These
are not the best of times for the Detroit Red Wings. After 25 years of
dominance in the standings, numerous division and conference titles, Hall of
Fame players, thrilling playoff runs, and four Stanley Cups, the cupboard has
finally run bare. This is not wholly unexpected or unprecedented, as all great
teams eventually hit the skids, a by-product of the temporary nature of
professional sports, hockey included. In this era of NHL hockey, the salary cap
and extra point for shootout wins create a league of parity, where there are a
few clear cut elite teams, a few clear cut lousy teams, and a glut of team
in-between. 16 teams will make the playoffs, 15 will not, and many of the haves
and have nots will not be decided until the very last days of the regular
season. When I started watching hockey, 16 of 21 teams went into the playoffs.
Yes,
rest assured, the Red Wings will be on the outside looking in at playoff time. Not
only will they miss the playoffs, without an infusion of some decent talent,
they will likely be lousy for the next few years. Ken Holland, the GM since
1997, has won three Stanley Cups, but his performance in the salary cap era has
been poor. He has too many underwhelming players that are overpaid by contract
with terms that are too long, making them virtually untradeable. Holland has
been reluctant for a complete rebuild, preferring to try and rebuild on the
fly, which he did successfully in the past. But this time, there is no young
Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg coming into their primes with the greatest
defenseman of his generation, Nicklas Lidstriom, playing behind them. With
Datsyuk and Lidstrom gone, and Zetterberg at an age when athletes rapidly
decline, there will be no rebuilding on the fly. Instead, they must embrace
their ineptitude, win as few games as possible, and put themselves in a
position to draft Rasmus Dahlin, a potential franchise defenseman and certain
first overall pick in this year’s amateur draft. Thus, the only question is
whether the Wings can get back quickly or will we have to endure another Dead
Wings era.
Tonight,
in the brand new Little Caesar’s Arena, the evidence of the teams’s demise is
stark and in plain view, as the Red Wings only muster a pathetic 14 shots on
goal in a 4-2 loss to the Dallas Stars. The Stars’ general manager, Jim Nill, a
former Red Wing, apprenticed under Holland as an assistant GM. His team is now
leading its division, as do the Tampa Bay Lightning, managed by another Holland
protégé, Red Wings Hall of Famer Steve Yzerman. The game tonight, to me, is a
clear indicator that the Wings are not going anywhere fast, nor anywhere soon.
There are some parts in place: Dylan Larkin and Anthony Mantha both have
excellent potential. Andrea Athanasiou is a dynamic player. Tomas Tatar and
Gustav Nyquist can score. Jim Howard is a solid, albeit aging, NHL goalie. Beyond
that, there’s not much to write home about. The third and fourth lines are
awful, and there is no top four defensemen on the team at all. And of the
aforementioned awful players, several have no trade clauses. Lacking the skills
or the enthusiastic cash resource advantage of Mike Illitch to attract talent
as he had in the past, Holland could only overpay market rates and offer the
security of term of contract with no-trade clauses to convince players to come
here. In giving these horrible contracts, Holland violated the cardinal rule of
any general manager in any sport: Never overvalue your team’s talent. The signs
are that Holland, along with coach Jeff Blashill, once considered a rising star
in the coaching world, are likely gone after the season.
While
the action on the ice is uninspired, the new arena is dynamic and fantastic.
Compared to the dingy, old Joe Louis Arena, the new LCA is shiny, state of the
art and beautiful. The concourse is huge, well themed and there are reminders
of Red Wing history everywhere. Even though the Red Wings share the arena with
the Detroit Pistons, this is clearly a Red Wings first arena, judging from the
décor and theming of the concourse and interior. I sit in the lower bowl with
my friends Craig, Rick and Chuck, and the amount of empty seats in this new
shrine is disheartening. The Wings have tried to explain this away by saying
many fans hang out in the bars and restaurants in the arena, or many are
wandering around on their first visit to check the place out. While I’m sure
there’s some truth to this, the Red Wings of today are providing little reason
to visit the place or sit in the seats and watch the game. The good news is that I still had a great
time. The hockey gods shined upon me, granting me great seats, a nice dinner (all
compliments of Chuck) and I even won a free pizza. It was a partial payback for
all of the people I took to JLA when we had season tickets there. 
This
arena is the finest of the 15 NHL arenas I have been in. The sightlines are
excellent, compliments of the steep bowls. There is an organ, a classical
accompaniment to the game, and here, at LCA, you can get right up close to the
player, a gentleman who has been playing since he was three years old. There
are seats and bars everywhere all under the watchful eye of crowd control employees
who seem to be everywhere. Go see Little Caesar’s Arena.
Predictably,
the skill of the players at this level represent the best in the world, above
any previous league I have visited in The Month of Hockey. Even with this
apparent, the game is still the game: Twisting, turning, forward, backward. This
way, that way, with no pattern. There is an unhuman speed of movement from the
players, moving on skates faster than any human could without them, and the
puck moving faster than anything else on the ice. Moving, acting, reacting, a
violent dance with the opposition. As in life, there are goals, and saves, and
new chances after failures. Hockey, at any level, is a beautiful thing. 
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