Osgood Is Difference, but Who’s Noticing?

Chris Osgood is that gawky kid who can’t skate, pass or shoot, so his buddies make him the goaltender. His sweater doesn’t quite fit. His pads look two sizes too big. He’s smaller, weaker, less skilled than everyone else, but he has found his niche.

Osgood is supposed to be the Detroit Red Wings’ weakest link, the one opponents must exploit if they hope to win. He’s not supposed to be someone the Red Wings can count on the way they now must rely on Sergei Fedorov, what with Brendan Shanahan and Steve Yzerman sidelined by injuries.

Scotty Bowman, Detroit’s cagey coach, even resisted naming Osgood his team’s starting goalie until mere hours before Game 1 of the Red Wings’ first-round playoff series against the Kings. Bowman easily could have gone with Manny Legace, who was more effective than Osgood in posting a 24-5-5 record with two shutouts and a 2.05 goals-against average in 39 games.

Bowman prefers experienced lineups in the postseason and picked Osgood as his starter despite a pedestrian 25-19-4 record with one shutout and a 2.69 goals-against average in 52 games. However, Osgood helped lead the Red Wings to the 1998 Stanley Cup title and that made the difference in Bowman’s decision.

The Red Wings won Game 1 on Wednesday, 5-3, in a game that could have been closer if not for Osgood’s standout work in net. Game 2 on Saturday was won by the Red Wings, 4-0, in a game that could have been closer if not for Osgood’s standout work in net.

“Solid,” Bowman said of Osgood, whose shutout Saturday was his ninth in postseason play.

“Very good.”

As in Wednesday’s game, the Red Wings helped Osgood from the opening faceoff by getting to loose pucks first and hammering the Kings against the boards to take a critical first-period lead.

Presented with a 2-0 lead after 20 minutes of Game 2--it was a 3-0 first-period advantage in Game 1--Osgood denied the Kings on the few occasions they dented the Red Wing defensive perimeter and drew close.

Osgood stopped 20 shots Saturday, many of them harmless, but a few others seemed ticketed for the back of the net. He even took one for the team off his helmet, deflecting a Bryan Smolinski shot from the wing and into the crowd with the outcome still in doubt.

If Smolinski had smoked one past Osgood at that point, the Kings would have trimmed Detroit’s lead to 2-1 with 15:46 remaining in the third period.

Moments later, Osgood denied Glen Murray on a promising break-in, kicking the shot into the corner with 14:35 left. Again, a goal there would have sliced the Red Wings’ lead and sent a jolt of much-needed momentum through the Kings.

Murray and the Kings came up empty, however. The Red Wings padded their lead with late goals from Vyacheslav Kozlov and Osgood held off the Kings for his third shutout in six playoff games against them in the last two postseasons.

Three shutouts in six games against one team brings to mind the mastery of a Patrick Roy or a Dominik Hasek or a Martin Brodeur. But Chris Osgood?

“That’s the media’s perception,” Darren McCarty said, playfully scolding a reporter. “It’s not a perception of anybody in this dressing room. He’s the guy we would pick to have in net. He’s the guy who backstopped us to a Cup in ’98.”

So, why hasn’t Osgood received his due?

“He gets no respect,” McCarty acknowledged. “It’s just because he’s so quiet. He has that [bad] reputation in the media. We know what a fierce competitor he is. He wants to win as much as anyone else on this team. He’s making the saves and doing the things we need to win.”

McCarty has one thing dead-on about Osgood. He’s not a self-promoter. In fact, Osgood was content to let others do the talking for him, ducking out of the dressing room before reporters could corner him.

Not that there were many people--McCarty excepted--talking about Osgood. The Kings never uttered his name. Bowman spoke of Osgood at length, but only in addressing the Red Wings’ superb penalty killing and didn’t mention him by name.

“Goaltending is a big part of penalty killing,” Bowman said after the Red Wings muzzled the King power play five times to run their shutout streak against them to 29 consecutive short-handed situations in the six playoff games dating to last season.

“I’d say the biggest reason [for the Red Wings’ success] starts with the goaltending.”