NBC's McGuire Needs More Proof Of Red Wings' Goaltending Chops? The Nerve Of Some Folks

Dominik Hasek has 389 career NHL victories. He has a lifetime save percentage of .922. He's won an Olympic Gold Medal, and a Stanley Cup. He is the possessor of 81 shutouts. Lord knows how many more he's had ruined in the final few minutes of games already in hand. Even today, at age 43, he's stopping pucks at a rate of .902 with a 2.14 GAA, and five shutouts.

Chris Osgood has 363 career NHL victories. He has a lifetime save percentage of .907. He's won a Stanley Cup. He is the possessor of 47 shutouts. Today, at age 35, he is stopping pucks at a rate of .914 with a 2.09 GAA, and four shutouts. He made the All-Star team, in a year in which he was supposed to be a backup who was going to play in perhaps 25% of his team's games.

For those of you not keeping score at home, that's 752 victories, 128 shutouts, two Stanley Cups, and GAAs in the low 2.00s. And some 81,000 minutes played between them.

So it makes one wonder if NBC hockey analyst Pierre McGuire took one too many pucks to the head while reporting on the games this season from his location at ice level, between the benches. Because McGuire went on record with this curious statement.

The Red Wings, McGuire says, "are in trouble (for the playoffs) because their goaltending is unproven this year."

Hmmm.

Coach Mike Babcock posed something else, far less curious.

"Didn't we just win the Jennings (Trophy for least amount of goals allowed)? Ozzie's led the league in goals-against average. I don't know."

Me neither.

It's true that goaltending is still the fulcrum upon which every team's playoff chances are supported. And it's also true that bad goaltending is as much of a factor, if not more so, in a team's chances than good goaltending by the opposition is.

But come on, Pierre; unproven?

Just what IS proven, then? What do a team's netminders have to do to convince blabbermouths like McGuire that they've got the goods? If allowing the fewest amount of goals than anyone in the league isn't enough, then what is?

To give McGuire, a former coach, the benefit of the doubt here, I'm going to presume he means that, because of Hasek's injury troubles this year -- and I must reveal that Dom's save pct. this year was the lowest it's been in 15 seasons -- it's been difficult for him to get into the pre-playoff groove that Hasek prefers to be in. But that's not what he said. Regardless, I'll let Pierre slide a bit here.

Is it a legitimate concern? Goaltending is always a concern, but less so when you have the experience between the pipes that the Red Wings have. And let's not forget that the Red Wings were only a fluke goal and an ill-timed giveaway away from perhaps reaching the Cup Finals last spring -- largely because of the solid netminding that Hasek provided them.

Oh, well -- it's the eve of the playoffs, when even the mighty have to be dissected and presented to the public with possible concerns. Real or imagined.

Lochead’s Heroics 30 Years Ago Was It For Red Wings In ‘70s

Psst – don’t tell this to today’s Red Wings fans born after 1980, those spoiled whippersnappers that they are, but there was actually a time when their team didn’t compete for the Stanley Cup annually.

And if you’re one of those under-30s who’ve been used to nothing but fabulous regular seasons and the occasional long post-season run, topped off by three Cups, you people make me sick. I was in the war, cupcake. Otherwise known as the 1970s and half of the 1980s.

My fellow oldtimers are smirking and curling their lips up in disdain at those newbies with their Zetterberg and Datsyuk jerseys. You know whose jersey we would have been forced to wear – if they HAD jerseys for fans back then? Names like Bloom and Korney and Hogaboam and Bergeron. And no – there were no Scotty Bowmans or Mike Babcocks behind the bench. We’re talking Billy Dea and Larry Wilson and Ted Garvin.

Ahh, those were the days.

The Red Wings qualified for the playoffs after the 1969-70 season. Then they qualified again in 1984. In between, they had a Cinderella-ish year, in 1977-78. That’s 12 times missing the playoffs in 13 seasons, cupcake. And in many of those years, the NHL invited 16 of their 21 clubs into the playoff party. Yet the Red Wings constantly managed to be one of the 24% who missed the cut.

They were the days of Darkness With Harkness (named after the team’s inept GM of the early-‘70s, Ned Harkness) and when the team was known as the Dead Things.

But leave it to our old friend, the irascible Terrible Ted Lindsay, to provide a little spark.

It was late in the 1976-77 season, the Red Wings on their way to a 16-55-9 record, including an 0-18-1 finish. Did I just see one of the newbies dry heave? Anyhow, the team was awful, and ownership turned to Lindsay for help. It wasn’t the first time Teddy came out of retirement to help the club.

In 1964, needing another able body up front, GM-coach Sid Abel convinced his old linemate to get back into shape and help out, after four seasons out to pasture. So Teddy did, and the Wings made it all the way to the Cup Finals.

Now here came the Red Wings again, on their knees, pleading with Teddy.

Be our GM. Turn this thing around. Please.

So Lindsay settled his personal affairs and signed on. At his first game as GM, staring down from the press box at the mess below, it was reported that Lindsay simply shook his head in disgust, and left midway thru the third period.

