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Random Red Wings Notes

https://www.detroitathletic.com/blog/2016/02/07/now-playing-defense-gordie-howe/
The controversial final year of Gordie Howe's career with the Red Wings.
Detroit Athletic

When you think of Gordie Howe you probably also think of him in a Red Wings? sweater. Most of the magic from his brilliant career was created in the red-and-white. But when his career as a Red Wing came to a close in 1971, when he retired from ice hockey for the first time, it came after a strange season that saw Howe switch positions, battle an injury, and take a mysterious ?vacation.? All of this played out against the backdrop of a soap opera feud in the front office.

Ned Harkness is not remembered fondly in Detroit. There?s a reason his tenure with the Red Wings was known as ?Darkness with Harkness.? During his reign as coach and then as general manager, the team floundered and failed to make the playoffs. Despite his ?brilliant? hockey mind, the former college coach with great success in the NCAA was overmatched at the NHL level and almost every decision he made was a disaster. Detroit general manager Sid Abel, who did not choose to hire Harkness in the first place, was not a fan.

?Harkness is not a coach. He doesn?t know how to change lines or do the other things necessary to survive in this league,? Abel said about Harkness later. The decision to bring Harkness to Detroit was made by team owner Bruce Norris, a stubborn, impulsive millionaire from the Windy City who liked to think he had the brain to tinker with his hockey team.

One of the strangest ideas to spring from the mind of Harkness proved to be the catalyst to a controversial season for the Detroit hockey club. It was his idea to take Gordie Howe, the greatest scorer in NHL history, and make a defenseman out of him. Like most of Ned?s numbskull ideas in the pros, it was not well executed.

The 1970-71 season was the 25th of Gordie Howe?s career, a record. He had already scored more goals, recorded more assists and points, and delivered more elbows than any player in league history. With six league Most Valuable Player Awards, four Stanley Cup titles and eleven trips to the Finals, Howe had seemingly done everything there was to be done in the league. In his prime he was the best skater, best puck handler, most fit, strongest-legged, and best thinker on the ice. While he seemed to be getting a little long in the tooth and thinner on top, he was still a top player in the league. In 1968-69 he was ninth in the league in points.

But in the summer of 1970, as Harkness prepared for his first full season behind the bench for the Wings, he had the idea to use Howe?s superior skills on the blue line. He envisioned Gordie as a ?rover? who could propel himself all over the ice and impact the game.

?Who is better with a puck than Gordie?? Harkness asked. ?Who can move it up the ice better? Who can pass it better??

Abel reluctantly approved the idea, but Howe had to be on board as well, of course. At first, Gordie wasn?t too keen on it, but Harkness explained that he wanted Howe to be aggressive and not ignore his natural scoring tendencies just because he was playing defense.

?When he explains what you can do, I get excited,? Howe told The Sporting News. ?As for it hurting my scoring, [Ned] tells everyone who asks about it ?Who won the scoring championship last year?? ? The answer was Bobby Orr, a defenseman with the Boston Bruins.

Still, it seemed a curious experiment for a man making his debut as an NHL coach. But Harkness fancied himseld a genius and he loved to devise new strategies. But why mess with Gordie? Only two years earlier the line of Howe, Alex Delvecchio, and Frank Mahovlich had set an NHL record with 114 goals. So, even though Gordie was 42 years old entering the ?70-71 season, it seemed a bit risky to break up a talented trio who played with a coordinated intuition.

?I wouldn?t embarrass Gordie for all the world. If he feels it isn?t working out, we?ll drop it,? Harkness said on the eve of the season.

In the first three games of the year Howe looked like a veteran defender, scoring five points on two goals and three assists. He was also in action as Detroit?s man on the point in the power play. Harkness also used him on the penalty-killing team. The new coach admitted the usage was worrying him a little. When a few Wings on the offensive side were injured, Ned was forced to put Gordie back on a line as a right wing. Ironically, Gordie said he felt a little ?out of it? in his first shifts back on offense. The season would only get more challenging for the Detroit veteran.

