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

March 15th, 2010 by Greg Eno Leave a reply »
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 wa ...

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