Remember when I was going to blog the Stanley Cup playoffs on a daily basis? Yeah, about that. The next event that I cant wait to blog about, but will probably end up being too busy to figure out a blogging schedule will be next month’s soccer World Cup. So, stay tuned. I do promise to write some about the playoffs the rest of the way and hopefully more than some about the soccer. Mostly, though, we’ve started the back half of the long, often mindless college football offseason. With that, now that the gas tank of energy has been filled up in my brain, expect to see a return to at least semi-regular posting next week as we begin looking towards the 2010 football season, both college and pro, with an occassional college hoop thrown thrown in the mix. For now, we’re still on hockey and pulling like mad for the beloved Red Wings to somehow pull some history out of their hat. The climbed the first rung of the 0-3 hole they dug for themselves with an impressive 7-1 rout of the Sharks on Thursday night. Game 5 at San Jose tonight will be the true test to see if the Wings have a shot a making an historic run over the next few days or not. In advance of tonight’s game, I cant help but drift down memory lane to the other two times in my fandom the Wings faced a 0-3 defecit in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
1992, CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS, SECOND ROUND, LOST 4-0
In a way, the franchise hasnt looked back from the 1991-92 season. It was the first year the Wings were truly one of the best teams in the league. The breakthrough teams in the late 1980s, the high goal scoring Yzerman years, were amazing clubs, but they were also a clear notch below the Edmontons, Calgarys and Montreals of the world at the time. The missed the playoffs in 1990 and while they returned to the postseaon in 1991 they only finished in third place in the division, had a losing record and finished almost 30 points behind the top two teams in the Norris. While it looked like things were coming together as they leapt out to a 3 games to 1 lead over heavily favored St. Louis in the first round, the Wings lost the next three and the series in seven games. It didnt seem like a league power was emerging.
But the Wings were unbeatable coming out of the gates the next season, their hot start one of the main storylines of the fall portion of the schedule. A year after a whiz kid Russian dynamo–Sergei Fedorov–debuted as a winger for Detroit, the Wings were now also getting efficient, aggressive and playmaking blueline play from a Swedish rookie named Niklas Lidstrom. At the time I was a sophomore at Indiana University, so I didnt see much of the action. Its not exactly hot hockey territory in Bloomington. This was during a time when the league and ESPN were at an impasse in broadcast agreements, so no games, not even playoffs, were on anything that could be considered national television. Some bars had satelittes, and I could go watch a game there if I could convince them to put a hockey game on, not to mention weaseling my underage ass into the place to begin with. I couldnt wait to get home for Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks to watch some of their games. Their seemingly annual New Year’s Eve games became more must-see for me than any crappy bowl game that may have been on those nights. The Wings cruised to the Norris Division Title, had the second most points in the whole league and scored over 98 points, a tally that never had really seemed likely before for the franchise. For the first time in my life as a fan, the Wings were a Stanley Cup contender. And they’ve been the team to beat ever since.
But it wasnt meant to be that specific spring. They fell behind 3-1 to the Minnesota North Stars in the first round, but rallied to take the opening series in seven games. It included an amazing 1-0 win on the road the sixth game, a contest I could only monitor through ESPN updates back when they only showed a ticker of scores at every 28 and 58 minute mark of the hour. I think I watched the whole series that way. Instead of prepping for exams, I was a pavlov dog for 3-4 hours every other night for the final three weeks of school. But the comeback expended all their energy. The Blackhawks, who had won the the President’s Cup the year before, finished the 1992 strong, had fresher legs and made just enough plays in every close game to forge a 3-0 series lead. I returned home from school in time to watch the fourth game on PASS, but the Blackhawks did it to the Wings one last time, scoring a game winner in overtime to win the game 1-0 and the series 4-0. I still remember the cameras showing James Freaking Belushi whooping it up and tossing a broom onto the ice celebrating the game winner. What a dork. All his movies and shows stink anyway. The loss stung, but you had a feel that the Wings were already a really good team whose better days were ahead of them. The Hawks taught them a playoff lesson on the need to play perfect. The Wings would be more than ready the following year, we thought, to handle the postseason as a favorite. It was all good.
1995, NEW JERSEY DEVILS, STANLEY CUP FINALS, LOST 4-0
The mood was a bit more panicy three years later when the Wings faced their next 0-3 hole, this time in the 1995 Stanley Cup Finals against the New Jersey Devils. The mood in 1992 proved prophetic. A great NHL had emerged. The Wings had become the dominant team in the league since then. But it also developed the reputation as the league’s biggest chokers. Despite home ice and an early 2-0 lead, the Wings lost a first round series to the Leafs in 1993, losing game 7 at the Joe on a OT goal by Nicolai Borchevsky and his bizarre Northland bubble helmet, the 1980s hockey helmet equivalent of a mullet. In 1994, the Wings had the best record in the conference by a long shot, but was famously upset by the Sharks, in the first ever 1/8 series after the divisional and playoff realignment. That series nearly did a lot of us in. By this time, I was a senior in college and ESPN had regained the rights to broadcast the games. This meant a few extra chances a year to watch the Wings, but most importantly they put all the Red Wings playoff games on. That was supposed to be awesome, except for the relentless ragging by roomates and other friends, a mixture off everything-Chicago fans, a Ranger fan and one guy who never watched hockey, but loved playing it on sega genesis especially with the Wings, reminding me often during the two week torture that such an upset wouldnt ever have happened in the video game.
