2006: A Wings’ Year in Review
A lot happened in 2006 for the Detroit Red Wings organization. Unfortunately, many of these happenings were disappointing or even a little sad (okay maybe for just me). Sad to see No. 19 retire. Sad to see Shanny leave for Broadway. Sad to lose in the first round of the playoffs after accumulating 124 points in the regular season. So here is the BtJ year in review for the 2006 Detroit Red Wings.
In 2006, the Detroit Red Wings finished the regular season with 124 points and a record of 58-16-8. They also led the league in the power play with a 22.1% success rate. The Wings also killed off 85.5% of their penalties placing them third in the league, only behind Minnesota and Buffalo.
Fortunately for Oilers fans everywhere, the Red Wings acquired Cory Cross at the trading deadline providing plenty of fodder come playoff time. The Wings also sent Jamie Rivers to Phoenix in exchange for a seventh round draft pick.
Then in April, the playoffs happened. What could have been a wonderful joyous time for the league’s best (in the regular season) became “The Punch in the Face.” If you’re an Oilers fan, you can gloat at how idiotic my prediction turned out to be for the series (and I wasn’t alone). And for those of you who want to revel in the glory of an Oilers’ series win or want to remind yourselves of the agony experienced by Wings fans, you can check out my postgame recollections of Game #1, Game #2, Game #3 (a liveblog of the game), Game #4, Game #5, and Game #6. Then I broke down the playoff series with the Wings version of the Good, Bad, and Ugly.
In May, Chris Chelios signed on for another year with the Red Wings for $850,000. GM Ken Holland also decided to not pick up Cory Cross’ option, much to the dismay of Oilers fans everywhere.
In June, goaltender Manny Legace learned that he would not be offered a contract by the Red Wings. Defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom and forward Pavel Datsyuk both received awards at the end of the season. Lidstrom earns his fourth Norris Trophy in five seasons while Datsyuk took home his first Lady Byng. I also created one of my most popular posts on BtJ of all times - my Anti-Roy post, fun for the whole family. Lidstrom later took a ‘hometown discount’ and signed a two year deal worth $7.6 million per year.
On July 1st, Chris Osgood re-signs with the Red Wings for a two year contract worth $900,000 per year. Two days later, No. 19 announced his retirement. Yzerman’s bonuses worth $400,000 still count towards this season’s salary cap. Brendan Shanahan signs a one year deal worth $4 million with the New York Rangers. Had he stayed, it would of been his 10th year with the Red Wings.
Wings fans had quite a scare when veteran goaltender Eddie Belfour (aka Psycho Eddie) came in for a physical over the 4th of July holiday week. He ended up signing with the Florida Panthers, thankfully.
Within a couple of days, GM Ken Holland re-signed forward Dan Cleary and defenseman Brett Lebda. Cleary agreed to a two year deal worth $1.325 million. Lebda will be with the Wings at $2.6 million over four years.
In late July, Holland finally signs someone who didn’t play for the team last year. Defenseman Danny Markov signs a one year deal worth $2.5 million to help bolster the Wings defense.
Holland was able to avoid arbitration with forward Jason Williams by getting him to sign a $1.6 million/year contract for two years.
On July 29th, Behind the Jersey moved from Blogger to its own domain!
Goaltender Dominik Hasek returns for his third stint in Detroit for $750,000 plus incentives that won’t kick in until after the first round of the playoffs.
Center Greg Johnson signs a one year contract worth $500,000. Johnson played for Detroit in the mid-90s and was traded away right before the Wings won the cup in 1997. Unfortunately, Johnson was diagnosed with a heart condition (similar to Jiri Fischer’s) during a physical and was forced to retire.
On August 30th, the Detroit Red Wings announced that they were retiring Yzerman’s jersey number on January 2nd. Almost a month later, the Wings organization announced that Yzerman was named the new vice president.
On opening night for the Wings (Oct. 5th) in a game against Vancouver, the new Red Wings captain was announced - defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom.
Five hockey greats, including Yzerman, were honored by receiving the Lester Patrick Award in a ceremony held at Joe Louis Arena.
The Wings later announced that a statue made in the likeness of Gordie Howe will be in placed inside the new Gordie Howe Entrance at Joe Louis Arena next spring.
In December, an article surfaced reporting that TV ratings have dropped in most markets including Detroit.
At the end of the year (excluding the results from tonight’s game), the Wings are currently 23-9-5 with 51 total points placing them fifth overall in the league. Their power play is awful, only 14.8%, the fifth worst team in the league in that regard. The penalty kill isn’t quite so bad at 13th in the league with 83.3% success rate. Wings captain Nicklas Lidstrom leads the league with a plus/minus rating of +24. Goaltender Dominik Hasek also leads the league, but in the GAA department with 1.82.
