#21 - Dominik Hasek

Dominik Hasek (Murillo Pyramid Rank = #21)

Adjusted Stats

1990-1991  Chi       5 GP, 3-0-1, .700 win%, 200 min, 7 GA, 2.19 GAA
1991-1992  Chi       21 GP, 10-4-1, .700 win%, 1039 min, 40 GA, 2.30 GAA
1992-1993  Buf       27 GP, 11-10-4, .520 win%, 1395 min, 62 GA, 2.67 GAA
1993-1994  Buf       57 GP, 29-20-6, .582 win%, 3278 min, 101 GA, 1.85 GAA
1994-1995  Buf       70 GP, 32-24-12, .559 win%, 4127 min, 150 GA, 2.17 GAA
1995-1996  Buf       59 GP, 22-30-6, .431 win%, 3417 min, 157 GA, 2.76 GAA
1996-1997  Buf       67 GP, 37-20-10, .627 win%, 4037 min, 161 GA, 2.40 GAA
1997-1998  Buf       72 GP, 33-23-13, .572 win%, 4220 min, 171 GA, 2.43 GAA
1998-1999  Buf       64 GP, 30-18-14, .597 win%, 3817 min, 139 GA, 2.18 GAA
1999-2000  Buf       35 GP, 15-11-6, .563 win%, 2066 min, 85 GA, 2.47 GAA
2000-2001  Buf       67 GP, 37-24-4, .600 win%, 3904 min, 153 GA, 2.35 GAA
2001-2002  Det*     65 GP, 41-15-8, .703 win%, 3872 min, 164 GA, 2.55 GAA
2003-2004  Det       14 GP, 8-3-2, .692 win%, 817 min, 36 GA, 2.64 GAA
2005-2006  Ott        43 GP, 28-10-4, .714 win%, 2584 min, 91 GA, 2.12 GAA
2006-2007  Det       56 GP, 38-11-6, .745 win%, 3341 min, 122 GA, 2.19 GAA
2007-2008  Det*     41 GP, 27-10-3, .713 win%, 2350 min, 95 GA, 2.42 GAA

Adjusted Playoff Stats

1990-1991   Chi       3 GP, 0-0, --- win%, 69 min, 3 GA, 2.22 GAA
1991-1992   Chi       3 GP, 0-2, .000 win%, 158 min, 7 GA, 2.66 GAA
1992-1993   Buf       1 GP, 1-0, 1.000 win%, 45 min, 1 GA, 1.10 GAA
1993-1994   Buf       7 GP, 3-4, .429 win%, 484 min, 13 GA, 1.58 GAA
1994-1995   Buf       5 GP, 1-4, .200 win%, 309 min, 16 GA, 3.09 GAA
1996-1997   Buf       3 GP, 1-1, .500 win%, 153 min, 5 GA, 2.06 GAA
1997-1998   Buf       15 GP, 10-5, .667 win%, 948 min, 36 GA, 2.25 GAA
1998-1999   Buf       19 GP, 13-6, .684 win%, 1217 min, 40 GA, 1.95 GAA
1999-2000   Buf       5 GP, 1-4, .200 win%, 301 min, 14 GA, 2.88 GAA
2000-2001   Buf       13 GP, 7-6, .538 win%, 833 min, 34 GA, 2.45 GAA
2001-2002   Det*     23 GP, 16-7, .696 win%, 1455 min, 53 GA, 2.20 GAA
2006-2007   Det       18 GP, 10-8, .556 win%, 1140 min, 39 GA, 2.03 GAA
2007-2008   Det*     4 GP, 2-2, .500 win%, 206 min, 10 GA, 3.05 GAA

Career - 763 GP, 401-233-96, .615 win%, 44464 min, 1734 GA, 2.34 GAA
Career-Highs - 72 GP (97-98); 41 wins (01-02); .745 win% (06-07); 4220 min (97-98); 1.85 GAA (93-94)
Avg. (15 seasons) - 51 GP, 27-16-6, .615 win%, 2964 min, 116 GA, 2.34 GAA
Peak Avg. (93-01) - 61 GP, 29-21-9, .568 win%, 3608 min, 140 GA, 2.33 GAA, 0 Cups

Playoff Career - 119 GP, 65-49, .570 win%, 7318 min, 271 GA, 2.22 GAA
Playoff-Highs - 16 wins (01-02); 1.000 win% (92-93); 1.10 GAA (92-93)

Accolades - 2 MVP awards, 6 Vezina Trophies, 3 Jennings
All-Star Teams - 6-time 1st-team
2-time Stanley Cup Champion

