by Mitch Albom | Jun 7, 2009 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
After every Red Wings’ score, Pittsburgh goalie Marc-Andre Fleury has a habit of skating to the corner to try to get his anger out. Saturday night, there were a lot of quick trips. The Wings would score, Fleury would skate to the corner – and into a sea of Wings fans cheering and banging the glass. Finding no relief, he’d curl back to his net.
He did this after the first, the second, the third and the fourth Detroit goals. Finally, after the fifth, he took a longer skate – all the way to his bench, clomping through the door, and headed down the tunnel, done for the night.
by Mitch Albom | Jun 5, 2009 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
PITTSBURGH – Uh-oh.
This is not good. I don’t want to say signs are ominous, but if the Red Wings passed a fortune teller right now, they would hide their palms in their pockets. The stars came out for the Penguins on Thursday night, and it is officially no longer last year anymore.
Last year, the Stanley Cup finals were never tied. Last year, the only team with a chance to win in six was the Wings. Last year, Sidney Crosby seemed a lot younger, and Evgeni Malkin seemed like just one man, instead of the five he looked like in Game 4 – here, there, everywhere.
by Mitch Albom | Jun 4, 2009 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
There’s a buzz that Pavel Datsyuk might return to the ice tonight. Good. He can bring an oxygen tank for Henrik Zetterberg.
No one has felt Datsyuk’s absence more than Zetterberg, who is left to be 1) the blanket over Sidney Crosby, 2) the magic man of playmaking, 3) an integral part of the power play and penalty kill and 4) the inspirational youthful leader in the locker room.
After that, he cures world hunger.
I’m surprised he hasn’t changed it to Zzzzzzzzetterberg.
“Hey,” he said, laughing Wednesday, “I’m just happy to get the ice time.”
by Mitch Albom | Jun 1, 2009 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
The two flashiest players in these Stanley Cup finals are conspicuous by their absence. But only one of them, Pavel Datsyuk, is in street clothes. The other one is actually wearing skates, although compared to the way he usually plays, you’d never know it.
by Mitch Albom | May 31, 2009 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
That’s the way the puckie bounces Â
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around here.
What? You never heard of the famous shoot-it-off-the-boards-and-let-it-trickle-off-the back-of-the-goaltender shot? We use it all the time in Detroit. None of us was surprised when Brad Stuart scored the first goal of the Stanley Cup finals with that old chestnut.
What? You never heard of the shoot-it-off-the-boards-and-backhand-it-lightly-so-it-scrapes-off-the-goalie’s-leg maneuver? Of course Johan Franzen scored the second goal that way. We have fifth-graders who know that move.
by Mitch Albom | May 29, 2009 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
Dear NBC and NHL:
I’ll begin with a simple question. Do either of you actually like hockey?
I think I can answer for NBC (a.k.a. “Nothing But Conan”), because it is clear the network would rather break out in a deadly skin rash than show the Stanley Cup finals on a weeknight.
by Mitch Albom | May 22, 2009 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
There is only one hockey player when you want to compare Detroit and Chicago – as sports towns, as food towns, as bar towns, and as hockey towns – and you know who he is.
Chris Chelios, 47, was born in Chicago and played nine years as a Blackhawk. He now lives in Detroit, where he has played 10 years as a Red Wing. He is the son of a Chicago restaurant owner; and Chelios now owns two restaurants of his own – in Detroit and Dearborn.
He has eaten pizza in both towns, drank beer in both towns, done the late-night thing in both towns, and been cheered and booed in both towns.
by Mitch Albom | May 18, 2009 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
You can’t blame the Red Wings for falling behind in the opening minutes Sunday afternoon. It takes awhile to put your teeth in, slide the orthopedic shoes on and get the walker out of the closet.
"With our legs, because we’re so old, like everybody says, you gotta loosen up in the morning," deadpanned Chris Osgood. "And we didn’t get a chance to do that."
He chuckled.
Then he put in his hearing aid.
by Mitch Albom | May 17, 2009 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
It’s a good thing the Red Wings have a game today. Otherwise, Dan Cleary’s skates might never touch the ground.
Several days after the toughest series many of the Wings can remember, Cleary still is flying from being the man who scored the final goal. Actually, he shoved, poked and jammed that puck under Anaheim goalie Jonas Hiller with 3 minutes left in Game 7. He didn’t even see it cross the line.
“I got pushed back and was falling,” he said. “But I knew it went in from the noise.”
by Mitch Albom | May 14, 2009 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
When it comes to one funny bounce – and it has.
When it comes to one weird deflection – and it has.
When it comes to one ricochet, one shove, one screen, one stray skate blade, one well-positioned stick, one churning body, one annoying pest in front of the net – and it has.
When it comes to all of this – and with Game 7, it surely has – I’d look to Tomas Holmstrom.
If I could find him.
