With the disappointing end to the Detroit Red Wings' season last night, I've been a little hesitant to post this item that has been days in the preparation. But as I did state on another website that this entry would appear today, I feel I should honour that commitment.

When wrestling with the question of whether or not Chris Osgood deserves consideration for the Hockey Hall of Fame (HHOF), the argument against him is commonly framed as such: "Chris Osgood is not as talented as Player X who isn't in the HHOF, so therefore Osgood doesn't belong in the HHOF either."

It's a cunning argument. Osgood is not just diminished compared to Player X. The broad (albeit unsupported) assertion "not as talented" also discounts Osgood's accomplishments as merely the benefits of playing for a good team as (presumably) Player X could achieve the same or even better results were he to replace Osgood on the Detroit roster.

However, while the argument is (admittedly) cunning, is it a fair argument? And can it be supported by the evidence?

First, let's consider two key terms necessary to properly frame this argument: talent and accomplishment. Talent is a capacity for achievement or success. Alternatively, accomplishment is the realization of achievement or success. Or to put it another way, talent is primarily a subjective measure - the aptitude of a player to be able to do something well - while accomplishment is primarily an objective measure - something concrete that the player has done.

Talent can be instrumental in leading one to accomplishment, but talent in and of itself does not guarantee success. History, let alone sports history, is replete with examples where hard work, good fortune (or misfortune), and mental toughness trump talent. Similarly, it becomes somewhat disingenuous to discount all of a player's superior accomplishments as luck or good fortune based solely on a perceived lack of talent in comparison to another player. The more impressive the resume becomes, the more apparent that the "accepted lack-of-skill" of the accomplished player needs to be reconsidered.

To better understand this distinction let's compare the career accomplishments of two unnamed contemporary goaltenders:

• Goalie A is 29 years old, has played 9 NHL seasons, holds a 230-232-64 record in the regular season - twice leading the league in losses suffered - and an 11-11 record in the Stanley Cup playoffs. No Stanley Cups, not even any trips to the Cup Final as yet in his career, but he has represented his country in the World Cup and at the Olympics. Our man has played in three All-Star games and been selected twice to a post-season All-Star Team.

• Goalie B is 36 years old, has played 15 NHL seasons, holds a 389-204-89 record in the regular season - once leading the league in wins earned - and a 74-49 record in the Stanley Cup playoffs, with five trips to the Final and three Stanley Cups. Despite his NHL successes, Goalie B has no World Cup or Olympic appearances to his credit. Mr. B has played in two All-Star games and been selected once to a post-season All-Star Team.

So, based on the above resumes, which player do you think is the better goaltender? Goalie B has a superior record to Goalie A - well over 0.500 in both in the NHL regular season and the post-season - but that might come from playing with a better quality team.

Conversely, Goalie A has been in both a World Cup and an Olympics, which suggests he is judged to be among the top goaltenders produced by his nation. Of course, the value of that distinction differs considerably should the national honor be conferred by Switzerland or Germany rather than Canada or Sweden.

Also, notice the careful crafting of language for Player A with the phrase "represented his country" in the World Cup and the Olympics, which should not be interpreted as "starring in goal, playing all the games and winning the tournament." Would it change your opinion if we revealed that Player A might have got in a game or two in each those international events, but it was a more experienced teammate who was the Number One between the posts? What if we further revealed that Player B was the starter for two of his three Stanley Cup runs?

To end the suspense, if there ever was any, Player A is Roberto Luongo, judged by many to be if not the best, then at least the second- or third-best goaltender in the game today. Player B is the much-maligned Chris Osgood, the goaltender whose critics would have you believe is responsible for every one of his team's defeats but never any of their victories.

I would expect that if you asked 10 hockey fans on a busy street - located anywhere but Detroit - as to which of these two men was the better goaltender, that 9 out of 10 would say "Luongo." And that is a fair assessment, based purely on a subjective judgment of talent between the two men. That is the conventional wisdom, too, reported and repeated continuously in the popular media. But, while recognizing that Luongo has six years to make up some ground on Osgood, when you look at those two resumes side-by-side, does Luongo seem to be far and away the better goalie?

Let's rephrase the question and, after sharing our Goalie A / Goalie B summary, ask that same person on the street "Which of the pair is a more-accomplished goalie?" Advantage: Goalie B (Osgood). True, as we've said before, Osgood has six seasons on Luongo, so Bobby Lu has a chance to boost the resume. But in order for Luongo to merely equal Osgood's NHL career to this point, over the next six years he'll have to go a near-perfect 159-0-25 in the regular season (which would still leave him with 28 more losses than Osgood, so the winning percentage would be slightly lacking), and then exhibit an impressive 62-36 record in the post-season. But that's not all: Luongo will also need to make it to the Stanley Cup Final in five of those six years, and win the Cup three times.

***

The Luongo defender and the Osgood critic (often one and the same) would charge that we produced an unfair comparison. "Wins and losses are more of a team statistic than an individual accomplishment," our critic would claim. "Stanley Cup victories are a team achievement. You cannot use those measures alone to grade the quality of goaltenders." And, to a degree, I agree with that view. Which brings us to the heart of the issue: how do you effectively abstract the contribution made by goaltenders from the overall success of the team?

Simply, you cannot, or at least not with any degree of absolute precision. Just as goal scorers need someone to get them the puck and playmakers need someone to bury their passes, likewise goaltenders need skaters to clear the shooting lanes and force the opposition to shoot from low-percentage positions. There are no game play statistical measures currently available that are not to some degree influenced by the overall team dynamic. Even goals against average and save percentage are products of the team playing style, which influences shot quality granted and scoring chances allowed that the goaltender must face. Yes, we could opine that Luongo would perhaps have a better record if he had better players around him, and that Osgood might not be as accomplished if he wasn't surrounded by such skill, but short of swapping the starting goaltenders in Vancouver and Detroit we can never prove the point or determine just how much better / worse either player would be. There are just too many other variables in play.

In hockey, players (goaltenders especially) reap the benefits from the quality of the team around them, and the team benefits in return from the overall quality of its players. In the final light you have to take things at face value, look at what a player has done with his career on the teams he has played for, and judge that career accordingly.

Our challenge in all this is for a number of years Osgood just didn't seem to be a topnotch goaltender. Rather, to the collective mind he was the goat who just played poorly enough for Detroit to lose the big game, a notion seemingly confirmed when Detroit exposed him to waivers in 2001. But perceptions and conclusions need to be constantly re-evaluated as new data emerges, or else those opinions become little more than blind spots and baggage.

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Consider the alternative. Let's say for sake of argument that Chris Osgood retires after this season. He will have finished his career in the Top 10 in both regular season and playoff wins and with three Stanley Cups to his credit - two as the primary netminder and one as a caddy. And, for whatever reason, let's say he is NOT elected to the HHOF.

The result is that we have essentially created a barrier against the induction of any less accomplished goaltender, regardless of how talented we might consider that player to be. This is not a Dino Ciccarelli situation where the player's HHOF case is essentially built on one metric (i.e. scoring over 600 goals). Here we have multiple metrics, earned in the both the regular season and the playoffs, that suggest qualification for the HHOF.

Of course, this is likely a question we won't have to worry about for a few more seasons. Chris Osgood is under contract through 2010-11, which gives him a couple more years to add to his impressive career numbers and perhaps make another deep run or two into the playoffs.