Jimmy Howard: Detroit Red Wings Going with Rookie in Playoffs?

If you never got a chance to see Roger Crozier play goal for the Red Wings, I can replicate the experience for you.

To recreate the acrobatic, helter-skelter manner in which Crozier tended net, drop a few unpopped kernels of popcorn into a pot coated with sizzling oil. Then try to predict in which direction those kernels will fly once they pop.

That was pretty much it when it came to Crozier, who used the goal crease as his own gymnastics mat.

Crozier, who passed away at the too-young age of 53 in 1996, was a highly entertaining goalie who wasn’t above using any part of his body in any location, no matter how unnatural, to stop pucks. I actually think I once saw Crozier break apart, like a man made of Lego, just so he could get a limb, or maybe it was a rib cage, in the way of a speeding vulcanized disc of rubber. Then he put himself back together again.

Crozier played maskless, so we could all see the terror and desperation on his face. He tended goal in the same slapstick fashion as Lucille Ball in that famous candy-wrapping/conveyor belt scene from I Love Lucy.

Crozier was a fuzzy-faced 24-year-old when he goaltended the Red Wings to the 1966 Stanley Cup Finals against Montreal. He was in just his second full season.

Crozier played every game (you heard me) in the ‘64-65 season—70 in total. He was the Calder Trophy winner as Rookie of the Year thanks to that yeoman work.  He played in 64 games in ‘65-66. It’s amazing that he didn’t give himself whiplash, or seizures, with the frantic gyrations that he underwent in goal.

Crozier was so good in that ‘66 Cup Final that he was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP, even though the Red Wings lost to the Habs in six games. The Cup-winning goal was a controversial one: Montreal’s Henri Richard and Red Wings defenseman Gary Bergman slid into Crozier—and into the net, and the puck went in with them. Old-timers will still tell you that the Wings got rooked on that one.

It’s 44 years later, and it looks like Red Wings coach Mike Babcock is going to ride his rookie goalie, Jimmy Howard, in the playoffs for as long as the kid will take them—if the Red Wings qualify, of course.

Howard will turn 26 soon, but he had fewer games in with the Wings (nine) prior to his first full-time season than Crozier did (15) prior to Roger’s first full-time season in ‘64-65.

All season I’ve been trumpeting Chris Osgood as the man to step into the crease when the postseason started. I believed the Howard emergence was a nice story, but that once the “second season” began, Babcock wouldn’t trust a rookie in goal.

I guess I was wrong.

It appears that Babcock will do just that; Osgood hasn’t started a game since a loss in late January.

It doesn’t appear logical now to insert the 37-year-old Osgood when the playoffs start, simply because he’s the veteran with the Stanley Cup rings.

The timing might be right for a Jimmy Howard playoff run. If there’s ever a year for the Red Wings to start a rookie in goal in the playoffs, it’s this year.

The Red Wings will be on virtually no one’s mind when it comes to handicapping the Cup contenders next month. They might get some token consideration due to long and faithful service, but little more.

What better way to try to capitalize on those low expectations than to start a rookie in goal and give him invaluable experience?

It won’t be like when Ozzie was a rookie in 1994, when he was thrust into the fire of the playoffs because of the ineptitude of starter Bob Essensa. Howard has been the No. 1 goalie for the Red Wings since around Thanksgiving, virtually. Just like Crozier in 1966, Howard will have gobs of games under his belt, accumulated during the regular season, when playoff time rolls around.

Babcock has made no bones about Howard’s play, being effusive in his praise of the rookie. And the coach has been no less forthright in his gentle criticisms of Osgood. It seems pretty clear toward which man Babcock is leaning for playoff playing time.

They say a rookie isn’t a rookie anymore when the season is this near the end. That might be true in other sports, but it’s laughable in the NHL for a goalie who hasn’t played a second in the playoffs.

Jimmy Howard will notice the difference about 30 seconds after the puck is dropped in Game One. But Babcock thinks the money is still smartest if placed on Howard’s seemingly unflappable approach to his craft, plus his 50-plus games played this season.

I guess we’re about to see.