- On June ninth 2009,
the Red Wings were in Pittsburgh,
60 minutes away from their fifth Stanley Cup in 13 years.
This team had continuously raised and matched
massive expectations as they became
a regular favorite to win the cup.
It began with a playoff appearance in 1991.
By 1995, they were in the finals
where Detroit and the entire hockey world
were stunned by the Devils.
A year later, they were back
in the Western Conference Finals,
losing to the eventual champion, Avalanche.
But all of that led to Detroit winning back to back cups
in 97 and 98, the franchise's first of the modern era.
And by 2002, they were back,
beating the Hurricanes to win it all again.
In those three championship years,
the Red Wings only lost a single game in the finals,
as Carolina was the lone team to avoid a sweep.
And after, again, reaching the Conference Finals in 2007,
they returned to form a year later and beat the Penguins
to claim the Cup.
Their new leaders, Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk,
had learned under then replaced
some of the guys that started it all.
Parts of the original core remained,
the grind line's Kris Draper and Kirk Maltby,
Tomas Holmstrom, a career nuisance for opposing goalies,
and the new caption, Nicklas Lidstrom,
still one of the greatest defensemen in NHL history,
who was a year removed from winning
three straight Norris Trophies.
He made life just a bit easier for Chris Osgood in the net,
who rejoined the Wings in 2005
and became one of the heroes of the 2008 Cup.
They were coached by Mike Babcock,
who had returned the team to their championship winning ways
in just his third season.
And in the front office sat Hockeytown legend Steve Yzerman,
who worked alongside general manager Ken Holland
to keep the roster a step ahead of the league
and prevented them from ever needing a full rebuild.
So in 2009, with two chances to close it out,
not only did the outcome feel like a given,
there was no end in sight for the Red Wings' dynasty.
(light music)
But after dominating the previous matchup, in game six,
Detroit found themselves down two-one
in the closing seconds.
And when this attempt from Datsyuk and Johan Franzen
was snuffed out by a pile of Penguins,
a game seven became necessary.
In front of their home crowd, the Wings came out flat.
They once again let the Penguins take a two-nothing lead,
and although Jonathan Ericsson cut the deficit in half
with six to play,
they showed little urgency until it was nearly too late.
With six and a half seconds remaining,
Detroit had one last chance.
Staring at an open net,
Lidstrom wasn't able to force overtime
and they were left to watch as Crosby carried his first Cup,
and Pittsburgh began their celebration at Joe Louis Arena.
While no loss is easy,
there wasn't a real sense of panic in Detroit.
Babcock made it clear they had no excuses,
and needed to simply do better.
The players knew as much,
and recognized with the talent on the roster,
they had reason to plan for a return trip.
Their GM echoed this,
the core was there, they would be fine.
And it wasn't just arrogance that guided that mindset.
Comparing what they had done to the rest of the league
made it more justifiable.
The Penguins team that had just beaten them,
while they made consecutive finals appearances,
weren't that far removed
from being in the league's basement.
With Mario Lemieux hit by injuries
while the team struggled financially,
they played their way into the second overall pick.
A year later, the lockout led to them
winning the draft lottery and the Sidney Crosby sweepstakes.
They managed to quickly build a new foundation,
and most of Detroit's previous foes in the finals
were nowhere near as lucky.
A year after losing to the Wings in 98,
the Capitals dropped 24 points and missed the playoffs.
The Hurricanes followed up their loss in 02
by finishing with the worst record in the league.
So while a roster churn became inevitable for any team,
with Detroit's identity set,
they were far from being in a tailspin.
Even when they were unable to resign their top goal scorer,
Holland didn't panic.
It would've been nice to keep Marian Hossa around,
but he wasn't the sole reason
the Wings had led the league in scoring by a wide margin.
Hossa had come to Detroit with the sole intention
of winning his first Cup,
ironically turning down a long term offer
from the Penguins to do so.
But when he left, they still had 30-goal scorers
in Datsyuk, Zetterberg, and Johan Franzen.
Hossa's year with the Wings represented
just one of the ways that Detroit stacked their hand.
For opposing players, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
Free agents had often come to Hockeytown
in search of a championship.
Brett Hull and Luc Robitaille signed on in 2001
and helped lead the Wings over Carolina.
Chris Osgood returned to Detroit in 2005,
and took over for a struggling Dominik Hasek
in the 08 playoffs that ended with the Cup.
It may not have always worked out,
but the logic was sound.
