Most Valuable Goalie

There are many things that can be looked at in determining the greatest of all-time. Awards voting is often heavily depended on to compare players across different eras. However, especially when it comes to goalies, the awards voting is often suspect, and goalies that aren't that good but play on very good teams are often rewarded with Vezinas and First Team All-Stars ahead of probably more deserving candidates.

However, when it comes to MVP voting, this bias is less observable. There have been goalies that finished very high in MVP voting on terrible teams, the best example being Al Rollins who won the 1954 Hart Trophy on the worst team in the league. There are some who scoff at this decision, naming it one of the worst in history, but Rollins was also rated as the league's most valuable goalie in 1951 and 1953, indicating that the observers of the time thought he was very valuable to his team.

I went through the years and found which goalie ranked the highest in Hart Trophy voting, and awarded them a "most valuable goalie" award. Here are how the top goalies came out in number of times being named the most valuable goaltender in the NHL:

1. Dominik Hasek 5
2. Roy Worters 4
3. Frank Brimsek 3
3. Ken Dryden 3
3. Glenn Hall 3
3. Al Rollins 3
3. Patrick Roy 3
3. Terry Sawchuk 3
10. Martin Brodeur 2
10. Bill Durnan 2
10. Tony Esposito 2
10. Grant Fuhr 2
10. Ed Giacomin 2
10. Mike Liut 2
10. Jacques Plante 2
10. Rogie Vachon 2

These votes tended to be more spread out among various goalies, and probably gives a more realistic indicator of which goalies were dominant, rather than simply which goalies were fortunate enough to play a number of years on a dominant team.