On November 22, 1970, in Philadelphia Howe fell on the point of Flyers? defenseman Joe Watson?s skate and suffered a torn rib. Doctors said Gordie would probably miss 6-8 weeks, but remarkably, the 42-year old returned less than four weeks later on December 19 after missing just ten games. In his previous 24 seasons with Detroit, ?Iron Man? Howe had missed only 42 games to injury. His ten games missed snapped a string of 252 games played without injury.

In January all hell broke loose. With Gordie still mending from the injury (he was wearing a corset under his uniform to ease the pain in his ribs), and the team record at 12-22-4, the players decided they?d had enough. Harkness was like a noose around their neck with his college antics, ridiculous rules, and shoddy game management. Every man on the roster signed a petition for the firing of Harkness and presented it to Howe, the unquestioned leader of the team. They wanted the message sent to Norris that they would not play for Harkness any longer. They asked Gordie to call the team owner at his home.

?We asked Gordie to make the call because he has had so many years with the team and he has always been very loyal,? one player revealed later when the story broke.

Norris was reportedly ?shaken? by the phone call. He conferred with Abel, who advised him to fire Harkness. When Norris refused, Abel later admitted that he checked with the team lawyer to see if he could fire Abel. He could not, and that led Abel to step down. ?I cannot agree with team policy nor work with this guy,? Abel said.

The next day Norris named Harkness the new GM and hired minor league coach Doug Barkley to be his new head man behind the bench. Reportedly, Harkness had initially been offered both jobs, but Norris changed his mind, feeling the responsibility would be too much for him.

A new uncertain era was beginning in Detroit. After three decades with the Wings as a player, coach, and executive, Abel was gone, replaced by a college hockey coach who had only 38 games under his belt in the NHL. The players had gotten Harkness out from behind the bench, but he?d still be hovering over them.

Harkness was never shy at sharing his opinion or doing whatever he thought was right. He quickly started to reshape the Detroit roster, eliminating players he saw as troublemakers and malcontents. A week after being named GM he traded Frank Mahovlich, a future Hockey Hall of Famer, to Montreal. With Mahovlich, the Canadiens would win the Stanley Cup that spring. Harkness shipped defenseman Larry Brown and center Bruce MacGregor to the Rangers on February 2. Four days later he dealt Garry Unger, the best young player on the team, to the St. Louis Blues for a few spare parts. The reason? Unger refused to cut his long hair. Harkness was sending a message: he was big man on campus, and any discontent among his roster would be met swiftly. The Detroit team was in disarray.

In late February the sad turned into the bizarre when Howe got into the mix. After a solid performance in a Detroit victory in Buffalo, Gordie emerged with a wrist injury. He was also apparently suffering from the flu. As a result, Barkley allowed his veteran to return to Detroit for a few days off, skipping the next road game. But when Gordie did not appear for the next home game, Detroit?s media pounced. They wrote that Howe was ?mulling retirement? and one headline read ?Howe?s Playing Days May Be Over.? When a reporter learned that Howe might be in Florida with his wife, they reported that Gordie was on ?vacation.? Barkley, Harkness, and Norris were all questioned, but none of them were willing to speculate as to where or what Howe was doing. Even Lincoln Cavalieri, general manager of the Olympia, was cornered about it, saying ?I know where [Gordie] is, but I won?t tell.? Cavalieri added to the confusion when he said, ?Gordie has some thinking to do.? It was a hockey mystery.

While all this was going on, the player revolt was finally being revealed in full detail in the newspapers. Dramatically, Norris fought back, appearing on television to respond to criticism of his front office. He defended Harkness and his players, saying ?morale was high.? He largely ignored Howe?s absence, spending much of his time blaming the media for the poor season. It was an embarrassing performance.

