It’s not that common. Niemi, Binnington, Murray, Hill. It happens for sure but most cups have been won by teams investing in goalies.
Since the lockout 7 cups were won with goalies drafted in the 1st or acquired for a 1st (Ward, Vasilevskiey x 2, Fleury x 3, Kuemper). Crawford was a second round pick that was cheap for one cup and expensive for another. Same with Quick. Holtby, Thomas, Giguere (Bob?) were big money goalies.
Osgood/Hasek won in 08 and they were cheap, but names.
Not to mention that all the expensive goalies that you supposedly can’t win with made long runs to the finals. lundqvist, Luongo, Rinne, Price etc.
And this is consistent with Doms research that shows the average cup winner has a top 10 goalie.
The issue is paying/paying for goalies that aren’t high end because there isn’t a huge difference between the 10-15th ish best goalie and the 40th ish best goalie. So it’s a mistake to pay guys in that range like we have done (or worse than that which we have also done).
But the data just doesn’t bear that it is impossible to evaluate goaltending and you should never invest in goalies.
If a team has a chance to acquire a top goalie, for example Ullmark or Sarros, it would be a good move and the majority of cup winners have had a goalie like that.