19: A Salute to Steve Yzerman
Bob Duff, the columnist for Windsor Star, recently wrote a book about No. 19. You can read excerpts from each chapter at this website. I couldn’t find too much information about the book itself (ie. availability) so I emailed Duff and got a quick response.
The book, Nineteen, will be released on January 2nd and will be sold by the Detroit Red Wings. You will be able to order a copy from their website. If the Wings are selling it, I wonder if they’ll have copies for sale at the game.
Want to take your chance on winning a copy? Windsor Star is giving away five signed books if you (1) correctly answer three trivia questions and (2) are randomly selected.
Review: Blood Feud
As I mentioned in my last review, I’m going to be trying to do these reviews more often and whenever I finish a hockey book/DVD. Today’s review is of Adrian Dater’s book, Blood Feud
To be honest, I was skeptical when I purchased this book. It’s a 238 page book on the Wings-Avs rivalry by a Colorado reporter. I must say I was pleasantly surprised. It was not the best book I’ve ever read, but Dater provided some insight on what happened within the rivalry that many fans would not know. I especially liked it because I was only 10 in 1997 so I remember the big games, but the details were definitely fuzzy. This book helped clear things up for me.
Dater spent a chapter on each of the key players in the rivalry: Claude Lemieux, Patrick Roy, Scotty Bowman, and Darren McCarty. I certainly enjoyed reading about Scotty and Mac, but it was interesting to read about Lemieux and Roy as well (although my “hatred” for the two built as I read). He also talks about each season with the rivalry intact from 1995 to 2002. You also learn what Marc Crawford said to Scotty Bowman that got them both in a fighting match.
Other interesting tidbits…
- Denver Post columnist Kiszla wrote after Game 4 in the 1997 Western Conference finals, “Want to know the sad truth? The Red Wings are laughing at the Avalanche. Asked Wednesday if Colorado was tough enough to play dirt hockey, Wings enforcer Vladimir Konstantinov responded by chuckling for a full five seconds.” (p. 106)
- “His [Scotty Bowman] stay in Buffalo, until 1986-1987, would mark the only time in Bowman’s career he did not take a team to the Stanley Cup Finals. In the long, glorious display of his year-by-year coaching records, there is only one season in which the losses outnumber the victories…” (p. 126) Wow. That certainly speaks volumes about Bowman’s successful career.
- Did you know: Jimmy Devellano originally “wanted to hire Islanders legend Al Arbour for the [coaching job], but turned to Bowman when Arbour decline. In the summer of 1993, Ilitch gave Bowman a two-year contract worth $800,000 a yar. The son of a Montreal blacksmith had never seen so many zeroes in his life.” (p. 132-3)
- Scotty Bowman made the Red Wings get him a brand new laptop and he would read every single hockey story. He even knew what time the papers’ early editions were released online.
“I’d get a lot of calls: ‘How come I can’t get my computer working?’” Stan Bowman [Scotty’s son] said. “But once he got the hang of it, he read every single hockey story in every single paper in the country. For a guy who is 72, he’s on the computer all day, reading stories on the Internet.” (p. 136)
- Wings PR man Mike Kuta had gone to the Diamond Cabaret (a gentleman’s club) with Joey Kocur and Jamie Macoun in the 1999 playoffs, both were not playing at that time. Anyways, he spends $200-300 at the club and realizes he has no more money, but three more days in Denver. Well, the whole team learns about this event and that Kuta spent all of his money. While Kuta was sitting on the bus as they headed to the rink for the game, Yzerman gives him $400. His reasoning?
“He’s out there representing the team, that’s his allowance for the rest of the week.”
- Another big surprise, for me at least, was that Blood Feud disclosed Darren McCarty’s birth name. I won’t give it away, but the initials are DF and you can find it on page 194 in the book. Darren did not meet his biological dad until he was about 30 years old.
