@@Montreal Canadiens

Unofficial Franchise Rule #30: At all time the Montreal Canadiens must be icing or have in their pipeline a HHoF caliber goalie.

  • June 20, 2023


Made this comment in a /r/hockey thread, but felt I should repost here:

Goaltender is the only position the Habs have had consistently excellent players through our 110+ years in the league.

Every single one of the guys listed below with a link are either HHoF members or soon-to-be (*except Theodore).

Any one of these would be for a majority of franchises their best all-time goaltender except for Herron which I still listed since he won both a Vezina and a Jennings.

Even when considered proportional to each franchise’s age, that’s still pretty crazy.

——-

1910–1926 [Vézina](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_V%C3%A9zina)

1926–1933 [George Hainsworth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hainsworth#Awards_and_achievements)

1933–1941 Wilf Cude

1943–1950 [Bill Durnan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Durnan#Awards)

1952–1963 [Jacques Plante](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Plante#Awards_and_honours)

1963–1970 [Gump Worsley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gump_Worsley#Career_achievements_and_facts)

1970–1979 [Ken Dryden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Dryden#Awards_and_honors)

1979–1982 [Denis Herron](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Herron#Awards_and_achievements)

1982–1984 Rick Wamsley

1984–1996 [Patrick Roy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Roy#Career_achievements)

1996–2006 [Jose Theodore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Th%C3%A9odore#Awards)

2006–2007 Cristobal Huet / Jaroslav Halak

2007–2021 [Carey Price](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carey_Price#Awards)

2021–2023 Samuel Montembeault

11 comments

  2. Surely the implication here is not that Montembeault is a hall of fame goalie lmao

  3. I still think we should take two goalies this year. The 37th and the 69th (nice) pick should be used on tendies.

    My ideal draft is:

    5th overall: Zach Benson

    31st overall: Gulyayev, Simashev,

    37th: Hrabel

    69th: Augustine

  4. Carey Price still counts as in the pipeline for the next 3 years right? Right??

  6. > Any one of these would be for a majority of franchises their best all-time goaltender except for Herron which I still listed since he won both a Vezina and a Jennings.

    Until 1981, the Vezina was basically the Jennings (awarded to the goalies whose team had allowed the fewest goals). They introduced the Jennings in 82 and the Vezina then started being awarded to the best goalie voted on by the GMs.

    Herron shared the Vezina with Sevigny and Larocque in 81 and went 6-9-6 with 3.50 GAA (the worst of the three). His next season was a little better and he shared the Jennings with Wamsley the next season, going 12-6-8 and 2.64 GAA. He was pretty mediocre.

  7. Yeah that’s why I don’t sweat about replacing Price. Someone will emerge eventually.

    Also in 68-69, we had THREE HHoF goalies on the roster: Gump Worsley, Rogatien Vachon and Tony Esposito.

    Also had Tomas Vokoun, Jose Theodore and Jocelyn Thibault all together at one point in 96-97. All 3 played over 14 yrs in the NHL.

  10. Not sure about the early ’80s goalies. The only one that could win a playoff series was Steve Penney.

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