Monday, December 27, 2010

Sign him up for the Hall of Fame.

Chris Osgood is one of the best goalies in the world. The current world population is about 6.8 billion people, and he's probably a better goalie than 99% of them. He's definitely better than I am, and he's probably better than most of my friends. I'd say he's as good, maybe even better than most male goalies. That's impressive, I guess. But is he good enough for the Hall of Fame?

Osgood participated in a hockey game tonight, and his team was victorious. It was the 400th time this has happened in his NHL career. A lot of people are making a big deal out of it. They make sure to point out that he's only the 10th goalie in the history of the NHL to do such a thing. That is true, but it's not like there's a huge group of goalies stuck on 399 wins, and he finally passed them all. He's also the 10th goalie in the history of the NHL to record 399 career wins, 396 career wins and 392 career wins, so what makes 400 more special? I don't get it. Is it because 400 is a prettier looking number?

Those who are in favor of putting Osgood in the Hall tend to look at these impressive numbers:
400 wins
3 Stanley Cup Championships


Those who are in favor of using their brains look at these impressive numbers.
Ranked 11 out of 45 goalies in save% from 1994-97. Relatively impressive, he managed to squeeze into the top 25 percentile. Surely it has to get better than that though for a Hall of Fame goalie.
Ranked 21 out of 42 goalies in save% from 1998-2001. Well, that's pretty average. That's exactly right in the middle of the pack, among goalies like Tom Barrasso and Roman Turek. It must get better from there.
Ranked 37 out of 55 goalies in save% from 2002-04. That's under average! For three years, this "Hall of Fame" goalie was in the bottom half of the league in save percentage! Well, maybe his twilight years were better. Let's find out.
Ranked 51 out of 58 goalies in save% from 2006-11. ...I don't even know what to say.

Let's recap. For four years, he was decent. Not good, but decent. For four years, he was average. For nine years, he was one of the worst goalies in the league. Sounds good. Sign him up.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Hi

Merry Christmas.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Sometimes when I go to the bank

I fill out my deposit slip by hand. Occasionally, I'll carry a 1 instead of a 2 and I'll have the wrong number. Here's what Rotowire.com said about Martin Havlat after Monday night's 2-point game:

Havlat's scored with the man advantage early in the third and counted as the game winner. This was the first power-play goal at home for the Wild in over a month. Havlat is on pace to be somewhere around the 60-point mark at the end of the year.

He has 30 points in 32 games. Now, to be sure, I'm using a calculator as to decrease the chance of error. 30/32*82=somewhere around the 76.875 mark or much better than 60 points. Maybe they are assuming some injury. I don't know.