0304170408
DETROIT FREE PRESS
030417
Thursday, April 17, 2003
METRO FINAL CHASER
1A
Photo JULIAN H. GONZALEZ/Detroit Free Press
Goalie Curtis Joseph fails to stop the final shot of the Red Wings'
season -- a blast from Steve Rucchin that gave Anaheim a 3-2 overtime victory
Wednesday night. The Ducks won the series in a sweep.
MITCH ALBOM FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
Copyright (c) 2003, Detroit Free Press
SO LONG, STANLEY
ANAHEIM OUSTS CUP CHAMPIONS FROM PLAYOFFS IN 4 STRAIGHT
ANAHEIM, Calif. -- And that's that.
No repeat title. No championship parade. No Colorado or Dallas. No May. No
June. No anything, really -- which is what happens when you suffer the biggest
no of all: no wins.
Four times the Red Wings took their pride and power onto the ice against the
Anaheim Mighty Ducks, a team with a laughable name and a nonexistent
tradition, and four times they skated off humbled. Wednesday night was the
final indignity, a night when the Wings vowed they would show what they were
about.
Here's what they're about: They're about home now, done for the year, the
first team eliminated from this year's playoffs. The team got dressed. The
plane took off.
And that's that.
"Four straight?" you could hear Wings fans whispering, after Detroit was swept
away with a 3-2 overtime defeat in Game 4. "It's a joke, right? It can't
really have happened? Four straight?"
It happened. Here was Mathieu Dandenault, asleep at the wheel, allowing Adam
Oates to steal the puck like a purse snatcher on the subway. Oates passed to
Paul Kariya, Kariya went high on Curtis Joseph, and the Wings' only lead of
the game was gone.
Here were Brendan Shanahan, Brett Hull, Sergei Fedorov, the biggest guns in
the Detroit arsenal, firing into Anaheim's Jean-Sebastien Giguere as if he
were made of Kevlar. Nothing but scratches.
Here was the third period, with a whizzing shot from a fourth-line guy named
Jason Krog getting past the now-beleaguered Joseph.
"Jason Krog?" you could hear the fans say. "JASON KROG?!"
And finally, in overtime, here was Steve Rucchin firing the inevitable dagger
past Joseph and into the history books.
"SWEEP! SWEEP!" yelled the Anaheim crowd.
Swept. Days from now, months from now -- maybe even years from now -- these
moments will come back to the Red Wings, haunting them with the worst kind of
echoes. The clanged posts, the missed defensive moves, the goalie straying
from the net -- all those false little stitches in the fabric, coming
unraveled in one gnawing realization: You only get so many chances at a
Stanley Cup.
And in 2003, a beautifully equipped machine never got out of the garage.
The long road back
Even up to game time, the Wings were talking about making history. They knew
only two teams had come back from a 3-0 deficit in the NHL playoffs, but to a
man they felt they were destined to make it three.
"If any team can do it . . ." coach Dave Lewis said.
"If any team can do it . . ." Shanahan said.
"If any team can do it . . ." Fedorov said.
Maybe no team can do it, then. But remember, the Wings didn't just fail at
coming back from a 3-0 deficit. They failed to win a game. You can spin that
all you want. It still spells failure. On Wednesday night, they reached the
pinnacle of frustration late in the second period, when even their best hockey
could not yield a goal. Honestly, it was like watching a one-way scrimmage, so
dominant were the Wings on offense. But watching them tying to crack Giguere
was like watching thieves try to crack a Swiss bank vault. They threw
everything at him. Darren McCarty with two hard shots -- denied! Shanahan on a
pretty feed from Steve Yzerman -- denied! Yzerman making his own opening,
spinning, firing -- denied! Fedorov with two screaming shots -- nothing! It
was like chopping at a redwood tree.
At one point, a deflected shot by Mathieu Schneider flipped up in the air like
a tossed coin, landed on Giguere's back, and still bounced off to the side of
the net. That was pretty much the story for the Wings. Even gravity was on
Anaheim's side.
By the end, as they skated off for the summer, the Wings appeared stunned. A
team that, in the last part of the regular season, averaged four goals a game,
could only manage six in a series?
"It's unthinkable," you could hear the Detroit fans say. "Isn't it?"
Not anymore. For the last week, the Red Wings were like an ogre taking punches
from a leprechaun, saying, "That didn't hurt" and "That didn't hurt" -- and
then toppling over dead. To the bitter end, they were in denial about
Anaheim's team talents, privately crediting only the goaltender, Giguere, as
the reason they were down, 3-0, instead of the opposite.
Yes, it's true, Giguere was unbelievable. Remarkable. Can't say enough. But he
didn't score for the Ducks. He didn't fall asleep on defense. He didn't give
up the questionable goals that Joseph did. He didn't steal the pucks or make
the perfect passes the Ducks did at least once a game.
And if Giguere was the only reason they lost, that may say more about the
Wings than we want to know. Remember, Giguere was in his first career playoff.
His coach, Mike Babcock, is a first-year guy. Krog is considered a
back-of-the-pack player -- and he had two goals in this series -- which is two
more than Hull, Fedorov, Yzerman or Nicklas Lidstrom. The Ducks had never
beaten the Wings in the playoffs before. How much history could the Wings
trash in one series?
A lot. It's been more than half a century since a defending Stanley Cup
champion was swept out in the first round. For better or worse, the Wings are
back in the books.
A summer without hockey
The repercussions of this are staggering. This Detroit hockey machine is based
on heavy income and heavy outcome, with the playoff kitty financing much of
the pre- and in-season maneuvers. The Ilitch family's devotion to high-priced
talent -- both current and potential -- will be severely tested now. This is
an age-heavy team, with older players sucking a huge amount of the payroll.
You can't trade them. If you cut them, you lose their leadership. If you lose
their leadership, aren't you just like a lot of teams out there?
You see the problem. And the red ink doesn't compare to the black eye on the
Red Wings' pride. Losing a tough first-round series is not unprecedented --
the Wings did it two years ago to the Los Angeles Kings. But losing four
straight to a No. 7 seed when you have a Hall of Fame roster and a gaggle of
young talent is not only historic, it's inexplicable.
That riddle will now consume our spring and summer hours, previously set aside
for hockey. Instead of going indoors in early May, you can mow the lawn and
say, "I can't believe the Wings lost like that." Instead of finding a sports
bar in early June, you can hit the beach and say, "I still can't believe the
Wings lost that way."
And while you're doing that, you can most likely say good-bye to familiar
faces: Luc Robitaille, Igor Larionov, maybe even Fedorov and McCarty, all free
agents who seem less essential after a goose egg in the playoffs.
But mostly what we say good-bye to is anticipation, adulation and exultation.
They are replaced by frustration now, ours and theirs. For 18 months, Detroit
has been a happy place for hockey, a sort of magic Puckville in which the best
players played and the best fans watched.
All gone now. The best laid plans of mice and men just got hammered by Ducks.
The team got dressed. The plane took off. There is no joy in Puckville; the
mighty Red Wings have struck out.
Contact MITCH ALBOM at 313-223-4581 or albom@freepress.com. Catch "The Mitch
Albom Show" 3-6 p.m. weekdays on WJR-AM (760).
THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE PRINTED ARTICLE.
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