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Originally Posted by Corral
Vernon was also the first Flames goaltender who could make the critical saves necessary to give the team confidence to beat the Oilers in the 1980s - in particular, the 1986 upset.
I remember him coming in for the injured Don Edwards and my late father saying he would never make it in the NHL. We made a bet and I won
Vernon was also the first Flames goaltender who could make the critical saves necessary to give the team confidence to beat the Oilers in the 1980s - in particular, the 1986 upset.
Anyone remember Reggie Lemelin? How was he relative to the era? To me he was the pre-cursor to Vernon, but of course now we're talking early to mid-80s, I have no recall as I was still in diapers
To me in Flames history we're looking at Kiprusoff/Vernon...Lemelin as top 3?
Without Vernon's heroics in OT of game 7 vs the Canucks, there would be no Cup.
Doesn't mean he deserved the Conn Smythe.
The Flames shouldn't have been in a Game# 7 with the Canucks period. Part of that was due to Vernon's mediocre play. He seemed to wake up after the Canucks series and the rest is history.
He did let in some heartbreaking goals in the years to come though.
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Originally Posted by Hells Bells
Doesn't mean he deserved the Conn Smythe.
The Flames shouldn't have been in a Game# 7 with the Canucks period. Part of that was due to Vernon's mediocre play. He seemed to wake up after the Canucks series and the rest is history.
He did let in some heartbreaking goals in the years to come though.
If his play was mediocre he would have been pulled. They had Rick Walmsley who was more than capable of picking up the slack if needed.
I remember him coming in for the injured Don Edwards and my late father saying he would never make it in the NHL. We made a bet and I won
In 86, when he was actually became a full time NHler and not an emergency call up, it was Lemelin he supplanted not Edwards.
1986 playoffs he almost gave away the St. L series, and then first round exits in 87 and second round in 88 negated decent regular seasons. In 88-89 after losing only 6 games all year, he did not have a good first 6 games vs Vancouver but of course made up for it. The infamous Stan Smyl breakaway was not the best save; a last second reaction skate save on Skriko was not as visually spectacular but more dangerous chance than Smyl chugging in.
From then on he was solid, but yeah, especially after 1990 and the Morel debacle, and the overreaction by ownership which lead to the firing or Crisp and basically the departure of Fletcher the next year, he was getting blamed a lot for the failures. The 1991 loss vs Edm was the last straw for media and fans and playing in the home town that turned on him. Play declined severely and was then traded.
Firmly behind Kiprusoff as #2 all time and no one close to him below him, played his heart out and was a talented fun loving guy, and the treatment of him for his last season in the early 2000s was brutal. Thankfully, amends were made.
Here's the tail end, worth the full watch but the save on Skriko was at 1:57 and replayed 30 seconds later.
Last edited by browna; 11-21-2013 at 10:43 PM.
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Originally Posted by Medium Rare
Anyone remember Reggie Lemelin? How was he relative to the era? To me he was the pre-cursor to Vernon, but of course now we're talking early to mid-80s, I have no recall as I was still in diapers
To me in Flames history we're looking at Kiprusoff/Vernon...Lemelin as top 3?
God I loved Lemelin... Still remember an intense bench clearing brawl against Edmonton, he's on top of Fhur... Grinning his ass off.... Good times!
Yeah before Vernon, he was the steadfast keeper for the team.
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We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit -Aristotle
Lemelin was a good, but not great, goalie. Problem was he couldn't beat the Oilers. Vernon could.
He is the type of goalie who could have had more success but needed his team to make him look better. He was in the wrong era. He would have been better playing in the dead puck era.
Lemelin was a good, but not great, goalie. Problem was he couldn't beat the Oilers. Vernon could.
Part of Lemelin's problem was he faced the Oilers when the Flames were a weaker team as well. Johnson slowly rebuilt the Flames, to beat the Oilers, and towards the end of that rebuilding, Vernon came on the scene.
One has to keep in mind that the Flames were in the same division as the Oilers, multiple Stanley Cup winners. Not only did the Flames and Oilers play a lot of interdivisional games then, but the play off structure also dictated that the Flames and Oilers almost always met in the first round of playoffs as well.
Someone posted in a different thread, the percentage of games won by various Flames coaches over the years. Badger Bob's win percentage was not that high but I don't one should conclude that he was a bad coach. I think a lot of those losses were due to the fact of how many times the Flames had to play the Stanley Cup Oilers.
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I'm not typically a sports radio sort of guy, and I don't listen all of the time, but it is usually pretty decent when I do tune in. The Vernon episode is on there, obviously, which I have just downloaded for the drive home today.
Still on the edge of my seat watching that... Wow... it'd be nice to watch that sort of hockey again in Calgary.
I guess, but when you're taken to overtime in 7 games by a team that had 43(!) less points than you, in the 1st round, as a fan, you're more dreading the potential waste of a season with each passing minute.
Most of those Vernon saves at the end of the 3rd and OT were on better chances then the series losing goals in OT in 1990, OT in 1991, in OT in 1994 and in OT 1995, and let's say also than in OT Game 6 of the SCF 2003, so anything else could've gone in and would've been par for the course with the Flames of that era.
Given that the Flames had lost in 4 to the Oilers the year before, and the Jets before that, the longer that game and that series went, the worse you felt that the Flames were actually going to blow it somehow again, and basically should've. Though Mullen's chance was a good save by McLean.
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Originally Posted by kn
I remember that game all too well...
The Oilers first goal was the back breaker. It was another case of Vernon letting in a bad goal at the worst time. IIRC there was a song that went around the Saddledome concerning Vernon....."Tweet tweet, twiddle twiddle, there's only one goalie with a hole in the middle"
He is the type of goalie who could have had more success but needed his team to make him look better. He was in the wrong era. He would have been better playing in the dead puck era.
Lemelin had some success with the Bruins. He and Andy Moog won the Jennings in 89-90, with Lemelin getting the most starts of the two.
Still on the edge of my seat watching that... Wow... it'd be nice to watch that sort of hockey again in Calgary.
I can't believe how many times the Canucks almost scored in OT. With the goalies being so small back then it felt like any shot to the net was a scoring chance.
