 67 games is not a meaningful enough sample to judge which goalie is inherently better and likely to play better in the future. Sergei Bobrovsky is probably not an elite goalie but sometimes okay goalies have elite numbers for a season. Antti Niemi, Chris Osgood, and Marc-Andre Fleury are not elite goalies but all have won Cups. Michael Leighton damn near won a Cup. Michael Leighton!

As a player (and especially as a goalie), you establish greatness only after demonstrating great play for an extended period of time. Lundqvist has done this. Quick has not, at least not yet.
- Sven22

Ok, let's look at their stats for the last two seasons, regular season and playoffs combined, since you think they're equivalent.

Quick
MIN GA SA SV GAA SV% SO
8570 283 3808 3525 1.98 0.926 17

Lundqvist
MIN GA SA SV GAA SV% SO
8336 276 3908 3632 1.99 0.929 15

That's two years of Lundqvist in his prime and Quick entering his.

Ok, let's look at their stats for the last two seasons, regular season and playoffs combined, since you think they're equivalent.

Quick
MIN GA SA SV GAA SV% SO
8570 283 3808 3525 1.98 0.926 17

Lundqvist
MIN GA SA SV GAA SV% SO
8336 276 3908 3632 1.99 0.929 15

That's two years of Lundqvist in his prime and Quick entering his.
- PancakesPenner

That is the first really persuasive argument I've seen so far. Good work.

I do think that when you adjust for team factors the talent gap between them over the last few seasons is bit larger than the .003 on the statline, but that's very subjective and hard to prove, so I'll throw it out. Let's say .003 really does represent an accurate separation between the two over the last two years.

If you believe Quick is on the upswing and will be able to recover and improve on his 2012 form, it is certainly possible that Quick will match and surpass Lundqvist in the very near future. I'm not sure I'd put that at better than a coin flip, but I agree with you that it is a very real possibility given how goaltenders are more prone to have later primes than skaters.