The Missing Rings: The 2005-06 Detroit Red Wings

[LastWordArmy]

The Missing Rings is a series looking at some of the best teams in NHL history to not win the Stanley Cup. Whether they lose in the first round or game seven of the finals, these great teams have been forgotten because they could not win the big one. For the next installment, the 2005-06 Detroit Red Wings are the focus.

The Missing Rings: 2005-06 Detroit Red Wings - Last Word on Hockey

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[Henkka]

This will always amaze me, how great Red Wings were on the long run...

1989-90 - out of the playoffs, 19th best at regular season (70 points)
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1990-91 - no success, 13th best at regular season (76 points)
1991-92 - no success, 3rd best at regular season (98 points)
1992-93 - no success, 5th best at regular season (103 points)
1993-94 - no success, 4th best at regular season (100 points)
1994-95 - President's Trophy (+Stanley Cup Finals) - 70 points (48-game season, ~119.5 points in 82-game pace)
1995-96 - President's Trophy - 131 points
1996-97 - Stanley Cup (93 points, 5th best)
1997-98 - Stanley Cup (103 points, 3rd best)
1998-99 - no success, 6th best at regular season (93 points)
1999-00 - no success, 2nd best at regular season (108 points)
2000-01 - no success, 2nd best at regular season (111 points)
2001-02 - Stanley Cup (+President's Trophy with 116 points)
2002-03 - no success, 3rd best at regular season (110 points)
2003-04 - President's Trophy - 109 points
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2005-06 - President's Trophy - 124 points
2006-07 - no success, 2nd best at regular season, Tied with President's Trophy winner Buffalo with 113 points.
2007-08 - Stanley Cup (+President's Trophy with 115 points)
2008-09 - Stanley Cup Finals, 3rd best at regular season (112 points)
2009-10 - no success, 7th best at regular season (102 points)
2010-11 - no success, 6th best at regular season (104 points)
2011-12 - no success, 8th best at regular season (102 points)
2012-13 - no success, 14th best at regular season (56 points, ~95.5 points in 82-game pace)
2013-14 - no success, 15th best at regular season (93 points)
2014-15 - no success, 12th best at regular season (100 points)
2015-16 - no success, 16th best at regular season (93 points)
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2016-17 - out of the playoffs, 25th best at regular season (76 points)

There are multiple organizations, who can't even beat the record, if we take those Stanley Cups away. That's how good we were.

There were 20 consecutive seasons in the TOP-8 of Regular season Standings, from 1991-92 to 2011-12. = Nicklas Lidström's career.

 

[ShelbyZ]

The write-up fails to mention a couple factors in that series, like how Pavel Datsyuk and successful power forward to perimeter PP one-timer transfer Brendan Shanahan were absolute ghosts. Another would be that they were pretty much stuck with Legace because when Osgood was going to be called upon for game 4, he tweaked his groin again in the morning skate... And Fernando Pisasi went absolutely insane for the Oilers.

I've always thought the Red Wings failure in 05-06 is overblown. Mostly because IMO, the Red Wings were an overrated Goliath to the Oilers underrated David.

Why were the Red Wings overrated, you ask? Look no further than the schedule. This was the first year where they went with the division heavy regular season to try to create new rivalries. You got to play every team in your division 8 times, and the Wings were in easily the weakest division in the NHL. The only worthwhile competition the division had was Nashville. Otherwise you had a rebuilding penny pinching Bill Wirtz run Hawks, a still trying to find some post expansion identity Blue Jackets, and a surprise worst in the league Blues trying to dump salary to make the team more attractive for a new buyer. In the 24 games against those teams, the Red Wings were 21-1-2... 44 of a possible 48 pts.

I'm not saying they weren't a good team, but IMO with a more spread out schedule, they're in the mix for the Presidents trophy, but wouldn't have had such a comfortable lead.

As for the Oilers, they were a much better team than what their last minute 8th seed playoff berth and optics affected by the years of failure following it portray. The Oilers were a young, fast, gritty and defensively strong team that had some young guys really taking the next steps (Hemsky, Horcoff, Stoll and to a lesser degree Torres and Bergeron), and had made a couple of big acquisitions when the lockout ended (Peca and Pronger). They just forgot to get a starting goalie.... For most of the year, they had absolutely atrocious goaltending. In fact, the Oilers were 1st in the league for least shots on goal, yet at the same time had the worst save% in the league. Aside from two week long stretches in the first month of the season from Markkanen, and a month long stretch for Morrison during the 2nd month of the season, the Oilers goaltending was nearly pedestrian... Conklin was a consistent .880 on the year, after the first week of November Markkanen was .86, and after the first week of December Morrison was .841. They were in the middle of the league for offense, but added to it with Spacek, Tarnstrom and Samsonov before the deadline. They also finally added a goalie. They actually struggled to get it going after acquiring Roloson and Samsonov, going 2-3-3 for the first 8 games, but Roloson got hot for the last 3 weeks of the season and they snuck into the playoffs. I think if Roloson doesn't go down in game 1 of the finals, the Oilers win the Stanley Cup. It's also too bad that a lot of key cogs to that run decided they didn't want to stay in Edmonton, despite the teams success (Peca, Samsonov, Spacek and expecially Pronger...).