If you wanted to get your name engraved on the trophy,
Detroit was a good place to do so,
and the architect of it all was Holland.
He took over as general manager in 1997,
but before that, had been with Detroit as a scout,
getting his fingerprints on the dynasty from day one.
The Wings' scouting department
had beaten the rest of the league
in building a pipeline for European and Russian talent,
funneling them to Detroit via late-round draft picks.
By the time Zetterberg and Datsyuk,
two of the best examples of this,
started to get regular ice time,
they allowed Detroit to rebuild on the fly.
And as the duo entered their prime,
they gave further reasons for high expectations.
The 2009, 2010 season began with a challenge, though.
Detroit was hit by injuries early.
Zetterberg, Holmstrom, and other key Wings
saw limited action to start the year.
They found themselves in unfamiliar territory,
where even in January, every win mattered.
But while the 2010 Winter Olympics
caused a headache for the league,
they seemed to come at a perfect time for the Wings.
Detroit did heat up out of the break,
and finished as the fifth seed in the West.
But it was their worst finish since the NHL
went to the conference oriented playoff bracket in 1994.
For the first time in four years,
Detroit wouldn't make it out of the second round.
The success that they had become accustomed to
started to have a different effect.
The Wings had played at least 100 games
each of the three previous seasons,
and it looked to be taking a toll.
Their man-games lost to injury had skyrocketed as a result,
and if that wasn't enough, front office received a shakeup
following the early exit.
In May of 2010, Red Wings owner and president Mike Ilitch
approached his GM with a proposal.
He wanted to promote Holland to team president
in order to move Steve Yzerman to general manager.
One of the most beloved players
to even don the winged wheel,
Yzerman had joined the front office as soon as he retired.
He gained additional experience
as executive director for Team Canada,
who was fresh off an Olympic gold medal.
But for Holland, the move likely seemed more of a demotion,
and in his defense, he was still viewed
as one of the best GMs across all professional sports.
So when Ilitch suggested it,
Holland told his boss “I’m a general manager,
that's what I was hired to do.”
Holland put the kibosh on the move,
so Yzerman looked elsewhere.
The Red Wings legend joined the Tampa Bay Lightning
in the same position he had sought in Detroit.
And while Yzerman was pointing out
how long of a process rebuilding the Lightning could take,
Holland was signing an extension
to continue his dynastic vision.
But even Yzerman couldn't make hockey
in Tampa Bay a thing, right?
With one familiar face already gone,
others followed suit.
The wave of retirements began with Kirk Maltby
ahead of the 2010, 2011 season.
His final year had been derailed by injury,
but over his 14 years in Detroit,
he had played the role of agitator perfectly.
A year later, Chris Osgood and Kris Draper retired,
two of the key pieces both in the Red Wings' championships
and in their iconic rivalry with the Colorado Avalanche.
With them went defenseman
and locker room leader Brian Rafalski,
whose time in Detroit was often overshadowed by Lidstrom.
And even though they were able to convince their captain
to stick around for a 20th season,
it presented a problem being kicked down the road.
On opening night of the 2011-2012 season,
the average age of their defensemen was over 30,
with only one guy younger than 27.
By the playoffs, things wouldn't get better.
They were the first team eliminated,
falling in five games to Nashville
for their earliest exit since 2003.
That unexpected tough loss
was followed by a more expected but tougher one.
On May 31st 2012, Detroit's captain retired.
The seven-time Norris Trophy winner
and four-time Stanley Cup Champion
was still Detroit's best defensemen even at the age of 41.
There's no doubt he could've maintained his production,
even when considering he had played
an additional three seasons worth of playoff games.
Management had convinced themselves
they could keep Lidstrom coming back.
Instead, his departure created a hole
that couldn't be filled by just one player,
or at least not by someone currently on the team.
Holland looked to free agency for a fix,
and chased that year's top prize.
He offered Ryan Suter a deal that would have given him
one of the longest and most lucrative contracts
in franchise history.
If the star defenseman wasn't enough,
they also tried to bring in the other jewel of free agency,
Suter's close friend, Zach Parise.
But by 2012, the legacy wasn't enough
for Suter and Parise to come to Hockeytown.
While that happens,
fans weren't used to the Red Wings being spurned,
and especially not for a team like the Minnesota Wild.
Sure, the pair was from Minnesota and Wisconsin,
so it could be justified as players choosing to return home,
but as Greg Eno put it,
it was like ice cream losing out to spinach.
