Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Nogood is Back

The Wings brought Chris Osgood back today. No word on if Ray Sheppard or Slava Kozlov are interested in returning as well. In other news, the Wings fanbase of 17-21 year-old girls just went up 10 fold.
I curse Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg for being little bastards and effectively keeping the Wings out of the market for anyone else. If Datsyuk really wants $4+ million per, I'd find him a quick bus ticket out of here, to quote Bobby Ross. He's good, but he hasn't done jack in the playoffs. Let's not go asking for Ziggy Palffy money just yet, huh? Speaking of Palffy, I was really hoping the Wings would nab him but for 3 years/13.5 million, Pittsburgh can have him. That's about 35-40% more than I thought he'd be getting. Nice player, but that's a lot of money to put out there for a guy that's been hurt as much as he has been.
I guess that brings our options down to Selanne and Bondra. Still hoping for Bondra, even though he's getting up there in years (and making me feel old in the process). If they find one more scorer, I think they'll have a pretty decent team. I still think the Wings have the best defense corps in the league. Schneider would be a #1 on 20 other teams, Lidstrom's obviously one of the elite, then you still have Chelios, Fischer, and Kronwall (kid's a player)...and I can live with Jamie Rivers as the #6. Bondra would be a big help to the offense though.
I'm disappointed in the signing of Osgood though. I know he's probably as good--and cheaper--than most of the guys out there, but I really didn't want to see that guy back in Detroit. Ugh.


Anonymous said...

I wouldn't worry too much about Osgood Tim. I don't think Babcock will favor him over Legace and will probably give both an equal shot, and it wouldn't surprise me to see a platoon system like what the Wild do (although us fantasy leaguers can't stand it). Plus as you say, the defense is more than solid. You are right that another scorer would be helpful.

Another interesting fact, Osgood's stats in 2003-04 were almost identical to Khabibulin's, something which honestly surprised me.

Packer487 said...

I was surprised by that as well. Especially since I was under the impression that he was absolutely God-awful for a big portion of that season (though that may have been the year he split with the NYI and Blues).

We could have done a lot worse for a goalie than Osgood, especially for the price. I just really didn't want to see that guy back here. I was so happy to be rid of him, I can't believe he's back.

Let the best man win the goalie job for the playoffs, I guess. I still can't help but feel like this is gonna be another 1st/2nd round exit for the Wings. If they had a top-half-of-the-NHL caliber goalie, they'd be the odds on favorite in the West (at least right now). Maybe they shouldn't have burned the bridge with Cujo, then threw some TNT on it and pissed on the ashes.

And even though I don't agree with Holland's timing of saying "If we can find anything better out there, we'll certainly explore it" during the "Ozzie's coming back!" press conference, it's nice to know that he'll keep looking at options if a better goalie comes available.