NHL: Why Bring Osgood Back?

Got into one of those stupid bar discussions the other day. The starting point was a shot of Osgood on the bench cooling his heels while Hasek was cooling off the opposition. And the, brilliantly phrased, thesis to which I took exception was something along the lines of “Why did the Wings – who totally suck, by the way – bring that guy back. It's not like he was any good the first time around.”

Unfortunately, I am amongst the heathens, far from the friendly borders of Hockeytown, USA (Which, I know, is the lamest attempt at self-aggrandizement ever. But, yeah, in the heady air of the mid-90s it really did seem like the city turned on the edge of a skate blade.) so I felt compelled to defend the honor of Chris Osgood. He did, after all, only win a Cup for the Wings. The second one. The one for Konstantinov. Against the Caps in '98. And, I'll maintain to this day that the injuries to Osgood were what kpet the team from a three-peat in '99. Or at least beating the Avalanche, which would have been just as good.

But the reason he was brought back for a second stint, even after being traded away is that, for a reliable back-up, he's affordable, and he's well known by the Wings. He started with them, won a few Cups with them, and if he wants to go out of the league a Wing, they'll probably be more than happy to let him.

It's hard for me to think of the baby-faced Osgood as a veteran but he's been in the league for 16 years now, and while he's not exactly headed to the Hall of Fame, he's been a pretty consistent performer. He's only costing the Wings for 900k a year for the past few years (I believe his contract's up after this season.). Which, even with the salary cap adjustments, still a good price for a quality backup.

Maybe it's just because I've been following the Wings for a while but, if you ask me, the team's biggest weakness has always been goaltending. For whatever reason, forwards, defensemen, centers, the Wings found them readily but drafting, developing a goaltender was beyond their reach. That still hasn't changed, really, but the team's fortunes did once the Wings started bringing in the high-priced names, starting with Vernon, through trades or free-agency. Maybe fans raised on a diet of Vernon followed by Randford, by Joseph, by Hasek look at the netminder with a calm stomach but, not me. I lived through the Dead Wing era, when the best we could scrape up were goaltenders like Cheveldae. Who was a journeyman goalie but not exactly someone who could backstop a team to the cup. And as the worst seasons of the 80s faded and the Wings started to make noise in the early 90s, it was clear that was exactly what they were going to need to take that step up to the next level.

It's odd, now, with more than a decade of continued success behind them but at the time, the Wings were a young, upstart team trying to crack the playoff riddle and break the second-longest Cup drought ever. The Madison Square Garden chants of “1940!” resonated in Joe Lewis and, if the Rangers could break their forty~fifty year lack of a championship, the feeling was that, maybe, just maybe, these promising Wings might too, someday. Like they've been the past few years, they were big teases in the playoffs, losing to lower seeded teams with frightening regularity but there was just something about them.

So, it seemed appropriate that emerging right along with the Wings was a young, promising goaltender. One homegrown, right out of the Wing's farm club in the Adirondack. Osgood. He gave everyone hope that he might just have been that last, missing ingredient needed for a Cup. His playoff debut, in '94 was something of a disappointment, as the #1 seeded, and heavily favored, Wings went down to defeat against the two years out from expansion Sharks. A gaffe by Osgood pretty much handed the series to the Sharks. But his emergence as the Wings' go-to-goalie during the regular season was, in large part, what got them the #1 seed to begin with. The year after, the team was Vernon's and it ended with a loss in the Cup Finals against New Jersey.

Osgood never really lived up to the promise of those first few seasons. But, now, looking back over his career, it's easy to forget he was, at the time, considered to be really, really good. The tandem of Osgood and Vernon won the Jennings Trophy – given to the goaltenders of the team with the lowest GAA – for the '95~96 season. And I thought he'd won the Vezina trophy that year, too, although this says it was Jim Carey for the Capitols. A lot of that was the team he was playing in front of but I've seen the Wings with mediocre goalies and, that was never Osgood. He might not ever be the best goalie to ever wear the winged wheel but he's one of the good ones.