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New Wings for the Hall The best team ever? No, but nearly half of Detroit's everyday lineup is headed for enshrinement among the game's greatest
The price of some tickets for the Stanley Cup finals at Joe Louis Arena was $350, but if the Red Wings really wanted to rake in cash for free-agent shopping this summer, they should have charged admission to the dressing room. Right this way, folks. See Sergei Fedorov and Brendan Shanahan sitting side by side, mere steps from the weight room. That little black watch cap? Very observant, sir. That's the one Sergei wears during his off-ice workouts. Now moving a few stalls to our right, you'll notice the proximity of Igor Larionov and Brett Hull and -- what's that, sir? No, Steve Yzerman's cubicle is on the other side of the room. Our tour will get there shortly. As I was saying, the Professor and Hully, well, combined they have a hockey IQ that could tag-team anybody's. Now here, along the back wall, is where the Red Wings' defensemen dress. You can see the great Nicklas Lidstrom and toward the side Chris Chelios, who ... There's a little frisson every time a reporter turns the corner and walks into this place. It isn't a dressing room so much as the waiting room for the Hockey Hall of Fame. There are nine Wings who, with the added fillip of the 2002 Stanley Cup on their already flush résumés, are destined to be enshrined: Yzerman, Hull, Chelios, Dominik Hasek, Luc Robitaille, Lidstrom, Larionov, Fedorov and Shanahan. This boxy room, with its rows of cubicles and pungent smell of damp hockey equipment, is the most remarkable place to watch people dress beside backstage at a fall runway show in Milan. There have been teams with more hockey immortals. The 1972-73 Montreal Canadiens had 11 -- although many, including Guy Lafleur and Larry Robinson, were years away from their best hockey -- and the 1956-60 Canadiens had 10, among them Maurice Richard, Jean Beliveau, Doug Harvey and Jacques Plante, four of the best 15 players in history. Yet as astute as general managers Frank Selke and, later, Sam Pollock were in amassing the talent that powerhouse Montreal had in its various Stanley Cup incarnations, the slick job that Detroit G.M. Ken Holland (working with a generous amount of owner Mike Ilitch's cash) did in stockpiling greats and then surrounding them with talented peers is just as praiseworthy. The 2001-02 Wings are hardly the best team ever or even the most staggering collection of talent, but they are a prime example of money -- some $66 million -- well spent. "To get that number of Hall of Famers, you have to do an incredible job drafting," Holland said. "Then you have to be able to add on." In the past two decades Detroit has done plenty of both. Yzerman, the cornerstone of the modern Wings' ascent, was chosen No. 4 in 1983. Lidstrom and Fedorov were both part of Detroit's '89 draft class, arguably the most gifted ever. The other stars came piecemeal until last summer, when an embarrassment of immortals landed on the doorstep -- Hasek arrived from Buffalo in a trade, and Hull and Robitaille signed as free agents. There is no more powerful magnet for talent than talent, which carries with it the enticement of championships just around the corner. "I really appreciate playing with good players on a good team," said Larionov, the thinking man's player. "It's easier to play the game. In my opinion hockey is headed toward too much simplicity. There is not enough creativity. But given the opportunity to play with these players, you have the freedom to use your imagination and be creative." Compound the swell company with the cachet of joining an Original Six franchise and then throw in the promise of a sold-out arena -- athletes are really just sweaty entertainers, lusting for a full house as much as vaudevillians once did -- and the Wings' free-agent offers are a siren's call. Of course the challenge once you've assembled a Hall of Fame cast is how to distribute the glory, the minutes and a single puck. "The question about our team was how were we going to find enough ice time for everybody," Holland says. "What would that do to the harmony and team chemistry? Going into training camp, we knew several players had made sacrifices to come here. They maybe took a little less money and understood there might be a little less ice time than they would be getting elsewhere. The fact that four players [Chelios, Lidstrom, Shanahan and Yzerman] agreed to defer some salary so we could sign Hull probably was a major step in establishing team harmony. They weren't here for individual stats but team results." The Hall of Fame Wings fell into their predestined roles with hardly a peep. Robitaille, the career scoring leader among left wings, was given fourth-line minutes and some second-unit power-play time and rode an early-season scoring streak to an eventual 30 goals. Even the highly opinionated Hull didn't blanch -- at least not for long -- when coach Scotty Bowman, another Hall of Famer, put him on the right side with a monolingual Russian rookie, Pavel Datsyuk, and 24-year-old Boyd Devereaux, a line Hull dubbed Two Kids and a Goat. Certainly it was more effective than the eight-game experiment in which Bowman cobbled together a 600 Goal Line using Hull, Robitaille and Yzerman. They became a Rat Pack, each man with his own expertise, each trying to make a Stanley Cup haul. Yzerman was the mastermind, the moral force, the first among equals. Larionov passed and directed the second power-play unit. Robitaille rummaged for garbage goals, going to the heavy-traffic areas to score. Shanahan, Bowman's favorite whipping boy, was there for a little muscle and a little scoring. Hull shot, but not enough, and cracked wise in the dressing room. Hasek did his own thing, as goalies must. Lidstrom had everybody's back, rarely making a mistake. Chelios did the dirty work with a smirk on his lips. The fabulous Fedorov did everything, including filling in on defense for a spell. "This was a lot of fun," Robitaille says. "I saw it as a once-in-a-lifetime chance to play with so many great players. You play with them; there is a certain respect you have for each other. You know everyone is going to do his job. It's fun to be part of a team where you really trust everybody. It's an honor, but I also like the fact that I got to know these guys. I always respected them when I played on other teams, but playing with them I realized they were even better than I thought." The Red Wings had to prove it right away in the playoffs, losing the first two games in Detroit to the revved-up Vancouver Canucks, the lowest seed in the Western Conference. Yzerman made a little, casual speech before the third game, and the series turned around. And after Detroit kicked away the first match of the final at home against the surprising Carolina Hurricanes, the resolve in the Hall of Fame waiting room after practice the next afternoon was so palpable it was inconceivable the Wings would let the Cup slip through their fingers. "It's not so much the names or the stats that guys put up in their careers," Shanahan said, "but the character of each guy. We really do rely on each other." In the Canes versus Men with Canes final, the old guys prevailed in five games. The 2002 Wings were an aberration, really. They were nine men who came together near the ends of their careers -- only Lidstrom and Fedorov were anywhere near their prime -- for one season and for one reason. With Ilitch's money and Holland's brains and Bowman's coaching and Yzerman's leadership and Hasek's goaltending, it all coalesced around the 35-pound Stanley Cup the proud Yzerman, 19 years a Red Wing, carried at the end. These Wings were not unique, but they proved themselves to be extraordinary. You will not see their likes again anytime soon, unless you buy a ticket to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto in 10 years. Issue date: June 27, 2002 |
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