9905190140
DETROIT FREE PRESS
990519
Wednesday, May 19, 1999
METRO FINAL
1A
Photo JULIAN H. GONZALEZ/Detroit Free Press;Photo PATRICIA
BECK/Detroit Free Press
Avs goalie Patrick Roy, left, plays on. Wings goalie Chris Osgood
heads home. Handshakes after the Wings' 5-2 loss Tuesday night marked the end
of a run at three straight Stanley Cups. Said Wings captain Steve Yzerman:
"We've played some very good hockey for a long time."
The faces tell the story at Joe Louis Arena on Tuesday night: The Wings'
season and run at a hockey dynasty were over, leaving only memories.
Brief strategy sessions, such as this one between Chris Chelios, left, Jamie
Macoun and Nicklas Lidstrom (5), could not stem the tide.
While the Avs and Wings finish the series with handshakes on the ice, the fans
in the stands give a final salute.
MITCH ALBOM
Copyright (c) 1999, Detroit Free Press
SO LONG, STANLEY
HEY, WE STILL HAVE THOSE MEMORIES
SUMMER melted.
The icy joy that for two years has been Detroit hockey nirvana dissolved
Tuesday night into a soggy puddle, splashed by a Colorado team bus heading
happily out of town. It was ugly. It was decisive. It was a night to forget
for a team to remember.
And it was solid defeat. Four straight losses. Despite a last-minute gasp of
proud Detroit effort, here is the only image you need from The End Of The
Kingdom: Chris Osgood, the Red Wings goalie, on his back, helpless as a
newborn, with the Avalanche's Joe Sakic pecking at him like a vulture on a
corpse. Sakic dug and poked -- amazingly untouched by any Red Wing -- until he
unearthed the puck and shoved it into an open net.
On the Detroit bench, the heads dropped, the breath was exhaled and the word
"champion" began to transform from a feeling to a memory.
So long, Stanley.
"You can look at it as we underachieved, or you can look at it as we got beat
by a great team," said a sighing Steve Yzerman, after the Wings exited the
playoffs in the second round with a 5-2 loss to Colorado in Game 6. "I choose
to look at it as Colorado played fantastic."
The Wings were hoping to make history with a third straight Stanley Cup.
Instead they came undone faster than a schoolkid's fib. The Avs scored first,
they scored second, they even scored when they were one man down.
Detroit, meanwhile, took countless shots at Colorado's Patrick Roy -- clearly
the MVP of the series -- with all the success of a kid throwing rocks at a
barn. The defining sound of this series was the thud of Detroit puck against
Roy's pad and stick, shot after shot, night after night. Roy -- who stopped
every shot he faced from late in Game 4 until it was too late in Game 6 --
nearly killed the Wings all by himself.
By the time Detroit put a goal past him Tuesday, the travel reservations had
been made for Colorado's conference finals. And the flying carpet that has,
for two years, carried Wings fans into a glorious June parade had crashed on
the banks of the Detroit River.
And it's only the middle of May.
"I've noticed over the years that teams who win championships get stronger as
they go on," Yzerman said. "That's what Colorado did and that's what we
didn't."
Oh, for a brief stretch Tuesday night, hope glimmered. The Wings closed the
gap from 4-0 to 4-2 within 29 productive seconds late in the second period.
But that ember was doused in the third period, with 6 1/2 minutes left, when
Peter Forsberg, the goat of the first two games, came charging down the ice on
a breakaway, with only Igor Larionov giving chase. Larionov, the symbol of the
older, wiser Red Wings, is 13 years Forsberg's senior. It showed. Igor clung
to him, poked him with his stick, desperately tried to throw him off rhythm.
But Forsberg sped on, drew Osgood down and beat him with the kind of shot the
Wings never got on Roy.
Forsberg slid into the net for extra measure. And as the crowd went silent, he
emerged with his arms raised, yowling like a banshee. If you drove to Joe
Louis Arena this morning, you could probably still hear his voice echoing off
the water.
So long, Stanley.
Four straight defeats
It was a sad moment for guys like Yzerman, the captain who was all heart all
playoffs, and Osgood, who played gamely with a bad knee, and Larionov, who was
fighting a hand injury, and Scotty Bowman, who was bidding for history as the
only coach to win nine cups, and, well, it was sad for the whole roster. All
of them.
What happened to the Wings from a week ago, who came to Detroit with a 2-0
series lead and a chance to shut it down without taking another airplane?
What happened was Colorado winning four straight, in a stunning turnaround,
one that may take some time to analyze. In the end, one team was playing
hockey and the other team was playing history. The Wings skated as if the
weight of their legacy was strapped to their ankles. Colorado skated as if it
had, well, wings on its feet.
No one will deny that Detroit is a great team. But their only "great" Tuesday
night was the great opportunities that never materialized. Wendel Clark taking
a perfect pass from Sergei Fedorov and flicking it uselessly over the net.
Nick Lidstrom with a point-blank bead on the goal, hitting the post. Larionov
with a sweet feed to Todd Gill, right in front, who put no mustard on a
wide-open shot.
It died in Roy's glove.
This was simply not to be. When it counted, the Avalanche looked as if it were
taking a first-grade spelling test, while the Wings looked as if they were
trying to pass the bar. Making clean passes seemed as difficult for Detroit as
threading a needle with frayed thread. Shots came as easily as kidney stones.
This was surely a result of trying too hard, and you can't fault the Wings for
that. But if you can't win when you don't try enough, and you can't win when
you try too hard, well, you can't win.
