Stanley Cup playoff fever is running rampant! Of course I'm no longer interested as the goddamn Penguins have eliminated my Flyers as previously reported. Still, that doesn't change the fact that hockey is the greatest sport known to man, and my Top 5 this time will highlight the single greatest position in all of sportsdom, hockey goalie.
Keep in mind that I've only been watching hockey since around 1993, so this won't technically be a "greatest of all-time" list by a hockey analyst's standards, just the 5 greatest since I began following the NHL.
Mister Bones' Top 5 Goalies
5. Dominik Hasek - The Dominator made life miserable for anybody playing Buffalo back in the day, and is the main reason I own a Buffalo Sabres jersey. He has an unorthodox style that's fun to watch, and few people can make that "cage" mask look awesome, but he does it. He would eventually play for the Red Wings, and win a couple of Stanley Cups, and again would be the primary reason I own a Red Wings jersey as well.
4. Patrick Roy - I would undoubtedly get shit from my brother for having Patty so far down the list, and up until recently he held almost every major goal tending record in the NHL so dude's obviously one of, if not the greatest. He was always amazing to watch, and dude straight up made the butterfly style his bitch. I still say there will never be a better butterfly style goalie. He was with Montreal when I first started watching, but he would end his career with the Colorado Avalanche, and would bring Lord Stanley's cup there before retiring.
3. Martin Brodeur - What can I say, I absolutely despise the New Jersey Devils. Always have, always will. But I can't help but pull for Marty. There's not a better lock-down goal tender playing hockey today. On top of his talent, he's also a class act, I've never seen him play dirty even when the rest of the Devils' roster was blatantly doing so. I also love the fact that he's been the Devils' starting net minder since my hockey career began. That is almost unheard of in sports today. He recently broke Patrick Roy's all-time wins record, and has hoisted Stanley's Cup three times.
2. Ron Hextall - Hands down, my absolute favorite Flyers goalie ever. Ron was a BEAST. Dude holds the single season record for penalty minutes for a goal tender in a single season, and that alone makes him awesome. He was also one of those guys who would regularly leave the crease to play the puck with his stick, which was nerve-wracking to watch but also so ballsy that you couldn't help but laugh. Of course what he's probably best known for is his being the first NHL goal tender to ever score a goal by sending the puck all the way down the ice and into the opposing team's net after their goalie had been pulled. Philly hasn't had decent goal tending since he left.
1. Curtis "Cujo" Joseph - Not only my favorite goalie, but my all-time favorite player. Cujo was never one of those lock-down kinda guys, he would always let a few past. It was the way he played that made him great to me though, he's this little scrappy guy who moves around the crease like lightning, and whenever he would face a shot, he would stop at nothing to get a piece of the puck. Arms flying, stick flying, legs flailing, I attribute watching him play goal to what watching Wolverine in a berserker fury probably looks like. The greatest Cujo moment for me came during the playoffs in somewhere around 94-95 I guess, when he was with the Toronto Maple Leafs. There was a goal, but Cujo felt like he'd been interfered with, so he immediately jumped up and down, dropped his gloves and skated over to the linesman, grabbed him, and threw him to the ice pleading his case the entire time. I just stared at my tv like "this guy's fucking insane", and he's been my favorite player ever since.
And there ya go, the greatest goalies from the "coolest game on Earth"
(ugh).
