Red Wings/Avalanche: Rivalry Remembered
If you're from Pennsylvania, the Penguins and Flyers is THE rivalry. If you're New York, take your pick..........it is THE rivalry. If you're in Eastern Canada, Canadiens and Maple Leafs is the rivalry to end all rivalries. Western Canada? The Oilers and Flames? That's the one that can't be stopped. But for my money? The last GREAT rivalry was without question the Colorado Avalanche and the Detroit Red Wings.
Pending on who you talk to, a Wings fan, an Avs fan, the rivalry started at different points. For Colorado fans, almost 20 years ago this time, March 26, 1997. Fight Night at the Joe or the Brawl in Hockeytown or whatever you called it. To the Wings fans, it was Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals.
Admittedly, I am a Wings fan, but I actually think the rivalry started out in Game #1 of the 1995-1996 NHL Season.
The Avalanche, who moved out of Quebec in 1995, was now in the Western Conference and to celebrate Denver's first NHL team since 1982, faced off against the powerful Red Wings team, who had been the top seed in the playoffs in the West (or the Campbell Conference) in 3 of the previous 4 seasons including a Stanley Cup appearance in 1995. The Avs won. But what was significant about it? Nothing really, besides that the Avalanche would be a player in the West that really needed an opposite for the Wings, who went somewhat unchallenged (Chicago with Hockeytown Public Enemy #1 Chris Chelios and St. Louis with Wing killer Brett Hull were really the only teams to give Detroit a push) except for what happened after.
The Red Wings stormed to a 62-win season, an NHL record, including drubbing a Montreal Canadiens team 11-1 and putting 9 past Patrick Roy. Roy, already miffed at Montreal's management, said it would be his final game and was sent packing to Colorado. The Avalanche, holding firm in the Pacific Division with fairly weak teams across the board, held the 2nd spot behind the Wings, who beat them the next 3 regular season games.
When the playoffs arrived, many thought the Wings would continue their tear to the Cup, but had difficulties with Winnipeg in the first round and had to take a classic Game 7 Double Overtime thriller where Yzerman hit a classic goal for the ages to beat the Blues. Great, had Detroit could survive the next opponent, the Avalanche.
The series was chippy from the get-go, but steam picked up as the hits were becoming more and more vicious, cheap shots were taken, and it seemed like something big was about to happen. The games itself, the Wings were worn out from the St. Louis series and the fact Colorado played a far physical game that the finesse-skilled Red Wings were not accustomed with. But in Game 6, with Colorado leading 3-2 in the series, the Avs won with ease, but in the game, Claude Lemieux smashed Kris Draper's face into the boards in front of the Red Wings bench, crushing his jaw and cheek-bone. Red Wings cried foul while Colorado called Detroit's cries sour grapes. Even Draper had stated in a well-written article that Game 3 when Slava Kozlov rammed Adam Foote's head into the glass was when it really got intense. Lemieux got suspended for the Finals but the Avs won with ease.
When 1996-1997 arrived, Detroit, needing more physical help, traded for Brendan Shanahan, a player who could be physical but still score at will. However, they didn't come close at all to winning 62 and actually fell back a bit. The role was also reversed as the defending champion Avalanche had been rolling to the best record in the NHL and took the first 3 games against the Wings in the regular season.
Then March 26 happened.
The Avs went to the Joe, as it was first game that Claude Lemieux played in Detroit since smashing Draper's face into the boards. I was already in Atlanta at the time and the game was not on ESPN so I didn't see the game until the highlights came on. But anybody who watched it live and even after when I bought the Red Wings DVD where it had the top 5 games from 1997-2002 (it was ranked #1 by Red Wing fans by the way) knew something big would happen. It started rough as fights were happening all over. But it came to a head as it was Red Wings center Igor Larionov, not really known for his fighting, tangled with Avs all-world player Peter Forsberg. When the refs tried to break up those two who had been on the ice, it was Darren McCarty flying out of nowhere, knocking Lemieux to the ground. McCarty pummeled Lemieux and bloodied him pretty good. And then Patrick Roy came out of his net to try to stop it, but was intercepted by Shanahan. Foote tried to stop Shanahan, which led Mike Vernon to come out of his net and then it was Roy vs. Vernon, where Roy himself got bloodied (though he got more than a few shots in on Vernon). Detroit exacted revenge on Colorado, both physically and the score (a 6-5 overtime win, with McCarty scoring the game winner).
It was the turning point of the season for both teams as the Wings would use that to beat Colorado in the Western Conference Finals in 6 and then winning their first cup in 42 years, thus starting the first of their two runs. And the rivalry was in full swing.
So what made this rivalry so great?
1. FIGHTS! Come on, the NHL is nothing like it was even 20 years ago. A brawl like that would net numerous players suspended today. But you know every time both played, there would be a fight, or two, or five (though in the midst of the run, there was one game neither team took any penalty). But still, you knew you were going to be in for a game with fights. Who knows, you may have seen Patrick Roy go head to head with the Wings goalie. Too bad we never saw a Hasek and Roy fight (Hasek fell on his butt, thus tripping Roy before it happened). Heck, we nearly saw Colorado head coach Marc Crawford come to blows with Red Wings head coach Scotty Bowman a few times in 1997.
