Historical Battles: Shaw vs. Kanou (2.0)

[Advantage 2,891]

Historical Battles - Edition 2

Aidan Shaw vs. Daisuke Kanou

 

Welcome to the second edition of the Historical Battles Series.  If you missed the first edition, please find it HERE.  It was an epic battle between Gabriel McAllister and Matt Thompson and is definitely worth checking out the matchup.  If you would like to make any suggestions for future ones, please go HERE.  Otherwise, please enjoy the second edition of Historical Battles: Shaw vs. Kanou.

 

Overview

The comparisons have been there ever since their careers were in their prime and have continued on to current day.  Two prominent members in our league history, tfong and Ree_21, recreated and made individual goaltenders in what was expected to be one of the best draft classes in league history.  That draft would certainly not disappoint with six Hall of Famers coming out of it and more than a dozen impactful players drafted.  

 

Granted, these players were selected fairly far apart and really were not compared pre-draft..  Daisuke Kanou went first overall to the Davos Dynamo, while Aidan Shaw would be selected with the tenth overall pick by the Toronto Legion.  The difference in TPE between the two was 131 (Kanou at 281 and Shaw at 150).  This would lead to a couple major differences in these player’s careers, with the more important being that Daisuke Kanou would play in the VHL right out of the draft while Shaw would elect for the VHLM and only played seven seasons in the Victory Hockey League.  

 

With that being said, both of these goaltenders do have a lot of parallels.  They both were absolute legends and are two of the best goaltenders of all-time.  They both have awards named after them.  They both stayed on their drafted teams for their entire careers.  Combined, these two finished top-two in statistical categories a ridiculous thirty-nine times combined.  Both the members were inducted into the Builder Hall of Fame, and interestingly enough, just one year apart.  Finally, yes both of these goaltenders were inducted into the VHL Hall of Fame, and in the same year as well (Season 26).  

 

As for my expectations going into this matchup.  I was around back when these two players were terrorizing the league.  In fact, I was a second round selection in the Season 18 Draft with my first true VHL player (Michael Angelo) so I have a pretty good memory of people’s reactions to the careers these two had.  I don’t really remember who most felt was better, but I believe the consensus was that Kanou was the better playoff goaltender while Shaw perhaps was a bit more decorated overall and was generally considered a slightly better goaltender.  Outside of that, my memory is just that these two dominated and my assumption with Kanou dominating playoffs and Shaw dominating regular seasons is due to the awards these guys are now representing.  One thing to also keep in mind is that given how long ago these guys played, there is a bit less information to go off of (IE: Kanou’s VHLM Time, International, etc.) and given that these two played in the exact same era, this will be a little bit shorter than the last one.  With that being said, please enjoy and feel free to comment and vote on who you feel was the better overall player.

 

Regular Season Statistics

 

Aidan Shaw

Season 19 (TOR): 65 GP, 29-29-6, .911 SV%, 2.87 GAA, 5 SO

Season 20 (TOR): 66 GP, 50-13-3, .929 SV%, 1.98 GAA, 7 SO

Season 21 (TOR): 64 GP, 50-11-3, .932 SV%, 1.86 GAA, 8 SO

Season 22 (TOR): 63 GP, 57-4-2, .933 SV%, 1.62 GAA, 10 SO

Season 23 (TOR): 66 GP, 44-17-3, .913 SV%, 2.03 GAA, 6 SO

Season 24 (TOR): 64 GP, 47-13-4, .931 SV%, 1.77 GAA, 9 SO

Season 25 (TOR): 64 GP, 38-23-3, .916 SV%, 2.32 GAA, 7 SO

Total Regular Season: 452 GP, 315-110-24, .923 SV%, 2.06 GAA, 52 SO

 

Aidan Shaw was truly the regular season king when it came to goaltenders.  I don’t even feel like people understand how tough this era was as there were a number of goaltenders that were very very talented.  Goaltenders like Joey Clarence, Jakob Kjeldsen and Andreas Bjorkman also spent a significant amount of time as rivals of both of these legendary netminders.  Ultimately, it was truly Shaw that was the king of the regular season.

 

For those that don’t understand how dominant he was, let’s keep in mind where he stood all-time in statistical categories like wins, save percentage, goals-against-average and shutouts, at the time of his (and Kanou’s) retirement.  

 

In Wins, Shaw retired second all-time with 315, and only was behind Kanou who finished with thirty-five more.  This is despite the fact that Shaw only played seven seasons in the Victory Hockey League, while goaltenders like Kanou and many before him played a full eight.  