Gordie returned from Florida in early March and was back on the ice with his teammates, many of them unfamiliar faces since the Harkness roster purge. Number nine ended his 25th campaign with 52 points (23 goals and 29 assists) in 63 games. The Red Wings limped to a seventh place finish, missing the playoffs. Even though Howe?s contract ran through the next season, given his mid-season Florida ?vacation:,? many speculated he would not come back for a 26th year. But in May and again in June, stories ran in The Sporting News claiming that Gordie had announced he?d be back for a 26th season. In June he said it before a crowd in Oshawa, Ontario, at an event attended by his wife Colleen, as well as all four of his children, including young Marty and Mark, both already pro players in their teens. Howe?s parents were also there to here the proclamation.

Then in late August when he normally would be gearing himself back up for another season, Howe had a change of heart, helped by the prospect of a new challenge. Norris offered him a job in the Red Wings? front office once his career ended, a position as vice president of hockey operations, as well as VP of Olympia Stadium Co. and several other titles. ?No hockey decision will be made without you,? Norris promised him. The lure of being a hockey executive appealed to Howe, and he also didn?t relish the idea of one more season playing with a sagging team.

On September 15, 1971, Gordie Howe appeared in front of more than 200 media members and hockey officials at Olympia Stadium and announced his retirement from professional hockey as a player. It seemed unreal. He?d played for so long in Detroit that it seemed like Howe was ice hockey. He?d helped take a Canadian game and make it appealing to Americans.

?This is obviously the single most dramatic loss sustained by a sport,? NHL president Clarence Campbell said.

Detroit News reporter Joe Falls, who had seen the man he called ?The Babe Ruth of Hockey? skate his entire career as first a fan and then a newsman, wrote ?I?ve always feared this moment when Howe would be through with hockey. The entire sport is weaker for it.?
 
https://www.detroitathletic.com/blog/2016/02/12/20-best-nicknames-in-red-wings-history/
20 Best Nicknames in Detroit Red Wings History.
Detroit Athletic

Dylan Larkin is already making ?D-Boss? the most popular nickname in Detroit, but the kid will need to put in a few more shifts before that label makes our list of the 20 best in Detroit hockey history.

20. The Big M

By the time he got to the Wings, Frank Mahovlich had won four Stanley Cups and was already known as ?The Big M,? a nickname given to distinguish him from little brother Peter, who also skated in the NHL. Mahovlich won two more Cups with Montreal after leaving Motown. He?s a member of the Hall of Fame and was ranked #27 on The Hockey News? list of the 100 Greatest Hockey Players.

19. Iron Man

I?ve written about Garry Unger on this website before, about how he was one of the best Detroit players of the 1970s but was traded away because he wouldn?t trim his hair. Yes, really. Later, with other teams he played so many consecutive games that he earned this nickname.

18. Magic Man

Russian-born Pavel Datsyuk is also known as ?Pasha? (a shortened version of his given name and what his family has called him since he was a child) and ?Houdini? for his magical movement on the ice.

17. Fats

Alex Delvecchio was called ?Fats? by teammates because of the baby-fat face he had when he first came into the league. Fact is, Delvecchio looked about 18 years old for the first 15 years or so of his career. But he played like a man, forming the famed Production Line II with Gordie Howe and Ted Lindsay. All three are Hall of Famers, of course.

16. Little Beaver

I wasn?t able to find out why Marcel Dionne was called ?Little Beaver,? but it?s an odd nickname for an athlete. Dionne is one of the players who got away from the Wings in the 1970s. He went on to star for the Kings and when the Hall of Famer retired in 1989, he was second in assists, goals, and points.

15. Lucky

Luc Robitaille got this nickname well before he came to the Red Wings in 2001. Good thing he came to the Wings, because he later got to hoist the Stanley Cup for the first time in his fine career.

14. Tatar Sauce

A nickname that has proved profitable for Tom? Tatar, who is also known as just simply ?Sauce,? ?Hot Sauce,? and ?Souse.?

13. Mule

Maybe no other nickname here matches the player any better than Mule does for Johan Franz?n, a tough winger who did anything he could for his team. Captain Steve Yzerman gave the moniker to his teammate because Franz?n ?carries the load.?