All that changed shortly.

Lindsay hired a successful coach from the WHA, Bobby Kromm. He brought in gritty, unheralded players. He ushered in a new slogan, “Aggressive Hockey Is Back In Town.” They printed up t-shirts and bumper stickers with those words splayed on them. Then he drafted a kid center named Dale McCourt from the Ontario League.

All that, and it was still uncertain how improved Teddy’s new product would be.

Turns out, not too shabby.

The team won some games early, then slumped. Then Lindsay pulled another rabbit out of his hat, taking a cue from his own personal history, as he convinced former Blackhawks winger Dennis Hull to not retire and sign with Detroit instead. Hull did, and he contributed some more veteran leadership. By the end of the season, the Red Wings doubled their win total from the previous year, to 32, and made the playoffs.

Aggressive Hockey WAS Back In Town.

The NHL used to practice what the NBA originally made fashionable in their playoffs: the cute mini-series. They were best-of-three, blink-and-you’ll-miss-them affairs. And the Red Wings were matched up with the Atlanta (now Calgary) Flames, with Game 1 in Georgia. The Red Wings handled the Flames, and suddenly were on the verge of winning a playoff series, no matter how short and cute it was.

Bill Lochead (pronounced La-HEAD) was one of the players Lindsay craved: tough, grinding, and hungry. He was a forward whose blond locks curled from the bottom of his helmet. He wore no. 23, which I won’t forget. Even less chance of me forgetting is the goal he scored on April 13, 1978. Because until the Red Wings would make this town go wild, under Jacques Demers and Steve Yzerman some ten years later, Bill Lochead’s goal was the lone gem in the entire decade of the 1970s, and for most of the 1980s.

It didn’t take much to make us go crazy in 1978.

Bill Lochead

Late in Game 2, the score tied, the Red Wings dumped the puck into the Flames’ zone. Atlanta goalie Dan Bouchard, for whatever reason, was possessed to wander from the net to try to clear the disc, some 20 feet from the crease, near the boards. But Bouchard’s clearing try went off Lochead, who was blanketed by a Flames defenseman. The puck squirted into the corner. Lochead, his momentum increasing, managed to wrangle the puck, but by that time he was almost directly behind the net.

There’s no way, I thought, that Lochead can put that puck into the now-vacant goal.

Somehow, Lochead pushed the puck to his forehand, and as he was literally behind the net, he tucked it behind the goal line just before falling into the boards. There were maybe two minutes remaining.

You’d have thought the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup. The Olympia Stadium crowd went berserk. The players streamed onto the ice, as if the goal had come in overtime. After surviving a Flames onslaught at the end, the Red Wings won, and had swept the mini-series.

They even managed to scare the mighty Montreal Canadiens in Round 2, splitting the first two games in the Forum before being bumped out in five games.

After that delightfully surprising season, the Red Wings went back to their old ways. A few years later, Lindsay had been fired and the team went up for sale. A pizza pie guy, Mike Ilitch, was the sucker who bought them.

So it was little-known Bill Lochead who turned Detroit on for the only time in about 20 years. Go figure.

The Race Is Soon To Be On: LB Against Isiah For Another Coaching Job

OK, so who'll get another NBA coaching job first: Isiah Thomas or Larry Brown?

Brown is acting like a strung-out morphine addict. He was quoted by the Philadelphia Inquirer thusly: "I've got to figure out if I can get a coaching job. I want to get back so bad. I'm so bored."

Geez. I don't know whether to laugh, feel sorry for him, or order him under a suicide watch.

There's more.

"I just miss it. After my last experience (with the Knicks in '05-'06), I just want to go where I can do a better job and move forward."

I haven't seen a lobby for an NBA coaching job this brazen since Dickie Vitale ran around Detroit, telling anyone who'd listen (or even those who didn't) that he wanted to coach the Pistons, some 30 years ago. Vitale's campaign -- aided conveniently by the Detroit media -- was successful, a lot more so than his actual coaching stint.

Should Brown be allowed back onto an NBA sideline? Well, professional sports are filled with enough stool pigeon owners that this is certainly a possibility. The ironic thing -- and what isn't good for Brown's aspirations -- is that the kind of team he'd fit best with is a veteran-laden club that is oh-so-close to a championship; so close that they can taste it. But this is also the kind of team that Brown could do the most damage to; he's likely to barge in and start fixing things rather than tweak them. He's a human double-edged sword, Larry Brown is.


Brown: he just loves this SOO much


And a young team would be foolish to hire Brown, if only because the coach might commit Hari Kari before the year was done.

So the verdict, Mr. Eno?

Brown finds a sucker someday and gets something, anything. His coaching thirst will be quenched. He'll do more damage than good, but at least he wouldn't be bored -- until he gets canned less than two years later.

