A rivalry renewed…sort of
-By Mike Moore-
It finally became official at about 12:40 a.m., Wednesday morning.
As fans in San Jose went ballistic and fans in Calgary looked at another first round exit by their hockey team, fans in Detroit and Colorado had their collective mouths watering.The second round match ups in the 2008 NHL playoffs are now set, and as you may or may not have heard, old rivals will meet in the postseason for the first time since 2002 when the Avalanche and Wings get things going at Joe Louis Thursday night.
While there won’t be any octopus swinging (the NHL continues to outdo itself with stupidity) there will be some familiar faces on the ice that made the rivalry what it was from 1996-2002.
Patrick Roy is off encouraging fights in the minor leagues, but the Avs still have Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg and Adam Foote. The Wings key contributors to the rivalry remain as well, especially the reenergized and surprisingly impressive Darren McCarty.
Still, any hopes that this series, however long or short it may be, will resemble those of the 90’s and the seven-game affair that played out in 2002, should be tempered. The jerseys remain the same, the emotions from those past meetings have faded.
As previously mentioned, the teams haven’t met in the playoffs since Detroit’s last Cup win in ’02 when the Wings rallied from a 3-2 series deficit before winning a 7-0 game seven. Regular season meetings since that point have been “attractive,” but nothing spectacular has played itself out.
The team’s met four times this regular season and four times the Wings seemingly cruised to victory. Those were, of course, games played before Foote (in a trade) and Forsberg (from free agency) returned to the team.
But, in the final meeting, a 4-0 Detroit win Feb. 18, hints of past emotions crept into the game. Mike Babcock and Tony Granato went Scotty Bowman and Marc Crawford on one another, leaning around the glass from each coach’s respective bench to essentially bump heads in a shouting match. Still, that was the only occurrence in a rather tame four meetings.
But as we’ve seen in playoff pasts, regular season occurrences can easily be escalated come spring time. The Wings won all four games in the regular season, that won’t be the case in the playoffs (prediction: Detroit in six). The tame nature of each of those games most likely won’t carry through either. Which is, of course, a good thing.
By no means will we turn back the clock, or fully renew a rivalry that once was, Thursday night. Still, this series should be a good one, with a few familiar faces meeting in a place that was all too familiar years back.
Send questions or comments to mjm12@albion.edu
