Osgood hangs 'em up

[Kin]

If Rayzer (oh yeah, I miss that nickname) had done 37 for 11 years in a row, then shiver me timbers, he'd deserve to be in the HOF.

Hold on....what? If Raycroft had that exact same season 11 years in a row you'd think that he should be in the hall of fame?

 

[Omallley]

If Rayzer (oh yeah, I miss that nickname) had done 37 for 11 years in a row, then shiver me timbers, he'd deserve to be in the HOF.

Hold on....what? If Raycroft had that exact same season 11 years in a row you'd think that he should be in the hall of fame?

Sub .900 save percentage, etc.

No, he wouldn't belong.

 

[bustaheims]

Now that made me laugh out loud.

How do you figure? Wins are a team based statistic. Regardless of your performance, outside of the unlikely possibility that the goalie actually scores the only goal of the game, no individual player can actually win a game by himself.  Being part of a successful team is hardly a good measure of an individual's performance. Osgood was an ordinary goalie - maybe above average in his prime, but, overall, fairly run-of-the-mill as starting goalies go - on a number of great Detroit teams that helped him win a lot of games, regardless of his performance. Case in point - in the 08/09 season, Osgood had a 26-9-8 record despite registering a 3.09 GAA (41st among 47 qualified goalies) and a .887 Sv% (45th among 47 qualified goalies - behind even the Leafs' Vesa Toskala). And this isn't the only season Osgood had where his win totals and his GAA and Sv% did not aline. In just about every single season the man played, his individual statistics (like GAA and Sv%) were middle of the pack while his team-based stats (like wins) were very good. He was an ordinary player on a great team - and ordinary players do not belong in the HHOF.

 

[cw]

I think that probably the best argument against Chris Osgood making the HOF probably comes when you stack him up with Mike Vernon.

Osgood:
Won no significant individual awards
Won 401 games
Won 2 cups as a starting goalie
Played in two all-star games

Vernon:
Won a Conn Smythe
Won 385 games
Won 2 cups as a starting goalie
Played in five all-star games

Vernon has been eligible for 6 years. Vernon, I don't think, is a very serious candidate. Neither guy will go.

Rogatien Vachon:
Won one Vezina
Won 355 games (before shootout and OT that would have increased his win #s)
Won 3 Cups, one or two as starter depending on how one looks at it
Won one Canada Cup ... as the team MVP & a tournament all star
Four all-star games (two on 2nd All Star Team)

He had incredible reflexes - close to the best I've ever seen and with them a great glove. If he'd been bigger, I think he'd be in the HHoF.

Quite similar credentials and career compared to the two above and he's still on the outside looking in. As a goalie, between Osgood and Vachon, I'd take Roggie.

Tom Barrasso:
One Calder
One Vezina
Won 369 games (before shootout that would have increased his win #s)
Won 2 Cups as a starter
Three All Star Games (1st & two 2nd All Star)

Again, quite similar credentials and career compared to the two above and he's also still on the outside looking in.

Richter:
No major individual trophies
Won 301 games (career ending concussion)
Won one Cup as starter
Won one World Cup for USA and was tournament MVP
Three All Star games

Joseph:
No major individual trophies
Won 454 games
No Cup wins
Won Gold at World Championships as a starter
Three All Star games

Cujo's resume above isn't as good as Osgood's but I'd take him as a goalie over Osgood any day.

I think guys like Osgood, Cujo, Vachon, Vernon, Barrasso, Richter, etc  are a collection of good goalies who are a cut below the HHoF or will have a long wait if they ever get in.

 

[Kin]

I think guys like Osgood, Cujo, Vachon, Vernon, Barrasso, Richter, etc  are a collection of good goalies who are a cut below the HHoF or will have a long wait if they ever get in.

There are other guys to throw in that pile. Vanbiesbrouck, Kolzig, Moog and so on. I don't know there's a single one I'd pass on in their prime to take Osgood in his prime.

Cujo, to me though, is a guy who may be the most unfairly hurt by the fact that he just didn't play on very good teams. Playing his prime years with undergunned Blues, Oilers and Leafs teams just about killed his chances of cups or individual awards. What he did manage to accomplish with some of those teams is actually pretty remarkable.

 

[cw]

I think guys like Osgood, Cujo, Vachon, Vernon, Barrasso, Richter, etc  are a collection of good goalies who are a cut below the HHoF or will have a long wait if they ever get in.

There are other guys to throw in that pile. Vanbiesbrouck, Kolzig, Moog and so on. I don't know there's a single one I'd pass on in their prime to take Osgood in his prime.

