Bad Hockey Card of the Day: Curtis Joseph

Joseph Chasing History, Too

Well most of the hockey world watches this week for Martin Brodeur to tie and then surpass Patrick Roy as the winningest goalie of all time, Curtis Joseph continues his own assault on the record book.

Given a rare chance to play last night, Joseph was tagged with career loss 350, placing him just two behind Gump Worsley as the losingest goalie of all time. Gilles Meloche has 351 career losses.

In the process Joseph also surrendered the 2500th goal against in his career, too.

When informed of the feat, Joseph took it all in stride.

“Good one. Good one,” Joseph said. “Believe me, it’s not baseball, we don’t keep stats like that. I mean, it just means I played a lot.”

Meloche and Grant Fuhr lead all goalies in career goals against with 2,756 goals allowed. Roy, John Vanbiesbrouck, and Tony Esposito are the only other goalies to surrender 2500 career goals.

HHOF Worthy - Curtis Joseph?

Here's a new feature I thought I'd toy around with here in 2009. It's called HHOF Worthy?

We will take a look at NHL stars, some active, some not, and look at whether their careers have been proficient enough to warrant inclusion in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Let's start with Curtis Joseph, who just registered his 450th career win, the 4th most wins in NHL history:

Patrick Roy - 551

Martin Brodeur - 544*

Ed Belfour - 484

Curtis Joseph - 450*

Terry Sawchuk - 447

Jacques Plante - 437

Tony Esposito - 423

Glenn Hall - 407

Grant Fuhr - 403

Dominik Hasek - 389

* Active player

That is some pretty impressive company CuJo finds himself in. He would have even gaudier numbers had he played on stronger teams. Be it in St. Louis, Edmonton, or Toronto, Joseph was an at-times spectacular goaltender but his teams never could get over the hump and truly challenge for the Stanley Cup.

Some would argue Joseph was the weak link, but I don't think that is completely fair. It takes a team to win or to lose. Interestingly, CuJo could end his career as the NHL's all time leader in losses by a goalie. He's only 4 losses behind Gump Worsley and 3 behind Gilles Meloche - two pretty good goalies, who played on some pretty bad teams.

Besides, Joseph's playoff numbers are strong. Let's take a look at Joseph compared to his peers.

In the past 20 years, seven goalies have played in 100 career playoff games: Patrick Roy, Ed Belfour, Dominik Hasek, Martin Brodeur, Chris Osgood, Tom Barrasso, plus Joseph. Again, some pretty nice company.

In those 100 games CuJo had 63 wins, 5th among his 7 peers, with Osgood likely to surpass him in 2009. His save percentage, a solid .917, also ranked 5th. Joseph is also the only goalie on the list to have a sub-.500 playoff career.

But the most glaring stat is number of Stanley Cups won. Joseph has zero. You can also add zero Vezina Trophies, zero post-season all star teams and zero major awards (he did win the King Clancy Trophy for his leadership on and off the ice in 2000). His peers all won Cups and major awards.

No player should be in the Hall of Fame if he was not amongst the best of his era.

Even three time Stanley Cup winner Osgood and two time Stanley Cup winner Barrasso are questionable Hall of Fame entries. I would argue that goalies like Bill Ranford, Mike Richter, and Ron Hextall deserve enshrinement before CuJo.

Curtis Joseph was a spectacular goalie who had a really good career. I have no problem putting him on par with peers like Osgood, Olaf Kolzig, Sean Burke, John Vanbiesbrouck, and Andy Moog. All good goalies, but none are likely to end up in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

But he was never able to match the truly elite goalies of his era - Roy, Brodeur, Belfour, and Hasak. Any Hall of Famer must be the best of his own era. Joseph was not. That, combined with his lack of playoff success and lack of individual awards, makes that answer to my question fairly obvious.

Is Curtis Joseph HHOF worthy? No.

Tell me what you think. Use the comments section below.