12. Dominator

Dominik Ha?ek played goalie for the Red Wings for four season in two stints, toward the end of his Hall of Fame career. He became the first European-trained starting goaltender to win the Stanley Cup, and was also known as Ha?an, which

11. Demolition Man

Tomas Holmstr?m was known to many fans in Detroit by the nickname of ?Homer.? He acquired the nickname ?Demolition Man? while playing in Sweden for his aggressive style of play, where he was also called ?Holma.?

10. Goose

Who wouldn?t love to have ?Goose? as a nickname? It just sounds cool. Gustav Nyquist is also known as ?Gus? to his teammates and fans.

9. The Professor

As the senior member of Detroit?s famed ?Russian Five? in the 1990s, Igor Larionov was the mentor and the master.

8. Z?ta

Current star Henrik Zetterberg is also known as ?Ice Berg,? ?Hank,? and simply ?Z? (which is what Z?ta means in Swedish).

7. Terrible Ted

With a name like ?Terrible Ted? you?d think you might intimidate people, and that?s what Ted Lindsay did in his Hall of Fame career spent mostly in Detroit, where he won four Stanley Cup titles.

6. The Vladiator

Vladimir Konstantinov came to the United States with this nickname, but Detroit fans were happy to accept him as one of their own as part of the famed ?Russian Five.?

5. Little Ball of Hate

Pat Verbeek?s nickname was given to him in 1995 by Glenn Healy after fellow New York Rangers teammate Ray Ferraro was tagged as the ?Big Ball of Hate.?

4. Wizard of Oz

Chris Osgood, also known affectionately as ?Ozzie,? is the most popular and successful goalie to mind the net for the Wings since Hall of Famer Terry Sawchuk.

3. The Captain

For fans of the Red Wings who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, Steve Yzerman was the man. #19 scored so many crucial goals and made so many great plays to set up his teammates that he also earned the nickname ?Stevie Wonder,? setting many Detroit scoring records. But his leadership was best personified in the name ?The Captain,? which he was longer than any other player in NHL history.

2. The Perfect Human

Nicklas Lidstr?m was the greatest defenceman of all-time, a fantastic teammate, a great leader, a clutch player, tough as nails, remarkably gifted, handsome, and durable. He was also a gentleman on and off the ice. When you?re all those things, you deserve to be nicknamed ?The Perfect Human.?

Take it from one if his teammates, Chris Chelios, who said: ?There?s been guys who are great players, but no one?s better than Nick. As good? Yes. But this is as big as it gets. He?s one of the best athletes ever and?if you?re going to talk about someone who?s perfect, Nick?s pretty darn close to being perfect.?

1. Mr. Hockey

Maybe not the snazziest of the nicknames listed here, but it?s the most regal and it belongs to the unquestioned dean of hockey. Gordie Howe was not only the greatest Red Wing, he was the greatest hockey player in the history of the National Hockey League. Without him the NHL wouldn?t be as popular as it is in the United States, and cities like Los Angeles and Edmonton wouldn?t have teams (thanks to Gordie?s excellent second career in the World Hockey Association). Howe has even trademarked the term ?Mr. Hockey.?
 
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https://www.detroitathletic.com/blo...ead-coach-for-the-red-wings-on-christmas-eve/
When Mike Ilitch found a new head coach for the Red Wings on Christmas Eve 1985.
Detroit Athletic

Has there ever been a better business deal than when Mike Ilitch snagged the Detroit Red Wings for a paltry $8 million in 1982? Last year the money gurus at Forbes magazine estimated the worth of the franchise at more than half a billion dollars. That billion with a ?B.? Not a bad investment by Mr. I.

When Ilitch purchased the hockey team from the unpopular Bruce Norris, the pizza magnate recognized that he had a lot of work to do to restore the once-proud franchise to a level of success. After all, fans referred to the team as the ?Dead Wings? after they managed just one playoff appearance in eleven seasons. The first step was to assess the situation on the ice and in the front office.