Thomas will soon be out of work, too. If Donnie Walsh, the Knicks' new Lord of The Hoop, is even one-eighth the genius he purportedly is, he'll can Zeke. If he doesn't, then Walsh should have his stripes yanked off his Armani suit. Only dumb-dumbs keep odiferous reminders of a losing tradition when they're hired with the expressed directive to blow things up and do "whatever's necessary" to right the ship.

Strangely, I think Thomas might actually find a coaching job sooner than the desperate Brown, who he fired from the Knicks two years ago. Isiah can actually coach a bit, and an expulsion from New York would be a good thing for him, frankly. He's the opposite of Brown; Thomas would fit well with a younger, smaller market team that is more apt to listen to him with wide-eyed eagerness, as opposed to eye-rolling disdain, as the Knicks players tend to do with him.

There was a time when I was certain Thomas would surface in Bloomington, Ind., as the coach of his alma mater Hoosiers. That's now not going to happen, with IU hiring Tom Crean the other day.

Thomas and Brown will both be back in the NBA, coaching someone someday. But Isiah should never be allowed the keys to another team's executive washroom ever again. After his shenanigans with the Raptors, the CBA, and the Knicks, you'd think that would be a no-brainer type of declaration.

You'd THINK.

Thursday's Things

(on most Thursdays at OOB, I rant in list fashion. Last week it was Things That The Pistons Are REALLY Thinking About While They Plod Through The Rest Of The Regular Season, Unable To Change Their Playoff Positioning)

Things The Tigers Can Do To Improve Their Bullpen Until Fernando Rodney And Joel Zumaya Return

1. Let Jason Grilli wear his road uniform during home games

2. Pray for rain-shortened games

3. Score. A lot.

4. Does anyone know what John Hiller is up to nowadays?

5. Designate Justin Verlander as "all-time pitcher"

6. In the same vein, make opposing hitters call their field prior to every at-bat

7. Have Chuck Hernandez work on a new strategy, called "get them to hit it to Polanco"

8. Ask the Surgeon General for a special waiver for Jim Leyland and his Marlboros

9. Starters fined heavily if they don't make it through eight innings

10. New Comerica Park promotion: free pack of Rolaids with every ticket purchased

11. Replace ballpark's merry-go-round with community prayer circles

12. Did we mention score a lot?

Stuckey's Growth Is Great, But Will He Stay In Detroit?

First, there was Dave Bing. Then Isiah Thomas. Then Joe Dumars. After a gap, there came Chauncey Billups and Rip Hamilton.

And now, Rodney Stuckey?

The Pistons' reputation for superb guard play over the past 30 years or so -- with some breaks for mediocrity -- seems to be adding another link to its chain, with the wonderful maturation (so far) of rookie Stuckey. He scored 27 points last night, starting in place of the resting Billups -- including 12 in the fourth quarter -- in leading the Pistons to a comeback victory in Minnesota.

Stuckey seems to have all the goods: court awareness, high basketball IQ, a jump shot, and more. He may actually be benefiting from his hand injury, suffered late in training camp that kept him on the shelf for the first few weeks of the regular season, because he might be fresher now than if he was playing from Game 1. He should be, along with Jason Maxiell, one of two very interesting "X" factors for the team in the playoffs.

That's all fine and dandy for right now, but if Stuckey continues to progress exponentially, it spawns a question.

Where will Rodney Stuckey play, going forward -- say, two or three years from now?

It may not necessarily be in Detroit. Billups is only 31 and just signed a long-term extension. Hamilton is 30. Will Stuckey be content to be the team's apprentice and third guard, a la Vinnie Johnson? Or better yet, will he be too good to not start somewhere else? Might he be a blue chip prospect that GM Dumars can use to wrangle another low-post scorer onto the roster?

Stuckey is special, folks. I think we're seeing a star NBA guard blossoming before our very eyes. And the Pistons could do a lot worse than to bring someone of his caliber off the bench, or start in case of injury or rest. Yet it might not happen for him here, only because of the quality of the dudes he's playing behind. Neither Billups nor Hamilton is close to retirement. This isn't 1993, when Thomas was on the verge of calling it quits, and thus trained rookie Lindsey Hunter as his successor, while Dumars did the same with Allan Houston. It's not far-fetched to say that Billups and Hamilton could both stay in Detroit for another five or six years, barring trades or free agency issues.

So where does that leave Stuckey?



Certainly Dumars had a plan for his rookie guard when he drafted him last summer. No doubt it included spending time under Billups's wing. But that can only go on for so long. Sooner or later the kid has to fly on his own. Whether that happens in Detroit, we can only guess. I hope it does. The Pistons won a couple of championships with a three-headed guard, you know.

Stuckey isn't ready yet to assume anyone's mantle. He, like most rookie point guards who've been used to scoring big in college, has to walk that fine line between distributing the ball and shooting it -- and knowing when to do what. But he's growing fast. He appears to be a quick study. He might be, when all is said and done, Dumars's best draft pick ever -- even better than Tayshaun Prince.

Ahh, but where will Rodney Stuckey be playing basketball as the century's first decade comes to a close?

Detroit isn't a slam dunk, sadly.