There's the link above and the one on Puck Daddy: http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/Eulogy-Remembering-the-2010-11-Detroit-Red-Wing?urn=nhl-wp4864#remaining-content or recopied for the lazy among us: http://thetwolinepass.com/2010/05/a-lament-for-henrik-zetterberg-an-unofficial-eulogy-for-the-2009-10-detroit-red-wings/#more-1701
You gotta love a guy that can write two different eulgogies for the Red Wings. Wait? What? The first one I linked was from last year? But it sounded so current, so fresh? Or is it that nothing about Detroit has changed since last year?
Look at those comments. You know what I see? One of those freaky star treks where all of a sudden the federation was the bad guys and Kirk had a goatee. One of the good things about the lockout was that we, as the Avalanche's fan base, didn't have to go through the eventual decline of the team we love. Detroit's top 6 are all on the bad side of 30, as are 5 of their top 6 defensemen and one of their hall of fame (really? seriously guys?) goalies. Now as far as I'm concerned, and some of you may disagree, Datsuyk, Zetterberg and Lidstrom are some of the wings that I don't exactly lothe, they're no Yzerman, who I respect, but they aren't those other sack of craps on skates who play on the wings out there, maybe I don't hate franzen, but let's just stick with the the term, 'not-lothe' for him too. But I didn't come here to tell you that Holmstom and Bertuzzi are completely dog shit human beings, or did I? I got off topic.
What I did come here to say, other than I'm really digging the JW Black I'm sipping right now, was that I really hate the Red Wings.....wait, was that the topic? Well it always is a good start. The topic is that we the fans of the Avalanche didn't have to go through the eventual decline of our franchise, it was castrated right before our eyes (did anyone think of what that would do to the children?) And had a pretty quick, meaningless death, like Ensign Ricky. Aside from the one last hurrah of 2007-08 where the gang was brought back together. But even we knew (note: I didn't really want to realize it at the time) that this was the encore, the main act was over.
The Red Wings got lucky that Datsuyk and Zetterberg were on their entry level salaries when the lockout happened, I won't go anymore into this because it's been beaten to death elsewhere. So the wings managed to hold onto their 'elite' status into this new age. But time catches up to everyone but lidstrom, and this is a team that's window will crash shut soon. I won't say it's over but the fat lady is warming up, I will say it's over if Lidstrom retires, because who are they going to get to replace him? Jovanovski? Markov?
Hannan? (I might die laughing if they did sign him).
Asuming they sign one of the above or Lidstrom comes back, the team it self is living on borrowed time, they could win the cup next year (Note: not bloody likely with Howard in goal) and it wouldn't surprise me. But the long term prognosis or is it diagnosis? I forget. Is that this team is on the decline, not a sharp decline, but a steady one. They finished 3rd overall in the regular season, it's the same team from the year before, so maybe they finish around the same next year, maybe 4th, but the grim reaper is after those guys, the end is near.
So, when the conspiracy theories keep coming, you never hear, "maybe their just older." from the fan base, it's always something from the outside keeping them down. Luckily when Peter Forsberg went, he did his aging somewhere else, Sakic was chewed up by a snow blower, Blake was very gentleman like decapating guys elsewhere. We never had to see father time take them all at once and, maybe we dodged a collective bullet. I would say it's made us, as a whole, better people for it.
Author's note: I've switched from Walker to a delicious beer.
as an added bonus for sticking this far, enjoy this on a quiet friday night:
http://www.milehighhockey.com/2010/1/21/1264431/so-hello-nhl-we-are-the-colorado