Cujo, to me though, is a guy who may be the most unfairly hurt by the fact that he just didn't play on very good teams. Playing his prime years with undergunned Blues, Oilers and Leafs teams just about killed his chances of cups or individual awards. What he did manage to accomplish with some of those teams is actually pretty remarkable.

I agree on both counts. There are probably other goalies we've missed that fit in that category if I rummaged around for them. I just threw a few names out to illustrate the point of where Osgood roughly fits.

Cujo was much better than his resume shows in my opinion. And he carried some of those teams - which Osgood never did in his career.

 

[Damian]

All the goaltenders mentioned were good people too, all except for Barrasso, who was a known tool..... its not HoF criteria

 

[moon111]

Osgood: Shots/game = 25.04
Raycroft: Shots/game = 26.06 (26.81 with Leafs)

Osgood's top four save percentages: .917, .914, .913, .911 
Raycroft's top four save percentages: .926, .918, .911, .910 

Osgood's worst four save percentages: .887, .888, .888, .894
Raycroft's worst four save percentages: .876, .879, .890, .897

Osgood's Winning percentage: 54%
Raycroft's Winning percentage: 41% (43% with the Leafs)

What the stats don't say is the quality of chances, or the ability to make the big save when it counts.  I think Osgood really benefited from not having to make as difficult saves.  I don't think Raycroft's skill level is any lower then Osgood's, but mentally-tough wise, he's softer.  Either way, neither goalie belongs in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

 

[maplesyrup]

Osgood had 15 playoff SOs. Only 3 goalies who ever played the game had more. Hall-worthy? Again, debatable but its a stat worth considering.

 

[Kin]

Osgood had 15 playoff SOs. Only 3 goalies who ever played the game had more. Hall-worthy? Again, debatable but its a stat worth considering.

Not especially. For starters, it's not like playoff shutouts are a statistic that people tend to put a lot of stock into from year to year. Patrick Roy in 92-93, which a lot of people consider the best playoff goaltending season anyone ever had, had no shut-outs.

But even if they were it's only meaningful if you entirely ignore everything that goes into a stat like that. The outside factors that will contribute to a goalies number of playoff shutouts are:

1. the quality of the team in front of him
2. the number of games he gets to start in the playoffs
3. the era in which he played

Osgood probably had those three factors working more in his favour than any other goalie in history. He played in what was a largely low-scoring era behind the greatest team of that era(especially defensively) that was always in the playoffs. Osgood had the grand total of one shut-out in the playoffs not playing for the Wings and his career high in a year with the Wings was three which he did once. Osgood didn't record shutouts in the playoffs at a particularly high rate.

A great way to see that is to look at Hasek's numbers in that same category. Before joining the Red Wings, Hasek had 6 playoff shut-outs in all of his career. In one season with the Wings he doubled that. A great goalie having a great playoffs post-Roy tends to have more than 2 or 3 playoff shut-outs. Hasek had 6 in 01-02, Brodeur had 7 in 02-03(and Giguere had 5) and so on. Looked at in context. Osgood's record of shut-outs in the playoffs is really another good piece of evidence that he was a pretty unimpressive goalie.

 

[Bullfrog]

Since the goalie is the most important position on any team, in Osgood's case you can put up all the arguments you want, but at bottom it's indefensible to privilege a particular opinion (which I happen to share, BTW) over his W-L record.  He won the games, he won the rings.  He's in.

No, I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous. That's saying that nothing matters, not save percentage, not GAA, not end of year awards or all-star selections or actually trying to examine his impact on the teams he played on(Osgood did not lead his non-Wings teams to much success and the Wings had/have success without him) compared to a ridiculously flawed statistic like wins.

Definitely agree. Osgood was a good goalie, no doubt. But he's way down the list on potential goalie inductees.

Osgood definitely feels he's a HOF candidate though:
http://www.freep.com/article/20110720/COL22/107200365/Michael-Rosenberg-Osgood-has-strong-case-for-Hall-of-Fame?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE%7Cs

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

His name even screams it - OsGOOD not great.

 

[maplesyrup]

Osgood had 15 playoff SOs. Only 3 goalies who ever played the game had more. Hall-worthy? Again, debatable but its a stat worth considering.

Not especially. For starters, it's not like playoff shutouts are a statistic that people tend to put a lot of stock into from year to year. Patrick Roy in 92-93, which a lot of people consider the best playoff goaltending season anyone ever had, had no shut-outs.