Perhaps, mercifully, the next season was delayed almost three months by a labor lockout. By the time the season did start in January, not only was I a refreshed fan, but I had finished college and was living fulltime in the Harbor Springs area of northern Michigan. Talk about being in Red Wing territory. I went from barely being able to catch a game over four years, to an area where not only were all the games on TV, but Red Wing parties were commonplace. The NHL was trying to squeeze a decent looking season in so teams were basically playing every other night and the playoffs didnt beging until early May. Toss in the fact that the Wings were nearly untouchable during the shortened season and won nearly everytime out, Red Wing games had suddenly become events in my life and the bridge from childhood rooting to adult passion for a franchise cemented. Any worries about another early playoff collapse disappeared quickly. The Wings hammered the now Dallas Stars in the first round in five games, then exacted some revenge on the Sharks, rolling them in four games to the tune of 20-4. They rolled in the conference finals and beat the hated Blackhawks, this time making all the plays in close games, with wins in games 2, 4 and 5 on overtime goals by Nicklas Lidstrom, Vlad Konstantinov and Slava Kozlov. The fifth game was the clincher the bar at Teddy Griffin’s Roadhouse in the shadow of Boyne Highlands where I was watching erupted, and we celebrated a couple more rounds after the placed had closed down like a championship had been won. We were still watching Red Wing games after the summer solstice. It was unprecendented, unless your heyday was the 1950s. Eventually getting swept by the Devils was a buzzkill, but the good times over the previous months and especially during the first deep playoff run they had had in seven years lingered all summer. I couldnt wait for the next season to begin.
None of this is particularily relevant to tonight’s fifth game against San Jose. The Wings arent even facing an 0-3 hole anymore, but during the days they did it got me thinking about what other times they’ve fallen in that hole. The memories sort of seeped out after that. In a way, its an accomplishment that the Wings have had so much time in between falling into 0-3 situations. The Wings have achieved so much in the interim, that its more of a quirky tidbit on the fourth page of your resume type of thing, but as fans you grasp for anything when you’re trying to hang in there when the final loss is allegedly so obviously inevitable.
It might happen tonight. But, given the choice, I’m glad there is a tonight. I’d rather watch a Red Wings playoff game than not have one to watch. I think we can all agree that they are not overmatched here. The Sharks are -140 favorites this evening, but thats by far one of the cheapest home chalk we’ve seen from any of the top seeded home teams. I find hope that enough Red Wing money is coming in from the sharps to keep the Sharks from being total odds on favorite tonight.
Everybody is jumping the gun, asking whats suddenly wrong with the Wings, hinting their window is closing. I’m thinking maybe we underrated the postseason presence Jiri Hudler and Mickael Samuelson gave the team the last two springs. But I’m also thinking maybe nothing is wrong. These are great teams Detroit is going against. The West has been stacked for four years running now, and the Wings still stand at 9-1 in Western Conference playoff series. Eventually, somebody was going to rise up and beat them, the fact that its happening now in seemingly blowout fashion is the confluence of frustrating power plays, a bad goal at the worst of times and the Sharks turning third period deficits into wins. The line is fine. Maybe its just some of these other clubs time this spring. The Wings will be back. Their window isnt closing. It might Lidstrom’s last game, but given how the franchise didnt skip a winning beat after Yzerman’s retirement, I trust they’ve got a couple ideas for the offseason to fill the lineup hole. I feel they’ve found their future goalie, despite the bad goal in Game 3 and the general up-and-down performance during his rookie Stanley Cup tournament. Dont forget, however, his efforts in games 4 and 5 to wrest control of the Phoenix series. And, dont forget that Chris Osgood looked shaky in his first postseason–that 1994 Sharks series–and he’s been a pretty solid regular on the payroll, right? I just think that for the foreseeable future the Wings will remain one of the more talented teams in the league. They had a injury riddled and unlucky in overtime season that knocked them down the standings, preventing them from a better seed and maybe keeping home ice throughout the west. They’ll retool in the offseason and be in the thick of it, with better position throughout the winter, a year from now.
Like I said, I’m glad they’re playing tonight. The Wings are always fun to watch. Being its a Saturday night, I might go crazy and stock my bar tonight with whatever I might possible want to drink by the time ten o’clock rolls around. I like their chances tonight. I expect to be toasting to our prospects in game 6 with whatever still remains in the bottle. If they’ll lose, then those will be ‘wait ’till next year drinks.’ And, we’ll be one step closer to summertime.
