Is Chris Osgood Really a 400 Win Goalie(re-post)

I posted this originally at OverTheBoards on December 28, 2010, a day after Chris Osgood recorded win #400 against the Colorado Avalanche. There is some speculation that he is going to retire later today so I figured I would re-post it. Enjoy

Last night Chris Osgood notched a 4-3 win over the Colorado Avalanche and, in doing so, notched the 400th regular season win of his career. He became only the 10th person in NHL history to do so. Only Ed Belfour(Will be eligible this upcoming year[Belfour has since been inducted into the Hall of Fame]), Curtis Joseph(still 2 years away from eligibility), and Martin Brodeur(still active) have eclipsed 400 win and are not in the hall. Osgood’s win has sparked controversy all over the blogosphere as to whether he is a Hall of Fame worthy goaltender or if his wins are nothing more than the product of playing for the Detroit Red Wings in 14 of his 18 seasons. Below are the cases for and against.

Chris Osgood is a Hall of Famer:

• In his 18 seasons, Osgood has won 53.9% of the games he has played in. That is good enough to place him second on the list of 400+ win goaltenders. Only Brodeur(55.1%) is better. Even if he does not play well the remainder of the season he should still finish in the top 3.
• He has twelve 20+ win seasons, and 5 30+ win seasons. One of those 30 win seasons was a 31 win mark in 2003-2004 when he played for a St. Louis Blues team that finished with 39 wins. Another came in 2001-2002 when he won 32 games for the New York Islanders
• He has won 57% of his playoff games. For comparison Martin Brodeur has won 54% of his playoff games
• He is a 3 time Stanley Cup Winner and 3 time All-Star
• Replaced future Hall Of Famer Dominick Hasek in the 2008 Playoffs and led the Red Wings to the Stanley Cup. In the process he lost only 4 games and held his GAA under 2 and his save percentage above .910. Oh he was also 35 when he did this.

Chris Osgood is NOT a Hall of Famer

• In 14 of his seasons he has had Nicklas Lidstrom in front of him.
• He has only 50 shut outs. Compared to the list of 400+ win goaltenders only Grant Fuhr has less with 25. Only Fuhr, Joseph, and Osgood have less than 6o shutouts. All the goaltenders in the Hall who have less Shutouts than Osgood have a bit more hardware than Osgood.

I honestly went into this article expecting to thoroughly prove that Osgood was not Hall of Fame worthy, but I don’t really believe that anymore. People will go on and on about that he was nothing more than somebody who benefited from the incredible teams Detroit has had over the years, but I am starting to believe he was a piece of that incredible. While it certainly helped his numbers to have a stellar D corps in front of him, it wasn’t as if he didn’t need to be good.

If there were no names on the ballots then Osgood’s will probably read something like this:
400+ Wins
50(at least) Shutouts
Less than 2.50 GAA
Better than .900 Save Percentage
3 Stanley Cups
7 Consecutive Seasons with 20+ wins
70+ Playoff wins

Now looking at that, can you tell me how he doesn’t deserve Hall of Fame honors?

The Blue Line Carousel

With the resigning of Karl Alzner(finally) last week, the Capitals currently have 8 defencemen under contract for this season. Word around the blogosphere(if you aren't aware of this you are clearly not reading the important ones) is that Tom Poti will start the year on the LTIR. Given that we are over the Cap after the Alzner contract, this is extremely useful. This is a similar situation to what we started the year like last year, except this time it isn't lowly Tyler Sloan that is the odd-man out. Given the assumption that Green, Hamrlik, Alzner, and Carlson are all guaranteed starters, who doesn't find a jersey in their stall come opening night: Schultz? Wideman? Erskine

Let's start with Erskine. Of the three I believe to be the odd-men out, Erskine makes the least(1.5). He also plays the hardest in my opinion. He led the Caps blueliners with 166 hits. He averaged almost 5 hits/30 min which is comparable to Ovechkin. Let's also remember that his fight with then Thrasher, now Devil Eric Boulton was generally accepted as the best fight last year. I see no reason to keep the toughest defenceman out of this lineup.

Nest there's Wideman, who the Caps acquired as the trade deadline last year from Florida for who-care's-prospect and a 3rd round pick. He was limited to only 14 games last year and 0 in the playoffs due to the hematoma he suffered in a nasty collision with Tuomo Ruutu of the Hurricanes in late March. GMGM has said that he is back to full mobility and is rehabbing. With over 2 month still to go, I believe he should be okay by opening night. He struggled defensively last year in his first couple of games but he was starting to look comfortable just as he went down. Offensively he was still able to net 1 goal and pick up 6 helpers. He has 6 years of NHL experience under him and has scored 30+ points in each of his last 4 years. If he is healthy, I see no reason not to pair him with Erskine.

That leaves us with Schultz. For what it's worth(I believe diddly) Schultz is only a year removed from a league leading +50 rating. He played nearly all of that year playing alongside Mike Green(9 EV G) and was frequently on the ice with Ovechkin(37 EV G) and Backstrom(22 EV). When compared to last year's numbers, where he skated with varying lines, his rating dropped to +6 which was T-8 on the team and roughly 158th best in the league. BB was quoted earlier in the month as to hinting to pairing Green and Hamrlik together. Without Green and Ovechkin to at least make his +/- look good, Schultz brings little to the table. He is way too slow. He uses the body when the stick will do and tries to use the stick when he needs to check.

Regardless of who Boudreau decides to go with, I have to believe at least 1 of the 8 will not be around after the trade deadline. This could be expedited depending on how well Orlov does down in Hershey, which would be just fine with me.

A Change In Direction

Since Bruce's first offseason as head coach for the Capitals, there has been a pretty apparent way of thinking: stand firm. Every year we watched as GMGM would re-sign the players we fell in love with and choose not to venture far into the free agent market. In fact since the Summer of 2008, the only "big" free agents we had seen sign in Washington were Jose Theodore and Mike Knuble.

Already it is clear that GMGM has realized the error in not venturing into the open market. Most Caps' fans sat in front of their computers smiling as we finally opened the wallets to bring in the likes of Troy Brouwer(for grit), Joel Ward(for playoff success), Roman Hamrlik(to stabilize the D corp), and Vokoun(a bona fide #1), and Jeff Halpern(Former Cap/Leadership). We had every reason to be thrilled. Then the smiles began to fade. Varlamov found himself traded to Colorado(though props to GMGM for getting what he got). Matt Bradley and Boyd Gordon, two huge fan favorites, found themselves in Florida and Phoenix respectively. And just last week Eric Fehr was dealt to Winnipeg for what will essentially be cap space. We must also always remember to include the ever-present rumors of Alex Semin to [insert random team]. At least for me, it is hard to see these players go.

Yesterday I went and manually corrected all the rosters on NHL 11. Now granted this was a simple video game but I couldn't help but feel very little for these new players. Will Brouwer/Ward/Halpern score more goals than Fehr/Bradley/Laich? Absolutely. Will Vokoun win more games than Varlamov? Past stats and injuries say Yes. It still is going to take some time to get used to the notable absences.

From a business perspective this was a genius move though. Keep all the fan favorites to build up the dwindling fan base(as of 2007) and then once you hit the top make the championship winning moves and hope the fans stay too. From the many I have had a pleasure to meet on twitter, I know the true ones will.