 

In Save Percentage, Shaw would retire fourth with .923, among players who played at least six seasons in the Victory Hockey League.  The other three goaltenders ahead in this regard were Alex Gegeny (.929), Benoit Devereux (.927) and Dominik Stryker (.924).  His biggest issue in this area were his rookie season and his final season.  He also struggled at times in Season 23, but ultimately his absolute dominance from Season 20 to Season 24 is arguably unmatched all-time.  

 

In GAA, Shaw predictably favoured quite well given how dominant his team was.  Shaw finished his career with the best GAA in league history at 2.06.  How dominant was he? At the time of his retirement, Alex Gegeny held this record with a 2.24 GAA, which he had set after his career ended in Season 12.  While his career was heavily influenced by a dominant Legion team led by David Knight who helped propel Toronto to consistent success, it’s important to keep in mind with both of these goaltenders how they truly impacted the absolute destruction their team’s caused over the late-teens and early-to-mid twenties.

 

Finally, in the Shutout department, Shaw would retire with the most shutouts of all-time with 52.  This broke Alex Gegeny’s record of 45 and ultimately Shaw finished ahead of Kanou in this category by 4.

 

Other than one inconsistent season in the middle of his prime, Shaw seemed unbreakable.  We can excuse his mediocre rookie season and even his regression-filled final season, but we do have to consider his only real major blemish as his Season 23 season.  Other than that, Aidan Shaw was between .929 and .933 each and every season.  Fun fact, a .931 save percentage was identical or better than fifty-five of our league’s voted top goaltenders seasons in their respective award-winning years.  Meanwhile, that .931 save percentage was considered pretty average for the majority of Aidan Shaw’s storied career.  If that doesn’t put into perspective how dominant he was, then maybe this will.  In Season 29, Aidan Shaw recorded a .929 save percentage, which would end up being his fourth best during his career.  Daisuke Kanou, on the other hand, never had better than a .928 save percentage during his entire eight-season career.

 

Daisuke Kanou

Season 18 (DAV): 65 GP, 31-26-6, .907 SV%, 3.01 GAA, 1 SO

Season 19 (DAV): 64 GP, 46-11-7, .916 SV%, 2.34 GAA, 1 SO

Season 20 (DAV): 64 GP, 50-10-3, .922 SV%, 2.12 GAA, 10 SO

Season 21 (DAV): 65 GP, 39-22-4, .926 SV%, 2.61 GAA, 3 SO

Season 22 (DAV): 65 GP, 43-13-8, .922 SV%, 2.17 GAA, 7 SO

Season 23 (DAV): 64 GP, 48-10-6, .926 SV%, 1.89 GAA, 8 SO

Season 24 (DAV): 62 GP, 51-10-1, .928 SV%, 1.73 GAA, 11 SO

Season 25 (DAV): 64 GP, 42-16-5, .913 SV%, 2.17 GAA, 7 SO

Total Regular Season: 513 GP, 350-118-40, .920 SV%, 2.26 GAA, 48 SO

 

Daisuke Kanou was also a tremendous goaltender but while his regular season numbers were impressive, I wouldn’t necessarily make this comparison if we were just looking at regular seasons.  

 

Daisuke Kanou would spend his entire eight season career with Davos, and he was tremendous during it.  He finished with 40+ wins on six occasions and narrowly missed that mark in Season 21.  He would finish with at least a .922 save percentage five times and found himself under the 2.20 GAA mark five times as well.

 

One of the major considerations I would make with Kanou is that his first season was by far his weakest.  This would seem a bit unfair to hold it against Kanou given that Shaw was in the VHLM for his first season.  Therefore, I decided to crunch what Kanou’s numbers would look like without his Season 18 campaign being among them.  Ultimately, over the last seven seasons of his career, Kanou finished with a .922 SV% and 2.15 GAA.  This, while still not quite as good as Shaw, does put him on a fairly more equal footing when it comes to regular season success.  

 

Nevertheless, there is a reason that the Top Goaltender Trophy was named after Shaw, while the Playoff MVP would be named after Kanou.  He simply was a different animal when it came to playoff hockey, and while his regular season performances were impressive and still pretty legendary all-time, this area definitely should go to Shaw, and I’m not sure it’s all that close.

