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Wednesday, November 8, 2000
Wings could fly high again
By Rob Parent
Special to ESPN.com
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The jokes will be cheap and easy this year. They'll try to change Detroit's favorite sports designation from "Hockeytown" to "Shuffleboard City", its persona from iron-willed players to iron-pill poppers. Humor ages so gracelessly.
But the questions is whether the swell collection of geriatric glory seekers that is the Red Wings will age as gracelessly?
"I think people have forgotten about us," Brendan Shanahan said. "But that's a good place to be."
|  | | The Red Wings need Sergei Fedorov to have a big year. |
Since he was rescued from Hartford in the Keith Primeau deal a few years back, Detroit has been a very nice place for Shanahan to play. There were two Stanley Cups won, two others seriously challenged for -- which ended in consecutive second-round losses to Colorado.
What remains but a peaceful rebuilding/retirement campaign?
If you ask youthful hockey architect Ken Holland, better known as Detroit's GM, all the disrespectful dissenters can cancel the early spring motorcoach tours they're anticipating for his team. Instead of another early playoff retirement, Holland sees his slightly crusty Red Wings possibly hosting one more championship party.
"We come into this year feeling we have a very good nucleus," Holland said. "We haven't made a lot of changes, but we're also a team that finished with 108 points and the second-best regular season record in the league. So, what we have to find out this year is whether we're the team that finished second in the league in points or the team that went out in the second round in five games."
To further quell the criticisms of any wisecracking young punks, Holland would point out that in an offseason that he was accused of not doing enough to smooth the Wings' wrinkles, his team actually did get younger. Flying off to retire in South Florida is center Igor Larionov, a Russian legend who'll cruise around in a Panthers uniform this season at age 40. Taking his roster spot -- if not his position -- is Boyd Devereaux, a 22-year-old center allowed to roam free by Edmonton just because they thought a couple of major concussions last season was going to permanently slow him down.
Devereaux and defenseman-turned-forward Mathieu Dandenault also will infuse a needed shot of youth into Detroit's front lines, which otherwise will be relatively unchanged from its Cup years of 1997 and '98, Holland's first two as general manager.
Is it any wonder that he's being accused of sitting pat for too long now?
"Two thoughts about that," said Holland. "You can go back to the year our team lost to New Jersey in the Cup finals (1995) and see how we've always gone out and made major trades or gone and rented a player who was going to be an unrestricted free agent at the deadline. We got Larry Murphy that way and kept him. We traded Primeau for Shanahan. We got Chris Chelios, Bill Ranford and Ulf Samuelsson at the deadline. ... We did what we thought we had to.
"For one, we just didn't see any unrestricted free agents this summer that we thought would help us. There were players who could play for us, but none that we thought could help move us forward. Secondly, we thought our improvement could happen internally."
Holland points out that with a new contract, 28-year-old Slava Kozlov will be expected to put the worst year of his career (18 goals, 36 points in 72 games) far behind him. And that Darren McCarty can return to form after a contract holdout and subsequent abdominal tear conspired to destroy last season.
Though he might have his fingers crossed, Holland puts his trust in Devereaux and Dandenault that they can develop into solid forward forces on a checking line. He also believes Steve Yzerman -- at 35-years-old -- Sergei Fedorov and Shanahan are ready to reel off monster seasons.
With a little help, of course.
"Age isn't an issue," said Yzerman, entering his 15th season as Red Wings captain. "The older players on this team are willing to put in the work to stay in shape and be at the level you need to be to compete for the Stanley Cup. We should, and can, expect some of those younger players who've been around four or five years here to assume a bigger role on this team."
Same goes for Nicklas Lidstrom, whose heart might still be in Sweden, but whose Swiss bank accounts were inflated greatly by a contract that will keep his skilled hands and feet in Detroit for another several years.
Lidstrom will also be paid to teach franchise player-in-waiting Jiri Fischer the ropes this season. The club's top draft pick from two years ago, the 20-year-old Fischer had a very uneven camp. But on a team in need of constant applications of Ben Gay, growing pains are almost welcome.
"I know the only way out of this is to work my way out," Fischer said. "It's just very disappointing. There's not much else to say. I know I can play better."
Perhaps Fischer is being affected by the pressure of being on a defensive corps that features two players probably headed to the Hockey Hall of Fame, and a third (in Lidstrom) who has the talent to do so. Either that or it's the pressured expectation that he could be a youthful hero carrying a crew of old men by next season.
"That's just people talking and writing things," Fischer said. "The game is on the ice, and it's what you do there that's important. I don't think about what people are saying. It's only how you play that matters."
For the Wings to repeat the kind of regular season they had a year ago, conventional wisdom says all the defensemen -- young and old -- must play their best. But not according to Holland. He points out that behind them is a goalie who not only has won a Stanley Cup but also has a gleaming future.
"Chris Osgood, I believe, is a goalie who is just now coming into his prime," said Holland. "If you look at the top goaltenders in the league, most of them are in their mid-30s. These are athletes who are all in prime shape, and they have some 10 years of experience at that point."
Holland figures Osgood was just stepping onto the elite level last season, winning 11 of his first 15 decisions last fall, with a miniscule GAA at (American) Thanksgiving. Then ... "He took a shot from Al MacInnis that broke a bone in his hand," said Holland. "He missed six weeks and took a long time after that to get going.
"I guess what's hurt him most is a couple of things," added Holland. "Chris has given up funny goals at funny times in the playoffs, but I know one thing -- we would not have won that second Cup in '98 unless he played the way he did. Yes, he gave up a long goal in overtime against St. Louis that year, and he allowed (Dallas' Jamie) Langenbrunner to score from center ice to lose a game in the conference finals. But the very next game he came back and shut Dallas out 2-0, and we went on from there. Since then, he has worked tremendously hard to be regarded as one of the better goaltenders to have played the position."
OK, but having said all that, the question remains: Can the Wings win the Cup again?
"You know, we can't win the Cup every year," said Holland. "We have to concentrate on getting out of our conference, and now it's become a real battle to just make the playoffs. It's obviously a dogfight with teams like Dallas and Colorado and St. Louis, but now there's lots of teams in the conference that have really improved. So I certainly think people involved with our team know what a difficult task it is to advance; certainly harder than it was when we won in '97 and '98."
"We're no longer a team that's favored to win," said Shanahan. "We're no longer the team that's at the top of the pack. But I think it's going to create a chip on our shoulder. We've got something to prove now. Some teams feel they may have passed on by. But we feel we're still a championship-caliber hockey team."
Realistically, winning it all might not be such an impossible mission. It's nothing that a lot of heart and a daily dose of analgesics and anti-inflammatories can't handle.
Rob Parent covers the NHL for the Delaware County (Pa.) Times. His NHL East column appears every week on ESPN.com.
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