“I had to do it [meet his dad] on my time,” he said. “We’ve built a friendship since then. It was neat recently; I came out of the locer room in Edmonton and there was my read dad, mom, and sister all in one place. I’d never seen that.” (p. 202)
- Most of us know that Darren McCarty declared bankruptcy in April 2006. Well, it didn’t help that when the Red Wings bought out his contract after the lockout, 75% of it went towards Cheryl, who he had recently divorced. Yep, she got $405,000. It didn’t help that he had other gambling expenses, but when you go from making plenty of money to not having any income during the lockout and then losing a majority of your contract money, it could be hard to stay afloat. (p. 202-3)
Overall…
I’d suggest this book to other Wings and Avs fans. I enjoyed it and I’m happy with my purchase. One thing I noticed was that he referred to Denver columnists/reporters a lot for their postgame reactions. It wouldn’t have seemed so obvious, but the Detroit voice was missing a lot of times. I’m sure it’s because he had easier access to the Denver archives since he works there, but it would have been nice to read about what Detroit columnists/reporters wrote following those games as well. Especially since there weren’t hockey blogs back in ‘95 and I certainly don’t remember what they wrote.
However, he did cover the rivalry from both sides so it wasn’t completely biased. He even discussed the little rivalry between the Denver and Detroit papers. Now I don’t believe it has been released to stores yet until January 25th, but you can buy it on Amazon and get it today.
You can buy it at Amazon.com
Cost: $12.03
Update: The author of the book, Adrian Dater, emailed me after reading my review with some answers to the questions I posed:
You’re right, there is more mention of Denver columnists in the book, and all their invective. You’re right, it was because it was easier for me to get them from the archives here, but mainly because they were the ones who did nearly all of the trash talking. The Detroit columnists were always less that way, taking the “high road” more, I guess. Keith Gave would get into it a bit, but not nearly as much as Paige and Kiszla. So, that’s a big reason why you read them more.
I should have written more about guys like Yzerman and Lidstrom, but, really, they are both kind of quiet (OK, boring) guys to write about in a book like this. The same can be said of guys from Colorado, like Adam Foote and Sakic.
USA 8, Germany 1
No, this was not the score of a WJC game, rather the final result of the USA Hockey National Team Development Program U-17 game that took place in Ann Arbor on Friday evening. I attended the game because a friend was working and taking some stats and then we went out afterwards. Anyways to keep myself entertained, I took notes during the game and even though you guys probably couldn’t care less what happened in this game, I’m going to tell you anyways!
This weekend, the Four Nations Cup is happening here in Ann Arbor. The four participating countries include the US, Germany, Sweden, and Finland. Sweden played Finland earlier on Friday and defeated them handily by the score, 6-2.
USA vs. Germany
As you can tell from the final score, USA easily defeated Germany and even that may be an understatement. The USA U-17 team controlled the puck for a majority of the play and outshot Germany, 40-17.
Before I get into the goals, this game was largely a special teams or 4-on-4 game. In total, there were 23 penalties and remember, there is no fighting so these penalties were primarily for holding, hooking, delay of game, and tripping. It seemed like a player was continually going to the penalty box so we may not have seen the best game from either team. The penalties proved to be too costly for Germany and their power play unit didn’t help out their cause. They could not convert when they had a 5-on-3 power play for over a minute.
What’s even more amazing is that all 8 goals came from different players. No player had more than one goal. Impressive.
Goals…
1) USA forward Justin Florek from Marquette, Michigan scored the first goal seven minutes and seventeen seconds into the first period. He flicked the puck up right above the goaltender’s right shoulder. Maximillian Englebrecht was in net for Germany (and what a name).
2) No. 74, Vinny Saponari, scored a power play goal a minute and forty seconds later while USA played with the 5-on-3 advantage.
3) Robbie Czarnik notched his goal of the game 7:13 into the second period to give the USA team a three goal lead. He scored while the team was playing 4-on-4 action and stuffed the puck past the goaltender.
4) While on the power play, Michael Cichy scored 8:55 into the second.
5) Seven minutes and nineteen seconds into the final period of the game, Sam Lofquist tried to make a pass to a player in front of the crease, but accidentally got the goalie’s skate and it bounced into the net. Fluke play.
6) On another 4-on-4 moment 10:55 into the third period, No. 67 Stephen Rogers took a nice wristshot from the top of the right circle to make it 4-0.
7) USA decided to change it up a bit and scored while shorthanded 15:05 into the third. Kevin McCarey scored the goal.
Germany finally scores. And they scored only 19 seconds after USA’s last goal. Their first goal came on the power play with less than five minutes remaining in the game. Florian Strobl scored the goal, but he was not named Germany’s top player of the game. Hmm.
9) USA’s final goal came from Jordan Schroeder while on the power play.
Justin Florek, who scored the first goal, was named USA’s top player in tonight’s game. The game was played in front of 454 individuals.
Wings 7, Columbus 4
The Detroit Red Wings defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets, again, last night with the final score 7-4. The Wings had climbed to a three goal lead, but lost the lead and at one point were behind Columbus, 4-3, with 14:43 left in the game. However, the Wings didn’t lose heart and scored four more goals to win the game. There were actually more goals scored (11) than penalties given (7) in last night’s game.