 

Playoff Statistics

 

Aidan Shaw

Season 19 (TOR): 5 GP, 1-4-0, .883 SV%, 3.42 GAA, 0 SO

Season 20 (TOR): 11 GP, 7-3-1, .930 SV%, 1.87 GAA, 0 SO

Season 21 (TOR): 12 GP, 8-4-0, .940 SV%, 1.62 GAA, 1 SO

Season 22 (TOR): 13 GP, 6-6-1, .901 SV%, 2.69 GAA, 1 SO

Season 23 (TOR): 5 GP, 1-3-1, .899 SV%, 2.74 GAA, 0 SO

Season 24 (TOR): 11 GP, 6-5-0, .946 SV%, 1.45 GAA, 3 SO

Season 25 (TOR): 4 GP, 0-4-0, .870 SV%, 3.77 GAA, 0 SO

Total Playoffs: 61 GP, 29-29-3, .918 SV%, 2.23 GAA, 5 SO

 

I was actually pretty underwhelmed by Aidan Shaw’s career in the playoffs.  He had some pretty legendary runs in Season 20, 21 and 24, which ultimately did lead to one Playoff MVP Trophy, but I was a bit shocked by how poorly he performed in every other playoff series.  He wasn’t even average in the other four playoff campaigns, as he was downright awful.  

 

Aidan Shaw would finish his playoff career with a 29-29-3 record and a fairly mediocre save percentage of .918.  Where did this put him all-time when he retired? He actually was sixth all-time in save percentage among goaltenders who had played at least thirty playoff games.  However, he was pretty far behind Kanou and was even behind Joey Clarence in regards to his era, who finished his career with a .922 Save Percentage and even had a better GAA as well.

 

This isn’t to say that Shaw was a bad playoff goaltender, as he clearly came up pretty major in a few of Toronto’s runs.  However, when looking at two of the best goaltender’s all-time, it is pretty difficult to not be disappointed when one of them played very poorly in four out of seven playoff campaigns, especially when compared to what Kanou did.

 

Daisuke Kanou

Season 18 (DAV): - Did not Qualify -

Season 19 (DAV): 10 GP, 4-6-0, .927 SV%, 2.51 GAA, 0 SO

Season 20 (DAV): 14 GP, 8-6-0, .937 SV%, 1.91 GAA, 2 SO

Season 21 (DAV): 11 GP, 5-4-2, .914 SV%, 2.59 GAA, 1 SO

Season 22 (DAV): 7 GP, 3-3-1, .906 SV%, 3.50 GAA, 0 SO

Season 23 (DAV): 6 GP, 2-3-1, .905 SV%, 2.80 GAA, 0 SO

Season 24 (DAV): 11 GP, 8-1-2, .962 SV%, 0.98 GAA, 3 SO

Season 25 (DAV): 11 GP, 8-3-0, .937 SV%, 1.73 GAA, 1 SO

Total Playoffs: 70 GP, 38-26-6, .928 SV%, 2.17 GAA, 7 SO

 

Alright, we all knew Kanou was going to have tremendous playoff numbers.  The damn award was named after him so this was clear as day, and further inspection into the awards will solidify this fact as well.  

 

Daisuke Kanou also had seven playoff campaigns, as the Dynamo did not finish in the playoffs during his rookie season.  Kanou was not without his weaker runs with Season 22 and 23 behind the pretty obvious ones, where he had a .906 save percentage during those two seasons.  With that being said, each and every one of Shaw’s weaker years was much worse than that, including three times being south of the .900 mark.  

 

What really stands out for me though are his elite playoff campaigns like Season 20 (.937), Season 25 (.937) and obviously Season 24, which saw arguably the greatest playoff performance by a goaltender in league history, at that time.  In fact, an argument could be made that it is still the greatest overall season ever seen by a goaltender, as he finished with a .962 save percentage and an unfathomable sub 1.00 GAA.  These are the numbers that goaltenders dream of and he simply put, was the king of that playoff run. To this day, his finals series against Shaw’s Legion is the second best save percentage in a single playoff series by a goaltender with a .968, only behind Wingate’s playoff series versus the Americans in Season 45.

 

At the time of his retirement, Kanou was first all-time in Playoff Wins, third all-time in Save Percentage (behind Van Urho and Gegeny) and third all-time in Goals Against Average (behind Van Urho and Clarence).  He also retired as the all-time leader in Shutouts and even still sits third all-time today, only behind Brick Wahl and Hans Wingate.

