Finally, it feels great to breathe again.
After nearly three months of playoff hockey, the Detroit Red Wings reclaim their throne as the NHL’s Stanley Cup champion. At last, the Red Wings have hurdled their absolute last obstacle. They’ve silenced their very last critics. There are no more questions left to be answered. Indeed, the cheese stands alone. It’s time to paint the town red and white all over. The Stanley Cup returns to a familiar, welcoming place. After all, they don’t call Detroit Hockeytown for nothing.
The Red Wings finally stepped up and claimed what they had been aiming for all season long, wrestling it away from the pesky Penguins as Chris Osgood turned aside the Pens’ last ditch shot as the horn sounded. These last two games made our hearts sink, our heads ache especially after Monday night’s 4-3 triple overtime loss. And as Marian Hossa’s last second poke sent the puck sliding across the crease, we then truly realized that these Wings don’t make anything easy.
But as Wings coach Mike Babcock stated after Game 5, these are the finals and it’s not supposed to be easy. It wasn’t easy for the Wings to venture onto foreign soil and leave with their 11th Stanley Cup, but just as they’ve done all playoffs long, Detroit calmly and cooly entered a raucous arena and ended their opponent’s season on their own ice.
It happened to Nashville, mercifully it happened to Colorado, and Dallas suffered the same fate. And with Wednesday night’s 3-2 win in Game 6 to win the cup, the Wings sent the home crowd heading for the exits with their heads hanging and their hopes dashed. For the first time in six years, the hockey world will be colored red and white.
The Wings won it with tremendous defense, rock steady goaltending from Chris Osgood, and the evolution of Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk. And oh yeah, having Nicklas Lidstrom helps a lot too. They won with poise and patience. They won it on Zetterberg’s third period goal, a shot that snuck through Marc-Andre Fleury’s pads and just stopped on a dime right behind Fleury. No whistle had blown, and with the puck just sitting there behind Fleury for what seemed like an eternity, Fleury fell back on the puck and knocked it into his own net.
Everytime you’re able to win, it’s special. But this one means a little bit more. All this lockout and ‘leveling-the-playing field’ nonsense essentially doesn’t mean a whole helluva lot right now. The Wings were supposed to struggle in the post-lockout world, people expected them to take a step or two or three back. But instead on this night we saw the dawning of a new era. A new banner raised without Steve Yzerman, Brendan Shanahan, Sergei Fedorov and Scotty Bowman.
We saw Steve Yzerman lift it three times, each just as beautiful as the rest, but when captain Nick Lidstrom took the cup from Gary Bettman, it was an unbelievable feeling. Hard to believe that Lidstrom is the first ever European captain to lift the Stanley Cup, just as in 2002 he became the first European to win the Conn Smythe. Lidstrom’s legacy cemented as the one of the greatest all time defenseman defined picture perfectly in that moment with the cup raised high above his head. So calm, so poised and just so damn good he has been for this franchise, it’s almost too good to believe that hockey player can be constructed almost as perfectly as Lidstrom.
And one by one as the Wings took their turns passing the cup to one another, there was Dallas Drake, a 16 year vet back where it all started taking the handoff as the second Wings player to hoist the cup after Lidstrom. From franchise corner stone to role guy, the Lidstrom to Drake moment defines this team: a collection of unselfish, ego-free players all working together as one to achieve one common dream.
There was Henrik Zetterberg and Chris Osgood, for had the Wings been without, this would have never been a possibility. Zetterberg claimed the Conn Smythe as the playoff MVP and finished with a franchise record 27 points in one postseason, passing Steve Yzerman and Sergei Fedorov. And Osgood? Well, his story isn’t a glizty, but the ending makes you catch your breathe. 10 years ago he led Detroit to their second straight cup in 1998 and now 10 years later, he was able to do it again. Funny how life works. He was a cup netminder, then jettisoned after the Wings traded for Dominik Hasek in 2002, then brought back in 2005. Now, ironically, in Game 5 in the first round against Nashville, Hasek was jettisoned for Osgood, who never relinquished the job and 14 wins later, put the hockey back in Hockeytown.
We knew former Wings coach Scotty Bowman casted a long shadow, but Mike Babcock now has cast his own shadow. Babcock has become the epitome of calm, never panicking, never wavering. Always poised and confident, believing in his team and the gameplan. Nobody does a better job in hockey than Babcok in terms of preparation, in terms of knowing how to get the best out of his players. He’s never one to show his emotions, but the gigantic grin on his face as he was holding the cup over his head, was a picture worth a thousand emotions that now Babcock can feel free to express.
The road to the promise land was tough, indeed, and not without some uh-oh moments. The Wings found trouble along the journey. They were tied up 2-2 against Nashville and had to yank Hasek and insert Osgood. They coasted to a 3-0 series lead against Dallas, a series that went six games before the Wings moved on to the finals. And then of course, there was the Game 5 triple overtime loss at home that was one of most difficult losses to get over that I can remember in a long time.
We heard the same silly statements time and time again. They can’t win with a European domianted group. They’re too old. They’re too slow, not physical. Where’s the secondary scoring come from? Is Osgood good enough to lead them to another cup? In the end, all you need to know is that the Wings were the NHL’s best, from regular season to cup clincher.
They faced adversity like warriors. Everytime they fell on the mat, they responded by getting right back up. Need further proof? How’s the fact that they ended every series on the road in the postseason. To me, that spells experience, heart, and determination. Coincidentally, three key ingredients needed to win.
And as another celebration commences in Motown, these Red Wings were truly every bit as good and better as they were made out to be. We witnessed a remarkable run that these Wings took us on over the last three months. These moments don’t happen as often as we’d like, so you’ve gotta enjoy every minute they’re here. We’ve gone from jubilation to despair, from exhaustion to celebration.
Detroit dominance! It’s time to party again. Glory and honor have been restored in Hockeytown, past failures extinguished on this night. Time to hang another banner and finally burst open the champagne. Shout it from the rooftops again, the Detroit Red Wings are the Stanley Cup Champions!