Success was not a given by any means. Up to the point that he purchased the Red Wings, Ilitch?s only previous business experience in sports was as owner of the Detroit Caesars, a professional softball team, for three seasons in the late 1970s. While the team was very competitive (winning two titles) and they fielded popular former Tigers Norm Cash and Jim Northrup, it was still softball. They were lobbing the ball underhand, for gosh sakes!

But Ilitch played hardball with his hockey team practically from day one. After watching and suffering through his first season as owner of the Wings (they managed just 21 wins and a last place finish), when the team got off to a slow start to the 1983-84 season he gave strict orders. His team would not be a laughingstock. Coach Nick Polano, helped by the addition of some veteran players, righted the ship and gave Ilitch a playoff team the next two seasons despite a losing record. Still, playoff success and respect still seemed far away.

In 1985 the team had third-year player Steve Yzerman in tow (the future legend was still only 20 years old), but they still got off to a terrible start. With their record at 8-23-4, Ilitch had seen enough. He determined that he needed a new leader on the ice. On Christmas Eve 1985, while most people were getting ready to tear open presents and eat a lot of ham and pie with family, Mr. Ilitch started a search. Rather quickly he fixed on one person ? Brad Park.

Park was one of the first players Ilitch had acquired after purchasing the Red Wings. The veteran defenceman had helped the team make those two playoff appearances under Polano. As a player, Park was generally considered the second-best defenceman of his generation, rating behind Bobby Orr, his rival. Now, Park was retired, having finally hung up his skates as a player after 17 seasons and nine All-Star selections. Park was well-respected in the NHL and he commanded attention from young players in the latter stages of his career.

On December 24th, Ilitch called Park and offered him the job. Park didn?t need to think about it, he accepted immediately, in spite of the fact that Detroit had the worst record in the National Hockey League as Christmas approached.

?Some people will think I?m nuts, but I couldn?t turn down the chance to be here,? Park revealed. ?There are only two places I will consider coaching: one is Boston and the other is here.?

Park had spent eight years playing for the Bruins and his team made the playoffs each season. In fact, Park never missed the playoffs at any point in his 17-year career as a player. And it wasn?t because he was some sort of lucky charm ? Park received MVP votes in eleven of his seasons and in 1988 he would be elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

?The only thing I lack right now is coaching experience,? Park said. ?The one thing I do know is how to win. I?m going to make some mistakes, but I?m going to learn from my mistakes.?

Unfortunately for Park there were apparently too many mistakes. In his first game behind the bench, the Wings squandered a two goal lead in the third period and lost to the Islanders, 5-4. Then they lost ten of their next eleven games, surrendering more than six goals per game over that stretch. The terrible defensive play must have agonized Park, who was known for his stellar play on that side of the puck. When the team lost Yzerman to injury and managed to win only one game in February, Park?s fate was sealed. Ilitch didn?t even bother to give his new coach a vote of confidence.

?We?ll have to look at our situation at the end of the season and decide where to go from there,? Ilitch told the Detroit Free Press in March.

On the final night of the regular season the team beat the Maple Leafs, but it was merely a hallow sendoff for their short-lived coach. The Wings managed only 17 wins on the season, going 9-34-2 under Park. The ax fell a week later when Ilitch announced that Park would not come back. A few weeks later the jolly Frenchman Jacques Demers was hired. In one of the most amazing turnarounds in NHL history, Demers spurred the Wings all the way to the Conference Finals, before Yzerman and gang were dismissed by Wayne Gretzky?s great Edmonton team.

Brad Park was only 37 years old when he was hired and fired by the Red Wings, but he never got another chance to coach an NHL team. Maybe he wished he had never answered his phone on Christmas Eve, but he was honest about the task he faced when he took over the team in 1985-86.

