Wings Sign Chris Osgood
posted by Brian List @ 8/08/2005 03:43:00 PM ::
6 comments
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The Wings have signed Chris Osgood to a one-year, $900,000 deal. This brings back the former Wings goaltender (1993-2001) who led the team to a 1998 Cup title. After the Wings acquired Dominik Hasek the summer of 2001, Osgood was put on waivers. The New York Islanders claimed Ozzie in the waiver draft, where he spent two seasons. After struggling as an Islander, he was traded to St Louis at the 2003 trade deadline, and most recently posted a 31-25-8 record, 2.24 GAA with the Blues. Manny Legace, the other Wings goalie, will make $1.1628 million this season.
For me, this is an amazing move by the Wings. After Chicago signed Nikolai Khabibulin, names such as Osgood, Thibault, and Dunham remained as the best available goaltenders. Osgood made $3 million in 2003-2004, and applying a 24% rollback to that figure for market value's sake brings him to $2.28 million potential value. So at $900,000 he's definitely a bargain for what could be a starting goaltender. I'm sure his connection to Detroit led to his accepting such a low figure.
You just had to know Mike Ilitch wasn't going to settle with a Manny Legace / Joey MacDonald goaltending duo. I knew we couldn't afford Khabibulin, so I've been hoping Ozzie would be the man. It's really exciting to have Osgood back, especially after him leaving on bad terms in 2001. A great signing.
6 Comments:
I'm very glad to see Ozzie back. I hated to see the way he was forced out in 2001 and I'm glad he has the class to accept less in order to return to his old team, despite the ugly way he left last time. It's a bargain for a guy with 305 career wins and a Cup.
would rather have had Cujo, but apparently he had such hard feelings over the Hasek, Cujo, Legace merry go round that he wouldn't consider it.
They should have made a bigger push for Manny Fernandez when he was available.
Forget Cujo.... he never got it done in Detroit. Never had the relationship with the fans either. Ozzie knows Detroit, knows the fans and has 2 Cups here. What's more the price is perfect. Ozzie took a cut to come here and signed for 900 grand knowing a good season will bring him more money next season. This was a very smart move by Holland. Welcome back Ozzie!!!
We wouldn't get a great goalie and Ozzie was really cheap. That's all. I guess we'll be more confident with Manny and Ozzie will be a nice backup. It's better to have Ozzie at that price than McDonald, ok. But we know how limited he is. The whole team had to make up for his mistakes in 1998 to win the cup.
My take is that Ozzie was the best goalie available for the price the Wings could afford. Manny Fernandez signed for $1.67M, and the Wild would've match any offer by the Wings up to the number we could afford (say $2-2.5M). Cujo would've been expensive. He's still considered a top tier goaltender. Maybe $3-4M, and he didn't want to stay here anyways. Ozzie is an easy fit, and less of a gamble than signing any other free agent goalie in our spending level.
A nice signing for Detroit and at such a cheap price. Even if Legace starts, it will be nice to have a veteran goalie such as Ozzie to back him up.
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