Preparing to soar again
Red Wings look to repeat
Last Updated: Wednesday, October 8, 2008 | 12:21 PM ET
By Chris Iorfida CBC Sports
Will Marian Hossa thrive with his talented Red Wing teammates, or will the addition of another offensive threat tinker with team chemistry? (Richard Wolowicz/Getty Images) The Detroit Red Wings were the last NHL franchise to win consecutive Stanley Cups, and they could very well be the next one.
The Red Wings showed there is no such thing as a Presidents Trophy jinx by following up on their regular season title with the Stanley Cup in June. They joined the Montreal Canadiens and Calgary Flames as the only teams ever to win over 70 games, regular season and playoffs combined.
Detroit lost only one marquee player in the off-season — an aging Dominik Hasek — and trumped many lesser clubs by signing a prime Marian Hossa, who had just finished third in playoff scoring with the Pittsburgh Penguins.
There’s reason to believe this year’s team can make it two Cups in a row for Detroit, repeating the feat of the 1997-98 Red Wings.
General manager Ken Holland is too focused on the here and now to indulge in that kind of speculation.
The Red Wings start the season with an Oct. 9 game against the Toronto Maple Leafs (CBC, 7 p.m. ET).
"I think you’re going to have 10 or 15 games where you don't have it or the other team doesn't have it and the outcome is maybe decided early in the second period, but I think there's going to be 65 games for every team in the league where the game is going down right to the wire — it's a playoff game," Holland told CBCSports.ca.
"In order to repeat, things have got to go your way twice. It's hard to get things to go your way once, never mind twice."
Holland agrees with many hockey observers that it's harder to repeat than ever before, and also said the team doesn't have natural rallying points like it did in 1997-98.
Defenceman Vladimir Konstantinov's career ended and his life was irrevocably changed in a limousine accident just days after the 1997 Cup win. The players also had to compensate for several months without Sergei Fedorov, a contract holdout until the second half of the season.
Detroit still has five players on the roster from 1998 who can impart any lessons learned to teammates.
Chemistry equation
The Hossa signing set off a spate of “rich getting richer” headlines, but it’s not always a natural fit when talented offensive players are added to a group that already has others who crave the puck. Colorado in 2003 signed Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne to join Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg et al, but the experiment failed.
While Detroit went 7-2 in the pre-season, Hossa and Pavel Datsyuk were limited in their opportunities to gell together, with each battling a groin injury.
"We really think he's going have to a big year for us," Holland said of new addition Hossa. "Does it happen right off the bat starting on opening night? I don’t know, but he's got the ability where all of a sudden he can rattle off three or four points [in a game]."
Detroit boasts the best two-way forwards in the game in Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg, each of whom scored over 90 points and were nominated for the Selke Trophy as top defensive forward.
They are joined by regular point producers Valtteri Filppula, Johan Franzen, Daniel Cleary and Mikael Samuelsson, as well as the bane of NHL goaltenders, slot denizen Tomas Holmstrom. Greybeards Kris Draper and Kirk Maltby provide grit and tenacity on the penalty kill.
The top four defencemen — Nicklas Lidstrom, Brian Rafalski, Niklas Kronwall and Brad Stuart — are unmatched in the NHL.
Kronwall is described by Holland as a future "cornerstone" and even now he could be the featured blue-liner on several clubs.
By process of elimination, hockey observers are focused on the team's goaltending for the upcoming season.
Chris Osgood surprised many last season by supplanting Hasek, but he appeared in a relatively modest 61 games, playoffs included. It's been five years since he played over 60 games in the regular season — the prevailing trend for a starter — and Holland is kind of hoping he doesn’t this time around.
"If Ozzie plays 50 to 55, in that neighbourhood, and [Ty] Conklin plays 25 to 33, we think that would be the ideal," said Holland.
Conklin was another ex-Penguin signed as a free agent. He was terrific when Marc-Andre Fleury was injured last season, but he's also not very far removed from struggles in the Buffalo and Edmonton organizations that saw him toiling in the minors.
If goaltending seems like a possible chink in the armour, then, it shouldn't be forgotten that prospect Jimmy Howard, 25, has been waiting in Grand Rapids in the American Hockey League for what must seem like an eternity to him.
Howard made four appearances with Detroit last season, with his goals-against average almost exactly at the standard set by Osgood and Hasek.
Depth in talent
The goalie isn't the only one waiting in the proverbial wings for an organization that boasts tremendous depth thanks to consistently great scouting. Starting defencemen in the minors that have gotten a taste with the big club in the recent past include Kyle Quincey, Derek Meech and Jonathan Eriksson.
The winning culture has meant that young forwards with skill are willing to sacrifice point totals, and possibly money, early in their career for the opportunity to play with a winner.
Talented players like Tomas Kopecky, right, have to be patient in Detroit's system, but get to play with a winner. (Gregory Shamus/Getty Images) Jiri Hudler, for example, may have been a 30-goal scorer by now on another club. Players like Tomas Kopecky, Ville Leino and Darren Helm have shown offensive chops at other levels of hockey and could play on other teams' top three lines instead of battling for a Red Wings roster spot.
"The odd one gets restless and then the odd one leaves," admitted Holland. "But for the most part, we’ve had real good chemistry."
"What we kind of preach is 'Your time is coming,'" he added. "It might not happen here as fast as somewhere else, but they can look at [Brett] Lebda and they can look at Kronwall [as examples].
"Datsyuk and Zetterberg were third-line players here."
With a track record of four Stanley Cups in the last 11 years, there isn’t much cause to get restless waiting in Detroit.
