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Displaying pretext
Since recording his 400th career win, Chris Osgood has received a lot of attention from media around the NHL. Yet there is another goaltender in the league today that has also been climbing into rarefied air on the all-time list on a more important goalie stat, only he is doing it without much notice at all. The latter stat is Goals Versus Threshold, and here is the list of the current top 10 goaltenders in NHL history:
Goaltenders, Career GVT
Rank Name Career GVT
1. Patrick Roy 433.7
2. Dominik Hasek 425.6
3. Jacques Plante 361.8
4. Tony Esposito 354.5
5. Glenn Hall 344.1
6. Martin Brodeur 297.7
7. Ed Belfour 270.7
8. Bill Durnan 254.1
9. Bernie Parent 249.0
10. Roberto Luongo 248.6
According to this metric, Roberto Luongo has prevented more regular season goals against than all but nine goalies in hockey history, and by the end of this season, there is a good chance that there will only be seven names left ahead of him.
To achieve such heights is impressive, but it is made even more impressive by the fact that Luongo is still in the middle of his career. Here is the reordered list based on each of those 10 netminders' career GVT through the age of 31:
Goaltenders, Career GVT through Age 31
Rank Name GVT though Age 31
1. Patrick Roy 289.9
2. Roberto Luongo 248.6
3. Bernie Parent 203.7
4. Jacques Plante 202.7
5. Tony Esposito 196.6
6. Martin Brodeur 195.1
7. Glenn Hall 194.9
8. Bill Durnan 174.3
9. Ed Belfour 154.9
10. Dominik Hasek 151.7
Luongo not only ranks second on the list, but he achieved that ranking despite having three months left in the current season, plus an entire season lost to the 2004-05 Lockout. Under some fairly reasonable assumptions, Luongo might have been at the top if he had been able to make up those games played.
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In The Crease (04/22)
2 comments have been left for this article. 
Luongo's reputation as a playoff choker is completely undeserved. His career postseason save percentage is the same as his regular season mark. I did some off-the-cuff analysis last year and found his reputation is based on one really bad game (you know the one I mean); he actually performed extremely well in other elimination games.