I know we just had this argument elsewhere. But false.
They were on their way to getting eliminated by Nashville in the first round with Hasek in net. Osgood came in at the end of game 4 as Nashville tied the series with all the momentum and the rest as they say is history.
GP:19 GA:1.55 SV%.930
18 Starts - 14-4
He won his next nine starts. He started the stanley cup finals with two straight shutouts. I think he is the fourth player in the history of the NHL to accomplish that feat if I remember right. He was probably runner up to Zetterberg for Conn Smythe and an easy argument can be made he deserved the award. They don't have a banner without Chris Osgood in 08.
He split time with Hasek during which the two won the Jennings award that season. By the way he played the more games in both the years the Jennings was won over both Vernon and Hasek. But he actually had the lowest GAA average in the league in both the regular season and playoffs in 2008.
Osgood Stat accomplishments read
4th all time in NHL wins percentage
10th all time in Wins
7th all time in GAA
Two Jennings
Two Stanley Cups as a starter (One as a backup)
Five Stanley Cup finals (One as a backup)
He is also in the top ten of virtually every playoff stat, SO, Wins, SV%, GAA.
You can say he never jumped out at you as elite, fine that is true of a lot of players. That is why he doesn't belong near the top ten and is a fringe hall of fame candidate. But his credentials speak for themselves. I can make a case for putting him somewhere in the low 20's and do so with a straight face and not just blind homerism. I will have to sit down and do it, but I cannot see him not coming in somewhere in the 30's even when I examine this more closely. I was blessed to see Vernon, Hasek, Cujo and Osgood all in a short time period. I can tell you he belongs with those guys. It is more than just watching Wings games I have long thought Osgood belonged under the tier of Hasek, Roy and Brodeur. Belfour who I saw a lot, I would not take over Osgood and I realize I am in the minority, but they have similar credentials. Belfour did get his Vezina's though. He belongs in the discussion, where he ranks at that point is personal opinion. Obviously Hasek is out in front in terms of Wings goalies (mostly from his Sabres days) but my point is Osgood was a great goalie. He just never got enough credit.
My point was I wanted to see him added to the list which he was. I also feel like his name would be questioned because if he didn't make the preliminary list and I handed in a spread sheet with him on it. I would be questioned for it and I think his case should be made because he is undersold a lot. I thought we were encouraged to do that.
I don't doubt that he has the statistics. That's the point of research. Otherwise, it's very easy to decide who the best players of all time are: just sort by points and by save pct. - interesting that 14 of the top 15 goalies of all time play in the league today by that particular metric...
I hope the "tier right below Hasek, Roy and Brodeur" isn't on an all-time level...that would be bloody disastrous...
We must have been watching different playoffs, Osgood was better, to me, in 2009 than in 2008...the Red Wings team in 2008 was so dominant in my eyes that if they had a really good goalie, they might not have lost...they were that good...
With all due respect, and as a student of the game myself, I would be despondent if Osgood cracked this top-40 list...that would really make me question the whole process...he is exactly the type of player that I would think and hope the committee would be trying to weed out...someone that rode the coat tails of a dominant team but wasn't particularly better than his replacements (minus the one time he knocked out a 60 year old Hasek), had no success away from the team and the team had success when he went away...
Osgood, like I said in the Cloutier thread, just looks like a goalie that was trained before the "goalie revolution" and came into his own just after it...thus the early success (like the shortened 1995 season, the odd 1996 season), but as you trend further and further into the evolution, Osgood's statistics (which seems to be his main draw) just blend in with that of his backups. And then the Wings win one immediately after he's dispatched...
I mean, despite all the shiny statistics, even the easily-fooled media today doesn't fall for it, much less the GMs (who I trust much more today) who didn't even consider him for the Vezina minus, what, one time in a supposed "great" career? For 15 years, the league's GMs purposefully and knowingly ignored his alleged greatness? Didn't fight for him when he was dispatched from the team in the early 2000's? (Much worse, he was peddled off from a team that missed its peak and seemed to enjoy being an above average team for 20 years to a team that might have been better off going dormant after the first lockout to save money and embarrassment).
I have a little different take on players than some of the historians here because I try to look at things as a coach/scout more than anything else, I really don't know any other way, I'm trying to learn...but beyond any shadow of a doubt, in 2008 for instance, Osgood was the only thing that cost the Red Wings a sweep in the Finals...I mean, in game 3 he was just brutal, banking pucks off of him, game 6 Malkin just shoots one clean through him...I mean, just to be blunt, from my perspective, he just wasn't that talented of a goalie...maybe if he started in 1984 instead of 1994, the perception would be different...but he was just a cost-cutting measure that happened to play behind a HHOF d-man in Lidstrom, some great coaches in Babcock and Bowman and just rode it...he never did anything that made me (or countless others) go, "wow, thank God they have Osgood because "player X" couldn't have done that..." the Wings almost seemed to spend half of his career looking for someone to replace him...
I mean, it was just whoever was there was winning but yet it was still a roller coaster...never happened in a place like New Jersey for instance, during the same time...Ok, Osgood is the guy, he's winning ok good, now Osgood's out, Vernon's in he's winning, ok he's out, who's next, ok Osgood again, oops, he blows again, how about Hasek, ok we win, now you're out, CuJo you're in, you lost, you're out, how about Legace, ok undefeated regular season or whatever he had and he lost, now he's out, Osgood you're in...ok we win, let's get a new goalie, ok Howard you're in...and it just never stops...
He just didn't inspire the confidence of the team he was winning for, much less anyone else...he's a poster child for stats overrating the performance of a player and I would say he's the type of guy left on the side of a milk carton when this list gets published, but that would infer that someone is actually looking for him...
