Dear Chris Osgood ...
First and foremost, fuck off, you Red Wing piece of shit.
I remember calling you OsBad when I was 12. That’s right, a 12-year-old Nate the Great hated your damn guts. In fact, I bet all 12-year-old asshole Blues fans like me in the late ’90s hated your guts. They had every right to. You were the enemy, and you had not one, but two Stanley Cups that the team of jackoffs skating in front of you won and you essentially had nothing to do with.
You were on a team full of other colossal Red Army douches like Sergei Fedorov and Larry Murphy. You were less skilled than most of your teammates (except maybe Darren McCarty), and yet you seemed to get plenty of credit where it wasn’t necessarily due. You probably never actually said anything or did anything specific to make St. Louis hate you, but we did. We chanted "OOOSSSSGGOOOOODDDDDD" and wished all kinds of evil things on you (I mostly concentrated on knee injury). Remember, back then the Blues were a Western Conference power just like the Wings, so we had plenty of reason for the Osgood voodoo dolls.
I do have to put a disclaimer in this open letter because you eventually became a Blue, and you were pretty cool then. When we traded for you, I was more annoyed than I was when the Blues re-upped for Brad Fucking Winchester before last season. And that’s saying a lot. But a small part of me was like, "Ugh, it’s Osgood. But at least it’s not Roman Turek (or that crack goaltending tandem of Brent Johnson and Fred Brathwaite) anymore." And that was nice. Plus, you didn’t hate us at all, at least outwardly, which was admirable and a far cry from how much we had loathed you.
Since it was Turek/Johnson/Brathwaite before you and Patrick Lalime after you (and Jesus H Christ, I’m not even going to get into Patrick Lalime. Fuck that guy. I just got indigestion thinking about him), you’re actually remembered in St. Louis as being exactly what you were for your entire career: a perfectly mediocre stand-in goalie, just like you were with the Wings in years before and years after (and the Isles for a couple). Stand in the crease, make some saves. Allow some softies. Never make the highlight reel, ever. Ever. It’s your MO.
And then you left and went back to Detroit after the lockout, which is fine. We knew all along that you had been a Double Agent. (As a note, Brad in that post suggested Osgood should win the Conn Smythe, which he didn’t. That went to Henrik Zetterberg. Apparently they give the Conn Smythe to whichever player has a 30-pound vagina at the end of the playoffs.)
So really, Osgood, I don’t have that much of a problem with you anymore. But I do have a problem with all your octopus-wielding supporters who are now mourning your loss and talking about how you’re hall-of-fame bound, because that’s just flat-out bullshit.
Here are a few statistics from the Interwebs (some from friends over at Brodeur is a Fraud:
Chris Osgood's career record in playoff series where his team had a 20+ point regular season advantage over their opponents:
7 wins, 1 loss
Chris Osgood's career record in playoff series where his team had an advantage of less than 20 points over their opponents:
8 wins, 8 losses
And: Regular season, all teams, over Osgood's whole whole NHL career:
With Osgood: .629 WIN%, .905 SV%
Without: .640 WIN%, .906 SV%
So Osgood's teams were actually better when a goalie other than Osgood played.
And Osgood’s career in elimination games? 5-8 with an .893 save percentage. Everybody in Detroit-land, when they’re not busy building hobo-fires to keep warm at night or looting local department stores, is talking about how you won three Stanley Cups. And yeah, you did – but they were all (except maybe 2008) about of the team in front of you. For example, Ken Morrow, who played for the Isles in the early 80s and who maxed out at 19 points in a single season, has four Cup rings. AND he was on the Miracle On Ice 1980 USA team. Ken Morrow, like Chris Osgood, was obviously good at going along for the ride.
So, Chris Osgood, you shouldn’t go down as a hall-of-famer. Sure, Detroit is giving you an epic beej right now, and you’re hearing all about how you’re a winner. Whether you get into the Hall or not, rest at night knowing that if you had played most of your career for the LA Kings instead of the Red Wings, you wouldn’t have even one of those rings.
You were wholly unspectacular, which isn’t something that should be said about a hall-of-fame goalie. In St. Louis, at least, you’ll just be remembered as that Detroit goalie retread who wasn’t a headcase. Sorry, emo Manny.