And when Holmstrom retired the day before his 40th birthday,
the need for incoming talent grew once again.
One side effect of the big names
passing on Detroit in free agency
was they then scrambled to sign replacements
who were often past their prime.
In 2012, they inked Stephen Weiss to a four-year deal
worth five million per.
They signed Daniel Alfredsson to a stop gap contract
for the same amount,
and a season later,
the trend continued when Jonathan Ericsson
was extended for over four million per year.
These moves were being made by the man
once lauded for his roster construction.
He had slashed a $77 million roster down to 34,
and routinely got players to take pay cuts
and agree to hometown discounts.
But the moves to extend the playoff streak
caused Detroit's ceiling to lower,
and the expectations shifted from Finals favorite
to just another playoff team hoping to get hot.
At the end of 2014,
Detroit failed to win at least 50% of their games
for the first time since 1996.
That sparked the first of back to back to back
opening round defeats,
two of which came at the hands
of Yzerman's Tampa Bay Lightning.
In the midst of that,
they said goodbye to Mike Babcock,
the coach that had led them
to two Presidents' Trophies and the two latest Cup finals.
After failing to agree to an extension in Detroit,
he signed a record-setting contract
with the division rival Toronto Maple Leafs.
His successor, Jeff Blashill,
did extend the playoff streak to 25 seasons,
but he immediately ran into newer versions
of the same hurdles.
Ahead of the 2016, 2017 season,
Datsyuk left the NHL
in order to finish his career back home.
While he was still one of the more talented Wings,
Datsyuk's age had been showing.
Injuries forced him to miss time,
and when he was out there,
he rarely showed the magic that had helped
bail out the team in years past.
But for Detroit, his departure wasn't a major surprise.
Holland knew it was a possibility
even when he gave Datsyuk
a three year deal two seasons prior.
Regardless, him leaving put the team in a tough spot.
They pulled off a trade
that dumped Datsyuk's remaining salary
on the actively tanking Coyotes,
and Detroit actually gained a second round pick,
and only dropped four spots in the first.
This was part of a delayed shift in philosophy for Holland,
he finally looked to stockpile picks
instead of tossing them at rentals.
But even he knew it was too late,
and his future was no longer the guarantee it once was.
Without Datsyuk, Lidstrom, Draper, Holmstrom, Yzerman,
the Wings finally succumbed.
For the first time since 1990,
they failed to make the playoffs, and a year later,
they one-upped themselves.
Not only did they miss the post season
by over 30 points,
but they did so with the oldest roster in the NHL.
With the playoffs out of reach,
the team finally admitted they were rebuilding.
But the efforts made to keep the streak alive
had hurt their ability to do even that.
Bloated contracts caused difficulty
in resigning the young talent already on the roster,
and the money guaranteed to the vets
locked them into roster spots
that prevented the youth movement
from fully spreading its wings.
And that was all before one more obstacle,
set this time by their captain.
Despite playing three straight 82-game seasons,
Zetterberg's back wasn't getting any better.
In the 2018 off season, Hank was forced to retire
with three years left on his contract.
That meant Detroit would miss more
than just his abilities on the ice.
While some relief would come
thanks to the long term injured reserve tag,
he'd still be on the books through 2021.
But at least that means
he probably didn't charge an appearance fee
for the ceremonial puck drop to kick off the season.
For the first time, the Detroit Red Wings
looked nothing like the 2008 Stanley Cup Champions.
They missed the playoffs and failed to crack 80 points
for a third straight year.
Long gone were the names that had buoyed the organization.
Plenty of work was still needed for future success,
but promise finally showed.
By the end of 2019, the top four point scorers on the roster
were all 24 or younger.
Before the prior season, no Red Wings team since 1992
had even two of their top scorers under the age of 25.
And whatever would come next,
there would be at least one familiar face involved.
On April 19th 2019,
Steve Yzerman returned to the organization.
Hockeytown's favorite son was finally named general manager
once Holland relented to a new position.
But that arrangement didn't last long.
Holland found a new home in Edmonton barely two weeks later.
The final and most instrumental piece was gone.
He'd taken over while they were on top,
kept them there longer than most could have,
and ushered in their downfall
well before he was ready to admit it.
The Red Wings proved success can be a dangerous thing.
Considering it's definition can change for a team
and be different depending on the person involved,
the pursuit can derail the future
while the past blinds the present.
It kept them from seeing their fate was sealed,
and there was nowhere to go but down.
But when the Detroit Red Wings were good,
they were really, really good.