I'll get this out of the way early: I hated Dominik Hasek. Hated him. And the funny thing is, it didn't have anything to do with the fact that he stoned Canada in the shootout in Nagano (as a side note, one of the darkest moments of my high school years was waking up, having not watched the game out of supreme confidence that Canada would win, and being told by my mother that they lost...in a shootout! Close second: turning down a hot 16 year-old redhead who ASKED ME OUT to see "The Waterboy" because I didn't much care for Adam Sandler movies. Did I say close second? That takes the cake! At least, months later, I finally did end up dating her, but I can never watch even a moment of "The Waterboy" without dying a little. Plus it sucks.). No, it was because my boy was Brodeur, and Hasek kept getting all the accolades I felt should be going Marty's way.

Brodeur was cerebral, studied, a joy to watch in goal with his fluid stand-up style and effortless puckhandling. I'd watch him and feel like I learned something about hockey. Conversely, Hasek was a mess, flopping around in his crease like a fish, dropping his stick to cover the puck with his blocker (thought of as revolutionary at the time, but really...why haven't goalies always done this?), darting out 40-feet of his net to get the puck before a rushing forward did, and oftentimes missing, leaving a gaping empty net behind him...or occasionally just blantantly crashing into the forward and somehow eluding a penalty. So many times I would watch Sabres' games, inevitably cheering against them, and be screaming at the TV to whoever the opposing shooters were "Just fucking lift the puck four inches!!! That's all it takes!". It took me a while to realize that there was method to Hasek's apparent madness.

Now that my passion for the game is more detached, I acknowledge that Hasek deserved the acclaim that came his way. For the 1990s, its arguable there wasn't a more dominant player...he was the fucking Dominator. No one had more votes for MVP cast his way in the decade than Hasek (second is Jaromir Jagr...come to think of it, why exactly were we surprised that the Czechs won gold in '98?). He won two MVP awards and six Vezina trophies (five in the '90s), consistently helping a Buffalo team that by all rights should have been a draft-lottery contender be heard from come playoff-time (most infamously, in their run to the finals in 1999, in which Hasek gave up one of the most controversial goals ever, Brett Hull's skate-in-the-crease tap-in. More on that in the entry on Hull).

But, much to my delight, Hasek still didn't have a Cup ring to his name, and by 2002, Brodeur had two. My heart sank when Hasek signed with a stacked Red Wing team...I knew this was going to be his moment, and sure enough it was. But Hasek wasn't some passenger during his Cup run: he won a career-high 41 games and had an excellent regular season and playoffs. Sure, he didn't need to be the last-line-of-defence Dominator of the Buffalo days, but Hasek made the big save when needed. He earned my respect by proving that he could be both a great bad-team goalie and a great good-team goalie.

As the years went on, I grew fonder of Hasek. He seemed affable (if strange) off-ice, and I learned to appreciate his resume more. Conversely, Roy revealed himself to be more of a petulant jerk than I could have imagined. So why, despite the accolades, is Hasek not even higher on the Pyramid?

He's essentially the Evolutionary Glenn Hall (to borrow from Simmons again): a great, athletic goaltender with insane reflexes who had his best years with mediocre teams. Why Hasek falls slightly behind Hall and Plante, and certainly Roy and Brodeur, is because if he were the goaltender for your team, you knew he'd give you a great chance to win, but you weren't 100% sure you could count on him being there. Hasek's groin injuries were no doubt serious, but oftentimes it seemed as if he was coasting and taking more time off than needed. He retired, then unretired, and always seemed on the verge of retirement. His year with the Ottawa Senators wasn't the disaster many remember (his numbers were actually excellent), but when he got hurt playing in the Olympics, a lot of blame went Hasek's way.

Like Hall, Hasek essentially won one Cup, and unlike Hall, Hasek wasn't even the integral part of that Cup (Hasek has two Cup rings, but he split time with the underrated Chris Osgood in 2008, and Osgood was the goalie who played the majority of the playoff games, so Hasek was a relative passenger on that Cup team). But more to the point, when Hasek was at his peak in the Sabres years, there was always the sense that he was separate from the team, that he (perhaps rightfully) considered himself above them. You never got that with Brodeur. You may have gotten it with Roy, but he made up for it by going out and winning three Conn Smythe trophies, so you didn't care. Hasek didn't back things up come playoff time consistently enough, even though he usually played well.

Plus there's the fact that I hated him. And even though I'm over that now, the memory lingers. As does the memory of "The Waterboy", and Michelle the redhead from Grade 10.