?They could [have brought] in God and [the team] would still have made mistakes,? Park said.
 
https://www.detroitathletic.com/blog/2016/03/26/looking-back-at-fight-night-at-the-joe/
Looking back at Fight Night at the Joe.
Detroit Athletic

Championship seasons often turn on one key game, and so it was when the Detroit Red Wings finally snapped their 42-year Stanley Cup drought in the spring of 1997. ?It becomes clearer with each passing night,? a Denver sportswriter observed during that year?s conference finals between Detroit and Colorado, ?that the evening of March 26, 1997 changed the psychological dynamics of hockey?s most heated rivalry.?

The reporter was referring to ?Fight Night at The Joe,? an awesome display of primal rage that unified a team in transition and served notice that this particular edition of Scotty Bowman?s team was not going to be shoved around, least of all by the Avalanche. (See video of the game at the bottom of this article)

Over the years, play had been occasionally chippy between the Wings and the Avs, but the rivalry intensified ten-fold during the 1996 Western Conference Finals. The Wings had won a record 62 games during the regular season, making them the favorites to capture the Cup that had long been eluding them. Colorado knocked off Detroit in six games, then went on to sweep the Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup Finals. But all Detroit could talk about was the play of Avs forward Claude Lemieux, who emerged from the playoffs with an embellished reputation as the dirtiest player in the National Hockey League.

His cheap shots put the entire Wings organization and the whole city of Detroit in the mood for revenge. In Game 3, Lemieux had sucker-punched Slava Kozlov. ?You fucking asshole!? Bowman screamed at Lemieux when the teams boarded busses after the game. ?I hope the league suspends you!?

After reviewing a tape of the incident, the league did suspend Lemieux for Game 4. The Avs won, anyway, giving them a commanding 3-1 series edge. The Wings bounced back to win Game 5, meaning a victory in Game 6 could knot the series and set up a winner-take-all showdown to see who would get into the Cup Finals.

Instead, Colorado rolled to a decisive 4-1 victory. But the big news was not yet another disappointing end to Detroit?s season. It was Lemieux hitting Kris Draper with a cheap shot that had the jaw of the smiling center sewn up for weeks.

Lemieux?s hit came 14 minutes into the game, after he had already blindsided Steve Yzerman and Igot Larionov as they approached the bench on line changes. This time Draper had just chipped the puck past Joe Sakic, when Lemieux barreled into him from behind. Draper, absolutely defenseless, was driven like a tent peg into the boards and had to be helped, dazed and bleeding, off the ice. Lemieux got a match penalty and ultimately received a suspension, but he protested that it was a clean hit.

Draper underwent three hours of surgery and had his jaw wired shut for 16 days.

?I think anyone who knows anything about hockey realizes that it wasn?t a clean hit,? Draper said when he was finally able to speak. ?I had a fractured eye socket. I broke my nose, fractured a cheekbone, and broke my jaw. My teeth also needed to be worked on. All together I had more than 50 stitches.?

After the shock of that brutal hit and their elimination, Detroit?s Dino Ciccarelli said after the series ?I can?t believe I shook this guy?s friggin? hand after the game. That pisses me right off.?

As Draper spent the offseason healing, Bowman went to work overhauling his team. For two consecutive seasons, they had been the winningest team in the NHL, only to fall short in the playoffs. In 1995, they had been swept by New Jersey in the Cup Finals. Then they had lost to Colorado in ?96. It was time to stir the pot, to put more beef in the stew. It was goodbye to Ciccarelli, Keith Primeau, Greg Johnson, and Paul Coffey and hello to veterans Brendan Shanahan, Larry Murphy, and Tomas Sandstr?m and rookies Aaron Ward, Jamie Pushor, and Anders Eriksson.

It took a while for the revamped squad to find itself. By March the Wings were winning, but not nearly as much as before. They were third in the conference standings behind Dallas and Colorado.

Bubbling beneath the surface all season long was the subplot involving Draper and his antagonist, Lemieux. Neither the press nor the fans wanted to let go of the controversy. Players and coaches on both teams admitted they just didn?t like each other. It was bad enough that Lemieux never apologized or personally inquired about his victim?s health. Exacerbating the bad feelings between the teams was his comment that his hit had actually made Draper ?famous.?

