Given that this particular subthread started with my comment about the Wings, I feel justified in bringing it back to them. This is one of the things that has impressed me about the Wings during the beginning part of this period of dominance, as well as where they are right now. They really don’t seem to worry about when Osgood gives up goals. They don’t really seem to care if he gives up really soft goals (remember Vancouver scoring from the red line?) or makes completely boneheaded plays, like his turnover that led to Chicago’s first goal today. They really just don’t seem to care. They play as if they are confident that Osgood won’t give up more goals than they are capable of scoring themselves, and don’t let the goofy ones shake that confidence.

In turn, Osgood mostly lives up to that expectation. Despite giving up some really strange goals, at the end of most games, he’s stopped enough pucks for the team to win. It might be a strange road, but it gets to where they want to be. The usual psychological games between a goaltender and his team seem non-operative in this case, and it makes Osgood a good fit. Everyone seems to like him (unlike Legace), so it all works out.

There was a stretch right around the turn of the millennium where Detroit seemed to lose this confidence, and the strange goals did get to them. At that point, Osgood got shipped out. He wasn’t a good fit at that time. In a rare instance, I actually blame Holland to some extent. Had no one ever made an issue of trying to get an elite goaltender, I think they may have been able to keep cruising they way they were. Maybe not; maybe he had a sense that they had lost that edge. I don’t know.

Regardless, I’m glad Ozzie is back in Detroit. Despite giving up those goofy goals, I really like him. Hell, I probably like in part because of those goofy goals, given that I’m also confident that, at the end of the day, he’ll be good enough.