Red Wings: Does President's Trophy Mean a Stanley Cup or an Early Exit?

The past 10-15 years, the Detroit Red Wings have had absolutely no problems in the regular season.  Time and time again, we've seen quite historic 82 game runs that have concluded with every honor a professional hockey team can get, everything but a Stanley Cup, that is.  Do not get me wrong, I'm undoubtedly one of the Wing's biggest fans, and I am more than satisfied with three, that's right, three Stanley Cups in the last decade.  It's just that as a fan of the Winged Wheel, it's just as easy to cringe this time of year as it is to get all fired up about some ridiculous sixteen game sweep of the NHL enroute to hockey's "Holy Grail."  It's time for me to start digging through my artifactual mind of useless hockey knowledge to perfectly align the stars above the Joe Louis Arena this spring.

Ok fellow Wing nuts, here's your golden opportunity to pick my mind:

Last year, the Wings were definitely going to win the Cup.  It didn't matter what Barry Melrose said about the Sharks and the Ducks.  All that mattered was that goaltender Dominik Hasek had yet to lose a best-of-seven playoff series with a red and white sweater on. 

The year before that I was really stretching!  I told myself time and time again, "We will definitely send the 'Captain' out on the right note."  That didn't seem to be enough, so I continually preached to my friends that it was a winter Olympic year, and the Red Wings had taken the prize in each of the last two seasons in which their was a winter olympiad.  Those of course being the 1998 season grouped with the Tokyo games, and the 2002 season grouped with the Salt Lake City games.  This still wasn't enough though.  As I watched number 19 exit the rink in Edmonton through the zamboni doorway, I small tear fell from my eye.  Okay it was a little worse than that.  I almost submitted myself to the local hospital to be treated for severe dehydration.  The bottom line was that it was the end of an era, the turning of a page.  A door was closing, and the man/legend who was responsible for ending Hockeytown's forty-two year drought was on the wrong side of it.  What was to come of the Detroit Red Wings?

I had utterly failed to notice that while one door was closing, multiple new ones would ajar.  The likes of Mike Babcock, Nicklas Lidstrom wearing the 'C', Datsyuk and Zetterberg maturing, and my favorite of them all, Steve Yzerman, filling a front office position.  So now, one year after a disappointing loss in the Western Conference Finals, in which I believe the Wings were 48 seconds from advancing, I look for the signals.  I find the lucky shirt and jersey, and break in a new spot on the couch.  So why will the Wings win it all this year?

You're currently logged into Facebook

Do you want to share your Bleacher Report activity on Facebook?