 

While Regular Season was a clear and definitive win by Aidan Shaw, this is arguably even more clear and definitive by Daisuke Kanou, as he was the greatest playoff goaltender to ever play in the VHL at the time of his retirement, and for me that is undisputed.

 

Top-3 Finishes

 

Aidan Shaw

Wins - 1,1,2,2,3

Save Percentage - 1,1,1,1,2

Goals Against Average - 1,1,1,2,3

Shutouts - 1,1,2,2,2,3

 

Daisuke Kanou

Wins - 1,1,1,2,2,3

Save Percentage - 2,2,2,2,2,2

Goals Against Average - 1,1,2,2,2,2

Shutouts - 1,1,2,2,3,3

 

I want to look at these top-3 finishes together as I think it is a tremendously interesting comparison.  I decided to go with the top-3 as these players played in league’s with eight teams and I felt that made more sense than rewarding either one of them by being the fifth best goaltender out of eight.  

 

I was a bit surprised that Kanou was a little more consistent when it came to placements in the top-3, especially considering how much better Shaw was during the regular season.  This could speak more to Shaw’s couple of down years while Kanou didn’t quite have the high’s but was overall pretty consistent.  It also could speak to Kanou just fairing worse in years where the goaltending numbers were a bit down league-wide.

 

Ultimately, Save Percentage is considered the most important statistic to look at generally, among the list of imperfect statistical categories.  In this regard, Shaw did finish first four times and second once.  While Kanou finished in the top three more times (six versus five), he did actually end up the bridesmaid in all six of those seasons.  I was a bit taken aback by this as I expected him to finish first or third in at least one or two of the campaigns.

 

I feel this does make the regular season comparison a little bit more interesting as Kanou was actually in the top three statistically more times.  However, Shaw finished first in Save% and GAA seven times combined, while Kanou only finished first twice in these categories.  Most of Kanou’s first place finishes were in Shutouts and Wins, which I would probably consider the third and fourth most important of the four categories.  Therefore, I do give the edge to Shaw in this regard, but this actually I think does more to help Kanou, especially when you consider the dramatic difference in playoff performance.

 

Awards

 

Aidan Shaw

1x Continental Cup (League Champion)

4x Punch Imlach Trophy (North American Champion)

3x Victory Cup Winner (Most Regular Season Points)

1x Brett Slobodzian Trophy (League MOP)

1x Gordie Howe Trophy (Playoff MVP)

4x Vladislav Tretiak Trophy (Top Goalie)

 

Daisuke Kanou

3x Continental Cup (League Champion)

5x Vladimir Kostka Trophy (European Champion)

3x Victory Cup Winner (Most Regular Season Points)

1x Scotty Campbell Trophy (League MVP)

1x Brett Slobodzian Trophy (League MOP)

3x Gordie Howe Trophy (Playoff MVP)

1x Vladislav Tretiak Trophy (Top Goalie)

 

I wanted to look at these together as well, as there are some important things to highlight.  Coming in we knew that Aidan Shaw was generally the better Regular Season performer while Kanou was the better Playoff performer.  This conclusion is definitely supported by the awards, which saw Aidan Shaw win the Vladislav Tretiak Trophy four times, due to being voted in as the Top Goalie in the VHL.  Meanwhile, Kanou’s three Playoff MVP’s really speak highly of how dominant he was when the games mattered most.

 

So what separates these two?  One of the more interesting facts here is that Kanou won a Regular Season MVP, while Aidan Shaw never did.  Both players would receive Brett Slobodzian Trophy’s once, but I was a bit surprised that despite Shaw having some of the best seasons ever by a goaltender, he would never bring home the ultimate individual hardware.  Meanwhile, Kanou, who posted regularly worse numbers in the regular season, did ultimately win the Scotty Campbell Trophy.  This might lead more into the conversation of perhaps Shaw was better on paper, but Kanou was the heartbeat of the Dynamo and clearly their most important player.  It’s certainly an interesting comparison and I wish I had the data to look at the votes for the MVP during both of these player’s careers,as it may shed a little more light on why things went the way they did.

 

Individual Awards for me is honestly pretty close to a wash.  Shaw was the best goaltender in the league four times and was the most important player in a playoff run once.  Kanou, on the other hand, only was the best goaltender in the league once, but was also the most valuable player once and the most important player in his team’s playoff run on three separate occasions.  The one thing that may slide this over to Kanou for me is that he spearheaded the Dynamo to three Continental Cups while Shaw only was able to get Toronto one.  While Continental Cups are a team concept, it starts to matter a lot more when one of the two subjects is arguably the sole reason for three of them, while the other struggled heavily at times in some of their runs.