But even if they were it's only meaningful if you entirely ignore everything that goes into a stat like that. The outside factors that will contribute to a goalies number of playoff shutouts are:

1. the quality of the team in front of him
2. the number of games he gets to start in the playoffs
3. the era in which he played

Osgood probably had those three factors working more in his favour than any other goalie in history. He played in what was a largely low-scoring era behind the greatest team of that era(especially defensively) that was always in the playoffs. Osgood had the grand total of one shut-out in the playoffs not playing for the Wings and his career high in a year with the Wings was three which he did once. Osgood didn't record shutouts in the playoffs at a particularly high rate.

A great way to see that is to look at Hasek's numbers in that same category. Before joining the Red Wings, Hasek had 6 playoff shut-outs in all of his career. In one season with the Wings he doubled that. A great goalie having a great playoffs post-Roy tends to have more than 2 or 3 playoff shut-outs. Hasek had 6 in 01-02, Brodeur had 7 in 02-03(and Giguere had 5) and so on. Looked at in context. Osgood's record of shut-outs in the playoffs is really another good piece of evidence that he was a pretty unimpressive goalie.

Fair points.

 

[Number 5]

Anyone who announces they feel they deserve to be in the Hall, doesn't deserve to be in the Hall.

 

[ZBBM]

Now that made me laugh out loud.

How do you figure? Wins are a team based statistic. Regardless of your performance, outside of the unlikely possibility that the goalie actually scores the only goal of the game, no individual player can actually win a game by himself.  Being part of a successful team is hardly a good measure of an individual's performance. Osgood was an ordinary goalie - maybe above average in his prime, but, overall, fairly run-of-the-mill as starting goalies go - on a number of great Detroit teams that helped him win a lot of games, regardless of his performance. Case in point - in the 08/09 season, Osgood had a 26-9-8 record despite registering a 3.09 GAA (41st among 47 qualified goalies) and a .887 Sv% (45th among 47 qualified goalies - behind even the Leafs' Vesa Toskala). And this isn't the only season Osgood had where his win totals and his GAA and Sv% did not aline. In just about every single season the man played, his individual statistics (like GAA and Sv%) were middle of the pack while his team-based stats (like wins) were very good. He was an ordinary player on a great team - and ordinary players do not belong in the HHOF.

I just came back to this thread from yesterday and (forgive my bluntness) you guys are all cranked.  Winning is the name of the game.  Winning IS the only relevant statistic, when you get down to the essentials.  Of course I'm being somewhat facetious there but if you are 10th in all-time wins you are NOT an ordinary player.  It's just silly to argue otherwise.

Think about it: if he were 1st, 2nd, or 3rd on the all-time win list, would you deny him entry even if he was an "ordinary" player?  I don't see how anyone could argue that seriously.  If so, then the question is, what's the cutoff?  I contend that top-10 is an automatic ticket.

 

[Kin]

I just came back to this thread from yesterday and (forgive my bluntness) you guys are all cranked.  Winning is the name of the game.  Winning IS the only relevant statistic, when you get down to the essentials.  Of course I'm being somewhat facetious there but if you are 10th in all-time wins you are NOT an ordinary player.  It's just silly to argue otherwise.

No. What you're missing is that wins are not a valid individual statistic. They are all-important in a team sense but they're not an accurate reflection of an individual's performance. A goalie can make one save, allow five goals and get credited with a "win". A goalie can make 60 saves, allow one goal, and get a "loss". There isn't a hockey fan with two eyes and a brain that would say the first goalie played better than the second. A statistic that doesn't accurately measure a player's performance is not a meaningful statistic of that player's value.

And the HOF is an individual honour. Players are not judged by the accomplishments of their teams, they're judged by their contributions to their teams. If that weren't the case, Borje Salming and Gilbert Perreault would be booted out of the Hall of Fame for Kevin Lowe and Esa Tikkanen.

Think about it: if he were 1st, 2nd, or 3rd on the all-time win list, would you deny him entry even if he was an "ordinary" player?  I don't see how anyone could argue that seriously.  If so, then the question is, what's the cutoff?  I contend that top-10 is an automatic ticket.

Well that's a pretty silly cut-off. We know, for instance, that Mike Vernon isn't in the HOF with 385 wins. You're saying that Osgood, with 401 wins, is an automatic entrant. Most of the guys on the all-times win list between 10-20 aren't in the HOF and never will be. Sean Burke, Vanbiesbrouck, Moog, Barrasso and on and on.

