Detroit from hockeytown to Loserville?
Red Wings hope their struggles are finally over and they have righted their course just ahead of the NHL playoffs
This is a path Nicklas Lidstrom has never been down. It's risky and uncharted and the calendar says it's March. Usually, Lidstrom and the rest of the Detroit Red Wings would be strolling through the final weeks of the NHL regular season, resting bodies and contemplating which team they'd face in the postseason's opening round.
But here they are, on the road to uncertainty, not entirely sure they'll make the Stanley Cup playoffs, yet confident enough to believe things are finally going their way.
"We're not used to this," admitted Lidstrom, who hasn't missed an NHL postseason in 17 years with Detroit. "We have to battle every game now. We can't relax. But having everyone back and healthy has been good for our confidence."
For a time, it looked as though the Red Wings were bound for an empty spring. Too many injuries to too many key players had threatened to leave them in the wilderness for the first time in 20 years. Most definitely their hopes of a fifth consecutive season of 50 wins or more were gone.
It was soon after the team fell out of the top eight in the Western Conference that people began asking: "Has the great hockey dynasty of the mid-1990s until now suddenly taken the dirt road to Loserville?"
General manager Ken Holland cringed when he heard that talk.
"When we had 112 points and 55 wins, people think you were winning games 6-1 all the time. This is a league where you win by a goal and lose by a goal. And we've lost a lot of one-goal games [21 so far]" Holland said. "My feeling was, coming out of the Olympics, we'd be healthy and that the last 21 games would define our season."
If the Red Wings' woes were defined by injuries to Tomas Holmstrom, Niklas Kronwall, Andreas Lilja and Valtteri Filppula, their rediscovered faith can be attributed to the return of Johan Franzen. Five months ago, the mulish Franzen popped the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee and underwent reconstructive surgery.
Since his return, he has complemented linemates Pavel Datsyuk and Holmstrom and scored six times while Detroit has gone 7-2-2, not counting last night's game against the Edmonton Oilers.
"He's the power forward every team wants and the guy teams don't want to play against," said Kris Draper, a 15-year playoff veteran. "We knew we'd get better when we got him back."
Despite their low points this season, the Red Wings have been delighted with rookie goaltender Jimmy Howard. Having spent four years in the minors, Howard got his chance in late October and has made the most of it, posting a 2.31 goals-against average while notching 27 wins. He hasn't always been spectacular, but he has shown an ability to make key saves with the game on the line. Allan Maki