Colorado simply held the emotional strings on this series, and played them
marvelously. The Avs did what the Wings could not do, kept the opponent down
when they had it down. That's how you win championships. You kill the snake
when you get it in your grip.
Let's be honest, folks. If you beat the Stanley Cup champions four straight
times in the playoffs, nobody can say anything to you except, "Enjoy the next
round."
The Wings were beaten, fair, square, and bare.
A difficult regular season
Now, this exit comes as a shock to Wings fans, who may feel this morning as if
they lost their best friend. But in the cold light of a few weeks' time, it
may not seem so shocking.
First, remember, this team had struggled all year. Many analysts said they
"didn't have it" for much of the regular season. Sure, they surged at the
trade deadline -- when other teams were slacking off -- mostly because of new
blood and heightened anticipation.
And then the Wings inflated expectations when they swept Anaheim in the
first-round playoff series. But they match up well with that team, and have
had Anaheim's number before (remember the four-game sweep of the Ducks in
1997?). In short, Anaheim was not much of a test.
Colorado was. Detroit's Game 1 victory, you recall, came in overtime on an
unlikely goal from Kirk Maltby. Could have gone either way. Game 2 was all
Wings, it's true, but the rest of the way, they were smothered.
Goaltending. Defense. Offense. Smarts.
They were simply outdone.
And looking back, there is nothing that says it couldn't have happened,
nothing that says the Wings were as mighty as we imagined them -- except our
nostalgic memories. The truth is, this season, their record against "good"
teams was pretty sad (four victories, eight losses against Colorado, Dallas
and Phoenix.)
It could be the Avalanche was simply the piper the Wings had to pay.
As for the "trading day miracle" that was supposed to make the Wings
invincible -- the March 23 acquisition of Chris Chelios, Ulf Samuelsson, Bill
Ranford and Clark? -- well, it certainly lit the room for a while. But in the
end, it was more like a splash of lighter fluid on old coals than it was a new
fire.
Let's be honest. Samuelsson came with an injury, and finished with an injury.
Ranford won two meaningful playoff games, then lost at least one and didn't
help in the other. Clark's legs and arms seemed to turn to stone as the
postseason wore on, and his slowness showed badly on Tuesday night. Only
Chelios made notable contributions from his arrival, but even he showed his
age.
In short, the "miracle trades" did not yield four new, vital players. More
like one significant one, one declining one and two spot guys. A help, for
sure. But not a miracle cure. (To back this up statistically, Chelios had no
goals and was minus-8 for the Colorado series; Clark had one goal and was
minus-3; Ranford won two and lost two; and Samuelsson was in street clothes at
the end.)
"Do you know now why it's hard to win three cups in a row?" someone asked
Brendan Shanahan in the locker room after the game.
"Hey, it was hard to win two," he said. "It was hard to win one."
Summer, melted.
But what a two-year run
When the final horn sounded, one by one, the Wings shook hands with the
Avalanche, and curled into an exit, skating off the ice, stepping over the
threshold, disappearing down the tunnel. It seemed as if they should have come
back out, waving and smiling. But those moves are a memory now. The dynasty
closed the same way it began, with a standing ovation for the disappearing
red-and-white clad players.
And with that it ends, this wonderful stretch of Detroit hockey dominance that
made ice a symbol of summer, and missing teeth a symbol of a smile. It seems
like everyone around these parts became a skater since 1997, everyone knew
what a check was, how to find the five hole, knew the blue line from the red
line. Hockey became more than sport in Michigan; it was pride, clothing, car
flags, fantasy games, charity auction items. The Wings were never arrogant in
their kingdom. On the contrary, they spread it around. And in so doing, they
did their hometown proud.
Nothing that happened Tuesday night erases that, mind you.
Nothing that happened Tuesday erases the 42 years of frustration that
gloriously ended when Steve Yzerman hoisted the cup over his head in 1997.
Nothing that happened Tuesday night erases the snapshot of Vladimir
Konstantinov, smiling from his wheelchair, a cigar in his mouth, as the team
mugged for a photo at center ice last June.
Nothing that happened Tuesday erases the sun-soaked parades of the last two
summers, when we gathered to celebrate victory, but also a rebirth of pride in
a downtown happening.
Nothing that happened Tuesday brings down those banners that hang in the Joe
Louis rafters.
What's done is done and can't be undone; not the bad, but not the good either.
Real winners treat victory and defeat the same, with a wise humility. That's
the real mark of champions. We hope that's how the Wings define themselves
now.
There is, as the expression goes, always a next year, and as eyes turn toward
that, we turn away from the final snapshot of 1999, the Wings stepping into
the tunnel, the final cheers dying into quiet.
"It's going to be hard to see the cup go to another town," Shanahan said, his
playoff beard freshly shaved, the skin smooth but still sweating. "Before I
came here, I used to watch it every year, see the players take it home and
enjoy it. But I won't be able to watch that. It feels like it's ours."
Understandable, but not true; the cup belongs to hockey. And every year
someone else gets a chance.
So, see ya, Stanley. Enjoy that new town, the new champagne bath, the new team
kiss, the new parade. Make some other players feel like starry-eyed kids, and
make some other starry-eyed kids feel like players.
But remember this. The beauty of sports is that, no matter how lousy everyone
feels today, the whole thing starts over in a few months. The Wings will be
back.
Which means, one day, Stanley, so will you.
MITCH ALBOM can be reached at 1-313-223-4581 or albom@freepress.com. Listen
to "Albom in the Afternoon" 3-6 p.m. weekdays and the "Monday Sports Albom"
6:30-8 p.m. Mondays on WJR-AM (760).
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