Notables…
- Dan Cleary notched his first career hat trick.
- Danny Markov, who recently returned from his hand injury, scored an open net goal.
- Pavel Datsyuk had two goals and an assist.
- Robert Lang had three assists, one for each of Cleary’s goals. For some reason, they gave Lang the #1 star instead of Cleary. Now that does not make sense to me.
- Henrik Zetterberg scored a goal and added an assist.
- Goaltender Chris Osgood allowed four goals on 25 shots.
Game recaps…
- NHL.com
- Offensive Scoresheet
- Abel to Yzerman
- On the Wings
- NHL.com Video Highlights
- Gorilla Crouch
- The Detroit News
- Detroit Free Press
Yzerman interview
During the 2nd intermission of the Sweden-Slovakia game in the WJC, Steve Yzerman was interviewed by SVT. You can watch the 8 minute interview online here. The interview is at the 1 hour and 41 minute mark and lasts about 8 minutes. Clicking on fullskärm to the bottom right of the video feed will make it a full screen.
Thanks to LGW forum reader redwingrulez19 for the link.
Bowman autograph signing
Former Red Wings head coach Scotty Bowman will be doing an autograph signing at The Goalies Den on January 3rd from 6-9pm. It costs $20 for Ticket A and $25 for Ticket B (sticks and jerseys). I will be going and taking any pictures.
If you can’t make it to the event but would like something signed, The Goalies Den will hold your item, have him sign it, and then you can pick it up whenever it’s convenient for you for an extra $5. I did that for the Niklas Kronwall signing and was quite pleased with my purchase (they even got it personalized for me!).
I’ve never had the chance to meet Scotty Bowman so I’m excited to say the least. I’ll be getting my Yzerman jersey signed (which currently only has Cheli, Drapes, and Legace autographs). I have the 2002 Free Press front page from their Stanley Cup win with Yzie handing Scotty the Cup so I may have him sign that as well.
1977 E. WATTLES RD.
SUITE J.
TROY, MI 48085
PHONE-248-680-9766
FAX- 248-680-9144
E-MAIL: goaliesden@sbcglobal.net
Congratulations
I would like to congratulate three hockey bloggers on their recent success.
1) Paul at Kukla’s Korner. This year, he become a blogger for NHL.com and KK was recently named hockey co-blog of the year by Greg Wyshynski at The Fourth Period
2) Eric at Off Wing Opinion. Eric started blogging for NBCSports.com and Off Wing was also named hockey co-blog of the year by Greg Wyshynski at The Fourth Period
KuklasKorner.com and OffWingOpinion.com. Both Paul Kukla and Eric McErlain have changed the face of hockey blogging, turning entertaining Web sites into fully-staffed, must-read daily visits. They’ve also landed some pretty plum gigs — Paul with NHL.com, Eric with NBCSports.com — and have championed the rights of the alternative media to become credentialed members of the press box. Kudos to both on an outstanding, and eventful, year.
3) Mike at Mike Chen’s Hockey Blog just became a blogger for FOXSports.com
Congrats to all three bloggers - you guys certainly deserve the accolades!
Yzerman ceremony
For those of you attending the Yzerman Jersey Retirement ceremony (and the game against the Ducks), don’t forget to arrive at the Joe early! The ceremony starts at 6:30pm, but you’ll definitely want to get there before then because I expect it to be crowded. If I see any empty seats, I’ll be mad. Everyone in attendance will receive a replica Yzerman banner!
The Michigan Hockey publication named Yzerman’s retirement as the biggest moment for the Detroit Red Wings in 2006.
Wings vs. Wild game
Earlier today, I received a call from a family friend offering two tickets in row 11 behind the goal for $162 (including parking). Unfortunately, I don’t know anyone willing to fork over $80 for their ticket so I couldn’t go to the game and I was bummed by that development. Hopefully this family friend will continue to offer tickets and I can eventually buy them. But I get to go to the Yzerman Jersey Retirement ceremony on January 2nd so I shouldn’t complain too much. This week will have plenty of hockey games that I’ll be attending…
Thursday, December 28th - Plymouth Whalers game @ 2pm
Friday, December 29th - USA Hockey NTDP U-17 game @ 7:30pm
Saturday, December 30th - Plymouth Whalers game @ 7:05pm
Tuesday, January 2nd - Red Wings gam & Yzie ceremony @ 6:30pm
I just wish I had Center Ice and could watch the WJC…