The schedule maker had Detroit and Colorado butting heads four times during the 1996-97 regular season. Injury kept Lemieux out of the first two tilts, both won by the Avs. Lemieux was healthy for the third game, played in Denver and again won by Colorado.

Ten days later, Colorado?on its way to supplanting Detroit as the President?s Trophy winner?arrived at Joe Louis Arena for the rivals? last go-around before the playoffs began. This was Lemieux?s first appearance in Detroit since ?The Hit? 10 months earlier, and the Motor City was on edge. ?The emotions are still there,? Draper admitted. ?The juices are going to be flowing.?

Lemieux tried to downplay the significance. ?I?m not going to comment about Detroit,? he told reporters. ?Show?s over.?

How wrong he was. The show was just starting. In what was instantly branded as one of the classic games in franchise history?and what would emerge in retrospect as the defining moment of the Red Wings? season?the reigning Stanley Cup champion Avs skated onto The Joe?s ice on the evening of March 26, 1997, smug and remorseless. They left it bloodied and dazed and with a seed of doubt driven into their psyche.

That Wednesday evening contest stands out in local hockey lore as ?Fight Night at The Joe.? By game?s end there were 39 penalties called and at least nine bouts, with Detroit combatants?including lightweights Igor Larionov and Mike Vernon?winning nearly every match on the card. The main event was the one-sided thrashing Darren McCarty gave Lemieux, a cathartic beat-down that brought out the blood lust in fans, players, coaches, and more than a few observers in the press box.

The 10-minute battle royal started late in the opening period when the professorial looking Larionov grabbed Peter Forsberg around the neck in a scrum along the boards. Players began to pair off. McCarty?Draper?s good friend and roommate?whirled away from a linesman and, seeing Lemieux standing there unattended, walloped him with a punch to the face.

Lemieux dropped to his knees and tried to cover up. McCarty threw several more punches at the turtling Lemieux before grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and dragging him like a sack of potatoes towards the Detroit bench, where he kneed him and continued to fire punches at the back of his head.

Meanwhile, Patrick Roy moved out of the Colorado net to help Lemieux. Brendan Shanahan, looking to intercept Roy, knocked his man down with a flying leap that resembled something out of the World Wrestling Federation. After Shanahan got in a few swings, he was jumped by the Avs? Adam Foote, which allowed Roy to take on Wings goalie Mike Vernon, who had waddled at full speed from his crease to join the melee.

Vernon and Roy met at center ice, where the two overstuffed goaltenders flailed away at each other until their arms felt like cement. The much smaller Vernon got the decision, as the Detroit bench and a full house stood on their feet and roared.

Joe Louis Arena was pure bedlam. Larionov had pummeled Forsberg and Vernon had opened a cut over Roy?s right eye. Blood streamed all over Roy?s face. Meanwhile, Lemieux needed 15 stitches to sew up the cut in the back of his head.
Emotions remained high the rest of the night, with Aaron Ward at one point duking it out with a bare-chested Brent Severyn. The pumped-up Wings continued to take the play to the Avs. With Colorado ahead, 5-3, midway through the third period, Martin Lapointe and Shanahan scored a half-minute apart to knot the score. Then in the first few seconds of overtime, Shanahan shoveled the puck to McCarty, who smacked it past Roy for the 6-5 victory. The Joe shook to its foundation.

?What I did wasn?t just for me,? McCarty said afterwards. ?It came from everyone on the team.? The jubilant Wings stayed up into the wee hours, drinking beer and replaying a tape of the telecast over and over. A few weeks later, they beat Colorado in a bitterly fought six-game series to move into the Cup Finals against Philadelphia. Draper refused the traditional post-series handshake with Lemieux, who in turn ignored McCarty?s outstretched hand.

Vernon would go on to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as he backstopped the Wings to a sweep over the Flyers. Looking back on the March 26 bloodletting at The Joe, he said: ?This was a game that brought the Red Wings together.?
 
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