By Matt Pelc
When you are a Red Wings fan–or an NHL fan more simplistically, it is pretty tough to get hockey news down here.
Even though Florida has two hockey teams they are barely covered, in fact I happened to be down here on vacation before I moved and when the Tampa Bay Lightning were in the Eastern Conference Finals, on their way to a Stanley Cup championship, in 2004, the local newspapers had daily features discussing the rules of hockey.
For this reason, my personal Red Wings coverage is a bit sporadic, but since the last time I talked about them they have been playing much better.
Detroit started the season by losing two straight in Sweden to the St. Louis Blues to start the season. It was almost like the Red Wings were on a championship hangover after coming up a goal short of winning a second straight title in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals last June.
The Red Wings have been winning their games lately by finally putting together a potent offense after struggling through the first part of the season. In their three-game winning streak, Detroit has outscored their opponents 19-6, including a 9-1 blowout of the Columbus Blue Jackets last week.
It is understandable that the Red Wings are just starting to play better after an offseason of change.
The team seems to be jelling more after a mass exodus last season which took Marian Hossa and Tomas Kopecky to the division rival Blackhawks, Mikael Samuelsson to Vancouver and Jiri Hudler to Russia.
In addition to those incredible goal scores, the Red Wings have been missing Johan Franzen, Valtteri Flippula and Jason Williams due to injuries.
Chris Osgood has been felled by injuries, but that has allowed Jimmy Howard to finally show his potential with extended playing time, Ossie will be out again for tonight’s game with Dallas.
Come playoff season, I am willing to bet Osgood will be the Red Wings full-time goalie, but it would not hurt to see them split the regular season 50-50 and prepare Howard for taking over the full time regular and post season role next year.
After 21 seasons, most of those with the Red Wings, Brendan Shanahan has decided to retire.
Brendan left here following the 2005-06 season and spent time in New York and New Jersey before deciding that 21 seasons was enough.
Shanahan was sometimes a fan favorite here and sometimes a whipping boy. For whatever reason, Red Wings fans thought this guy should be scoring 50 goals per season even in a league in which that production is becoming more and more rare.
Love him or hate him, his arrival here in Hockeytown brought about the attitude, toughness and grit that allowed them to get over playoff disappointments and failure to win the Stanley Cup three times (1997, 98 and 2002).
The Red Wings zealously guard those numbers going to the rafters and usually reserve those numbers for players who spent their entire career with Detroit, but Brendan’s number 14 should hang among the rest of the banners in Joe Louis Arena because of what he brought to the team in 1997.
My lasting memory of Brendan will be his flying tackle on Patrick Roy as he tried to intervene in the McCarty-Lemieux fracas. That was not his fight, he was not a member of the 1995-96 team that saw Kris Draper’s face rearranged, yet he was there then and he was going to help finish the fight.
Happy Trails Brendan.
Posted 10:17 a.m.
November 18th, 2009 - 2:10 pm
Shanny was an icon in his time with Detroit and this fan wishes him nothing but the best in retirement. That 97′ team was my hockey memories growing up finishing my Senior year of high school on the back porch of a buddies house smoking cigars with everyone including my buddies dad celebrating an amazing season and a Stanley Cup. Shanny will not be forgotten by the true Wings fans. Go Wings!!Click here for the best Online Sports Betting