 

Verdict

 

I think I am arguably more confused coming out of this comparison than I was going into it.  I am pretty sure I was leaning to Aidan Shaw coming into this comparison, but now I might be finding myself going the other way.

 

Admittedly, it is difficult to give Kanou the edge when he was only voted as the league’s top Goaltender on one occasion.  His Playoff performances are incredible and he still brought home a ton of individual and team hardware, but when I look at the top players at other positions, they were indeed considered the best at their position for a number of years.  Kanou cannot make this claim, but I think Aidan Shaw can.

Aidan Shaw’s main argument has to be regular season success which saw him win four Top Goaltender trophies.  While he may not have a Campbell Trophy to his name, he can take the bragging rights on his absolutely destructive regular season performances.  Are his overall career statistics helped by not having a rookie season right out of his draft? Perhaps, but we don’t really generally hold it too hard against others, and he was a significant amount of TPE back of Kanou, so Shaw’s rookie season was actually probably fairly similar to Daisuke’s.

 

Daisuke Kanou’s argument is mainly predicated on his playoff run’s but I think there is an argument in regards to consistency.  In the all-time finishes he actually showed up more than Aidan Shaw, despite the fact that Shaw finished first more times, and in arguably more important categories.  However, I do think that analysis did more to help Kanou in closing the gap between their regular season resumes, while I don’t really think Shaw has anything that closes the gap when it comes to playoff campaigns.  This is actually part of the reason I think I ultimately do lean to Kanou, as I am a sucker for playoffs and I think their regular season performances are closer than they appear.  After all, given their statistical finishes, it’s pretty obvious that if we had access to voting records, Kanou was likely the bridesmaid for the Tretiak Trophy on at least four occasions, if not more.

 

Ultimately, I see this like Dominik Hasek vs. Patrick Roy.  Hasek is the greatest regular season goaltender in NHL history with some of the most ridiculous individual seasons when it comes to save percentage and overall statistical categories.  Roy is not far behind and had a lot of regular season success himself, but it was his playoff runs and his dominance in those that really gave him his legacy.  Many consider Hasek the greatest goalie of all-time, but I know many that make the argument that in a Game 7 situation, you’d rather have Roy in that clutch situation.  I think that is where I stand with this comparison.  Shaw probably has the more decorated career of the two, but I’m taking Kanou in a Game 7 of a Continental Cup Final.  Where does that leave me on this comparison? I have no idea, but it is very clear these two are legends and compared to for a reason.

 

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Members Mentioned: @tfong @Kendrick @.sniffuM @Tyler @Pominville29 @Cowboy @Zero @CowboyinAmerica

Word Count: 3097

 

Thank you to @Victor for all of the resources used on this Historical Battle.

[Advantage 2,891]

Hope you all enjoy this comparison of two player's who played around five decades ago.  I know a lot of you weren't around for either of these goaltenders and probably only know them due to the awards named after them

 

Feel free to suggest more in the link at the top of the article, and you can also visit the other link if you missed the first edition which saw a tight matchup between Gabriel McAllister and Matt Thompson.

 

For those who don't know the member behind Shaw, Ree_21, he sadly no longer is in the league but is a member of our builder HOF.  You can find his inductee bio HERE.

Edited May 18, 2020 by Advantage

[Baozi 1,658]

Best rival duo of all time.

 

Thanks for all the effort you put into this @Advantage.

[Victor 10,940]

Lovely stuff again.

 

I had to check where I ranked them in the top 10 goalies, surprisingly pretty far apart with Shaw at 3 and Kanou at 6. I'm gonna stick with that verdict as I actually did research back then while atm I think there's a bit of decency bias because of Funk making a run for Kanou's status as playoff king (although I guess that's Wingate's title now anyway.  But then Shaw has been eclipsed in the regular season too).

 

Anyway, unreal rivalry. That S24 final was something else. Not even Cleganebowl could match it. But I do think Kanou had the higher highs but not as many highs.

[Kendrick 4,741]

They were great goalies, that's for sure

[Devise 4,475]

Kanou for me. It's super close and the Hasek vs Roy comparisons are spot on. Ultimately though the hardware the playoff success and as Vic mentions the higher highs just feel more impactful. Shaw is one of the best goalies of all time, but that argument is close. Kanou manages to not only keep the argument for best goalie close he's also one of the best playoff performers of any position.

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