St Louis Blues: Top 30 Goaltenders in Franchise History
Nov 7, 2015; Nashville, TN, USA; St Louis Blues goalie Jake Allen (34) is congratulated by goalie Brian Elliott (1) after a shutout win against the Nashville Predators at Bridgestone Arena. The Blues won 4-0. Mandatory Credit: Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports
The St Louis Blues have used a whopping 66 goalies over 48 NHL seasons. Which one stands out as the best?
As any devout St Louis Blues fan knows, the franchise is in its 48th season and still has yet to win a Stanley Cup. Along with the Toronto Maple Leafs, who last won the Cup in 1967, the St Louis Blues have the longest championship drought in the NHL. Perhaps the resulting impatience, as well as frequent changes in front office philosophy, has caused the organization to use a whole lot of goaltenders as the years have passed.
Over those 48 seasons, 66 different goaltenders have seen action in a game for the St Louis Blues, and none has lasted longer than six seasons with the organization. Highly-regarded trade acquisitions like Ryan Miller, Jaroslav Halak, and Patrick Lalime have failed in their bids to take the Blues to the promised land, but that isn’t even too surprising when you consider the select few that have ever even taken the Blues past the first round of the postseason.
On the other hand, however, the frequent turnover in net throughout Blues history has afforded fans the opportunity to appreciate many different talented netminders.
Whether it be the original Blues fans who fell in love with Jacques Plante and Glenn Hall, the Generation X kids that had the opportunity to appreciate Mike Liut, the Millenials that grew up watching Curtis Joseph and Grant Fuhr, or the young kids becoming hockey fans today who get to watch Jake Allen develop into an elite goaltender right in front of their eyes, virtually every generation of Blues fans has had a different goalie that will stand out most prominently in their collective memory.
That’s why plenty of different arguments, whether emotionally or statistically-based, can be made as to who is the best goalie in franchise history.
Just as an FYI, we’ll be referencing the statistic “goalie point share” on occasion throughout this piece. GPS is a metric created by Hockey Reference to illustrate how much a particular player contributed to his team receiving points in the standings (wins, ties, or overtime/shootout losses).
Though the algorithm for this statistic is admittedly imperfect in some way or another, like those for all advanced metrics are, it gives us a way to compare more accurately goaltenders from different eras, which can be quite difficult with traditional statistics considering the NHL’s significant fluctuation in offense over time.
Here’s our ranking of the 30 best goaltenders ever to wear the Bluenote:
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