2. GREAT GAMES. Either side had some classic moments against each other, whether it was regular season games or post-season games.
3. THE AVS AND WINGS RULED THE WEST: Nothing against Dallas, who also held the top spot in 1999 and 2000 and had their moments against both teams themselves, but the Wings and Avs really ran the show out west. Plus, 5 Cups in 7 years says so. If you count 1995, 6 Stanley Cup appearances in 8 years. I kinda liken it to the 80's NBA when Bird's Celtics and Magic's Lakers ruled the league. Just a bit on a smaller scale given the Wings and Avs were in the same conference.
4. ONE UPMANSHIP: If one team was the kings of the mountain, the other would make moves. But then the other would respond. Colorado made a big trade in the 1998-1999 season, getting prolific scorer Theo Fleury from Calgary, and then Detroit responded by bringing in Hockeytown enemies Chris Chelios (who really was Detroit public enemy #1 pre-Lemieux) and Wendel Clark. Of course, despite the moves, the Wings were unable to three-peat, thanks in part to the Avalanche. Colorado would the next season trade for Ray Bourque and a year later would win the Cup, which prompted Detroit to re-tool and get Dominik Hasek, Luc Robitaille, and Brett Hull (another Red Wing killer). Colorado didn't really respond, but traded for Darius Kasparaitis, a guy who had actually ended Hasek's season the year before. But it always seemed both teams tried to make sure they would get the best player at the deadline or just re-vamp.
5. THE ALL-STARS AND HALL-OF-FAMERS WERE STACKED FOR BOTH: Yzerman, Fedorov, Shanahan, Lidstrom, Sakic, Forsberg, Roy, etc. Of course, Detroit pretty much had a Hall of Fame squad in 2002 with Hull, Larionov, Robitaille (and probably Datsyuk as well) added while Colorado had the likes of Milan Hejduk (loved watching this guy play) and Alex Tanguay. There seemed to be just a bevvy of all-stars all over on the ice when these two teams played.
6. THE ROLE GUYS WERE HEROES AND LEGENDS: Darren McCarty is pretty much a Hockeytown legend for the moments especially in 1997. But his fellow Grind Line mates Kris Draper and Kirk Maltby were just as integral to the Red Wings, doing the dirty work as well as Tomas Holmstrom. The same goes for Martin Lapointe and others. For the Avs, they had so many guys who could step up like Adam Deadmarsh, Aaron Miller, Adam Foote, Mike Ricci, and Rene Corbet. They could probably go to Denver or Detroit and get a free beer or lunch for their efforts of bringing Lord Stanley to their town.
7. "OLD VS. NEW." Detroit was the classic, Original Six squad. Colorado came over from the East and lost their "rivalries" with the Canadiens, Bruins, etc. So in essence they were a new team. A few years after, the Avs played in the state-of-the-art venue the Pepsi Center while the Wings played in cozy, homely, a bit out-of-date Joe Louis Arena. The uniforms were classic (the winged wheel) vs. modern (the A with a hockey puck sliding down it while having a secondary patch and a layout with a unique number font). Detroit had a storied past while Colorado was trying to build theirs. The cities, you can even say was opposite of each other as Denver was growing while Detroit had their share of issues in the city and around.
8. PLAYERS DIDN'T WANT TO JOIN "THE DARK SIDE." One thing I still love to this day was that none of the Avalanche players nor Red Wing players ever went to the other side besides Uwe Krupp. Krupp, who scored the Cup-winning goal in 1996 for the Avs, was vilified in Colorado for going to Detroit. The Wings fans just as soon had him stay in Colorado given the fact he got injured and while he was injured he chose to go dog-sledding. Outside of him, nobody else. And honestly, I am glad. It wouldn't have been the same. Heck, when the rivalry was not as intense, Peter Forsberg still wouldn't have accepted a trade to Detroit when the Flyers were trying to trade him away in his final years because of the rivalry. That didn't mean there weren't Wings and Avs players who didn't end up being teammates at one point though. McCarty and Tanguay were teammates in Calgary, Fedorov and Foote were teammates in Columbus, and de Vries and Kozlov were teammates in Atlanta.
The Colorado/Detroit rivalry to me was the last great rivalry in hockey. Fans WANTED to tune in to the games because you never knew what would happen. As a Wings fan, I personally wanted Colorado to win in the playoffs to face Detroit and see the Wings take them down. The games were always great games to watch and the players were just ones you will remember. Nothing against today's rivalries, but it is never going to be the same in hockey. And I think the players in that time realized that and realized how great and how special it was, 20 years after.
With the Avs in the cellar of the NHL and Detroit likely not making the playoffs for the first time in 27 years, the games this year obviously didn't have anywhere near the same meaning, but fans can look back and reminisce about how great those teams were in the late 90's and early 2000's and know that it was a special time where they bloodied each other up to be at the top of the NHL mountain.
There will never be another rivalry like it.
Fan in the Obstructed Seat
