The city of Detroit could use a pick-me-up.
The Tigers did their same little dance in 2014, strolling into the playoffs and then getting sent off without a title. This time, it happened with not even the slightest bit of resistance.
The Lions teased us with a very good regular season, launching heroic last-minute comebacks on numerous occasions. But then the stakes were raised in the playoffs, and the Lions are more or less allergic to that kind of thing. We need not revisit the specifics of that horror show in Dallas.
The college gridiron offered some title hopes with Michigan State, but they dropped their showdown with Oregon and then got stomped by eventual national champ Ohio State. The best thing Michigan did was lose a bunch of games, which allowed them to axe their headset-less coach and bring on a Harbaugh.
The Pistons under Stan Van Gundy began as an outright disaster, then righted the ship in remarkable fashion, only to see blossoming point guard Brandon Jennings shred an Achilles and with it the team’s chances of doing anything noteworthy in 2015.
Michigan and Michigan State hoops are both trudging through the winter hoping to secure enough victories to at least earn an invite to the Big Dance. Neither team possesses a real game-breaking player and there is little chance either club makes a deep run in March.
The Detroit Shock could generally be counted on to bag a championship every few years, but sadly they moved to Tulsa years ago, with only myself and about a half-dozen others even noticing the vacancy.
It brings us to the city’s best hope for a sports championship.
The top franchise in town over the last quarter century.
The Detroit Red Wings.
With all the Super Bowl hoopla and the Pistons dramatic resurgence, you might not have realized that the gentlemen sporting the Winged Wheel are having a very, very good season. They enter tonight’s clash with the Avalanche just just two points behind Tampa Bay for the number one seed in the Eastern Conference. They’ve won 8 of 10, the only club in the East that can boast such a current run.
Greenhorn Backup
And they’ve been doing it all with a greenhorn backup between the pipes. As Jimmy Howard recovers from a slight groin tear (he should be back in about a week), 22-year-old Petr Mrazek has more than held the fort down.
The baby-faced Czech might get carded trying to buy a Coca-Cola, but as far as protecting the goal at the game’s highest level, he’s plenty equipped. He’s appeared in 17 games this year, with the Wings winning 12 of those contests.
The balance sheet in the goals scored department provides a glimpse at this team’s unique blend of youth and experience. The top two snipers are Tomas Tatar (24 years old) and Gustav Nyquist (25). They are followed closely by the elders of the club, Pavel Datsyuk (36) and Henrik Zetterberg (34).
The Red Wings have always been able to count on Datsyuk and Zetterberg to produce, but over the last handful of years, Ken Holland has had a difficult time pairing them with up-and-coming talent. That’s no longer an issue.
Along with Tatar and Nyquist, there is 23-year-old Riley Sheahan, a physical center out of Notre Dame that has given the Wings another shot of youthful energy it’s long been in need of.
And really, if you want to cut through all the X’s and O’s and simply call on past events to predict the future, you could basically just say the Red Wings are due for a title.
Scotty Bowman led the Wings to Stanley Cup wins in 1997 and 1998. Just a few years later, in 2002, Bowman and company made quick work of the Carolina Hurricanes for another championship.
Mike Babcock came aboard and brought yet another Cup to Hockeytown in 2008. The Wings were within a hair of going back-to-back the next year, losing to the Penguins in a do-or-die seven gamer.
So based on the many Cups this franchise has secured in recent years, this little dry spell is starting to feel a lot longer than it really is. Of the 14 NHL Finals played between 1995 and 2009, the Wings appeared in six of them, a remarkable near 50% appearance rate in the game’s marquee event.
Like the Patriots
Watching the Super Bowl, it occurred to me that the 2014-15 Red Wings are very much the same as the 2014-15 New England Patriots.
The Fighting Belichicks had a run of dominance early in the 2000s, capturing three titles in the blink of an eye. Then they kept slipping up on their way back to the top. The team remained more than competitive as the years elapsed, but many experts had more or less given up on the idea of long-in-the-tooth Tom Brady hoisting the Lombardi Trophy again.
As we saw, such proclamations were premature. The old guy came through again and the title “drought” was brought to an end for New England.
You see the parallel with the Red Wings. This team used to always be first-to-mind in NHL circles as the post-season arrived, with a long run through the bracket all but guaranteed. In recent years the narrative has changed.
Over the last five years, the Wings have been bounced in the second round three times, with hasty first round exits in the other two. Their playoff seeds over this stretch of time? A less-than-inspiring 5, 3, 5, 7, and 8.
The rest of the hockey world might look at the Red Wings and see nothing but a relic; a dynasty of yesteryear no longer presenting a legitimate threat to do significant damage in the game’s second season.
Let ‘em think that. Let ‘em focus their attention on Anaheim, on Tampa Bay, on the Penguins or Blackhawks.
It’s the quiet ones you have to worry about most.
The city of Detroit is not Cleveland or Buffalo in terms of championship futility.
We’ve been lucky enough to witness Gibby’s homer over San Diego, the Bad Boys going back-to-back, Rumeal Robinson’s coldblooded free throws, Charles Woodson’s brilliance, Mo Peterson alley-ooping the Spartans to a title, and a destruction of the Lakers in 2004.
But of late, it’s mostly just been heartbreak. The Tigers keep reaching the doorstep only to have it slammed in their face. The last time the Pistons made the playoffs, gas was only a nickel. The Lions are the Lions.
So we turn to our old stand-by, the Detroit Red Wings, to rescue us from the winter doldrums. And maybe even bring the thought of a championship back to a town thirsting for the opportunity.
Come June, with a few fortunate bounces of the puck, a couple dozen flying octopi, and Datsyuk/Zetterberg channeling their inner-Brady, it could be another Stanley Cup summer in the Motor City.
We better start moving some of those construction cones on Woodward off to the side.
There might be a parade coming through.