Seriously, listen to yourself. You're arguing that if Andrew Raycroft had his terrible season for the Maple Leafs, were he was blamed by most for the team missing the playoffs and lost his job, eleven times in the row he'd be a Hall of Famer.

 

[cw]

Now that made me laugh out loud.

How do you figure? Wins are a team based statistic. Regardless of your performance, outside of the unlikely possibility that the goalie actually scores the only goal of the game, no individual player can actually win a game by himself.  Being part of a successful team is hardly a good measure of an individual's performance. Osgood was an ordinary goalie - maybe above average in his prime, but, overall, fairly run-of-the-mill as starting goalies go - on a number of great Detroit teams that helped him win a lot of games, regardless of his performance. Case in point - in the 08/09 season, Osgood had a 26-9-8 record despite registering a 3.09 GAA (41st among 47 qualified goalies) and a .887 Sv% (45th among 47 qualified goalies - behind even the Leafs' Vesa Toskala). And this isn't the only season Osgood had where his win totals and his GAA and Sv% did not aline. In just about every single season the man played, his individual statistics (like GAA and Sv%) were middle of the pack while his team-based stats (like wins) were very good. He was an ordinary player on a great team - and ordinary players do not belong in the HHOF.

I just came back to this thread from yesterday and (forgive my bluntness) you guys are all cranked.  Winning is the name of the game.  Winning IS the only relevant statistic, when you get down to the essentials.  Of course I'm being somewhat facetious there but if you are 10th in all-time wins you are NOT an ordinary player.  It's just silly to argue otherwise.

Think about it: if he were 1st, 2nd, or 3rd on the all-time win list, would you deny him entry even if he was an "ordinary" player?  I don't see how anyone could argue that seriously.  If so, then the question is, what's the cutoff?  I contend that top-10 is an automatic ticket.

Taking out active or quite recent goalies, not long ago the list of top winning goalies might have looked like this:
Terry Sawchuk, 447   
Jacques Plante, 437
Tony Esposito, 423
Glenn Hall, 407
Grant Fuhr, 403
Mike Vernon, 385
John Vanbiesbrouck, 374
Andy Moog, 372
Tom Barrasso, 369
Rogatien Vachon, 355
Gump Worsley, 335
Harry Lumley, 330
Sean Burke, 324
Billy Smith, 305
Olaf Kolzig, 303
Turk Broda, 302
Mike Richter, 301

The bolded ones are in the HHoF. So there were a number in the top 10 wins column that got overlooked.

Bernie Parent got in with 2 Cups, 2 Vezinas, 2 Conn Smythes and "only" 271 wins

This HHoF goalies list strikes me as a collection of the best in their era:
http://www.legendsofhockey.net/LegendsOfHockey/jsp/LegendsPlayersByPosition.jsp?pos=G

Between '93-94 and '10-11 in Vezina voting, Chris Osgood received
http://hfboards.com/showthread.php?t=540180
- three votes (one 2nd, two 3rds) in '94-95
- and five 1sts, six 2nds and three 3rd place votes in '95-96 - runner up.
- one single 2nd place vote on one ballot in '97-98
- one single 3rd place vote on one ballot in '07-08

In 13 of his 17 seasons, he received no Vezina consideration (roughly top 10) whatsoever. In three of those other four seasons, he was a very minor candidate - a slightly/barely mentioned - well down the list (roughly 9th best). In only one season of his 17 seasons, was Osgood considered worthy of serious Vezina consideration. In the last 14 years of his 17 year career, he was a non factor in Vezina voting (receiving 2 votes in 14 years - he'd be well below 10th best over that time). I honestly don't know how one justifies him as Hall-worthy with that poor recognition record throughout his career.

I don't recall any rankings or reviews of teams over those years that said "Oh, you better watch out if a team faces the Red Wings because Osgood can stone you like Roy, Hasek, Brodeur, Joseph & Belfour!."

That's sort of like saying "for 17 years, nobody noticed he was one of the best until he retired and we looked at the win totals in his stats sheet while ignoring who he played for, his save% and what people thought of him throughout his career."

He seems like a very decent guy but I think Chris is in tough to get into the Hall of Fame.

 

[maplesyrup]

Okay, how the blue hell is Billy Smith not in the HOF?

 

[cw]

Okay, how the blue hell is Billy Smith not in the HOF?

He is. I missed bolding his name. Sorry (fixed now).

 

[maplesyrup]

Okay, how the blue hell is Billy Smith not in the HOF?

He is. I missed bolding his name. Sorry (fixed now).

Phew! I was going to start a riot.