I think if you play that series over a few times, the Oilers still come out on top in most cases. The Red Wings were way too soft ("Our powerplay is our enforcer" - Mathieu Schnieder), had too many old and/or slow guys that weren't great or complete non-factors in their own zone (Shanahan, Lang, Schneider), couldn't get offense going 5v5, and as the article did mention, Legace was a mental time bomb. Had they gotten past the Oilers, a lot of those issues would've manifested against the Sharks, Avs or especially Ducks. The Red Wings also didn't have the depth. Who knows how long Osgood would've been out, which means 1st year pro Jimmy Howard goes in if Legace gets hurt, another injured forward aside from Yzerman would necessitate calling up a fringe guy or prospect from GR, and an injury on D means a sheltered Jason Woolley or Cory Cross each with one two still in the league comes in.

I think Mike Babcock also needed to completely gain the room. It was rumored a little bit that year that some of the older guys on the team weren't thrilled playing for a more grating and demanding coach (Yzerman, Shanahan, Lang) vs. a nicer more country club atmosphere with Dave Lewis.

I guess the fun thing to wonder is how does Osgood play if he doesn't get hurt and goes in for game 4? Is he absolutely stellar like he was when called upon in 2008 and 2009, or is he still banged up trying to get healthy for the cap era like he continued to be in 06-07?

 

[Reality Check]

Losing in '93 and '94 was far more upsetting than the '06 team.

That was a pure paper tiger team.

 

[vladdy16]

Yeah, I wouldnt agree that 06 was much of a missed opportunity(outside of the relatively poor competition).

It did foreshadow our coaching/goaltending issue in 07. Babcocks and Legaces hang ups and inexperience were glaring heading into the 06 playoffs.

Legace is the only time I can remember Yzerman calling out a teammate.

 

[Air Budd Dwyer]

Yeah, I wouldnt agree that 06 was much of a missed opportunity(outside of the relatively poor competition).

It did foreshadow our coaching/goaltending issue in 07. Babcocks and Legaces hang ups and inexperience were glaring heading into the 06 playoffs.

Legace is the only time I can remember Yzerman calling out a teammate.

I don’t recall Yzerman calling him out. Do you remember what he said?

 

[vladdy16]

I don’t recall Yzerman calling him out. Do you remember what he said?

It was during the home stretch of the regular season. He basically said Legace needed to believe in himself more and realize the opportunity in front of him or it would slip away.

In my mind, if Legace was evaluated more properly throughout the year, Osgoods workload would've been much higher, and the fluke/nagging injuries wouldnt have been an issue. At the time I saw Yzermans comment as corroborating evidence, but that's just my interpretation.

Crazy to me that we still suffered through 2 years of phoned in Hasek after that, which squandered 07 and almost 08.

 

[ShelbyZ]

It was during the home stretch of the regular season. He basically said Legace needed to believe in himself more and realize the opportunity in front of him or it would slip away.

I don't recall the Yzerman call out, but it wouldn't surprise me. The corroborating evidence for me was odd stuff that came out of Legace himself down the stretch. I don't remember the exact words, but I recall some interviews where beat writers were congratulating him or asking Legace his thoughts on Babcock naming him the starter for the playoffs during the stretch, and his reactions were something along the lines of "Nah, I'm not that good" or his big proclamation that he didn't deserve to come back if he didn't win them the Cup. It was almost as if Legace himself knew he couldn't handle the pressure and tried to soften the eventual blow.

In my mind, if Legace was evaluated more properly throughout the year, Osgoods workload would've been much higher, and the fluke/nagging injuries wouldnt have been an issue. At the time I saw Yzermans comment as corroborating evidence, but that's just my interpretation.

Osgood had plenty of opportunity and workload that year... The starting job was pretty much his to lose after being signed, and then he started the year hurt which allowed Legace to get hot. Legace dealt with injuries from early November to early January and Osgood was .891 during that stretch. At one point Osgood allowed 12 goals in two straight starts, which prompted Babcock to go with Jimmy Howard. Legace then came back and continued to be solid until the Olympic break. When Legace struggled a bit after the season resumed, he and Osgood platooned the rest of the year, which gave Osgood some workload prior to re-injuring his groin in the playoffs. While platooning, Osgood was a little better than earlier in the year, but Legace was still clearly better.

I think the Red Wings did fairly well in seeing where Legace fit that year. Despite his stellar season going into the Spring, the Red Wings rightfully didn't want to give Legace starter money when negotiations came up and it paid off when they could simply let him walk after his meltdown. Had they extended him somewhere between their reported $2.5M offer and his $4M ask and he still melts down, they're faced with keeping him as an overpaid backup, letting Osgood walk to sign Hasek or Belfour, and don't have the space to bring in a dman to fill the void left by Fischer (Markov).

Crazy to me that we still suffered through 2 years of phoned in Hasek after that, which squandered 07 and almost 08.

I can see where that makes sense for 2008, since Hasek started to get long in the tooth and dealt with some injuries, but that's an odd take for 2007.

The Wings were squeezed for cap space and needed a starting goalie and a dman, and had to try to make lemonade out of lemons. Hasek was one of the best goalies in the league in 2006 and likely wins the Sens a Cup if he doesn't go down for the year at the Olympics. He was relatively cheap when you consider that Martin Gerber, who had lost the starting job in Carolina to Cam Ward, got almost $4M AAV on a three year deal. He was also the best option available on a thin market. Your other choices were Ed Belfour coming off back surgery following a forgettable year in Toronto, or trading for a recently displaced starter like Cloutier or Denis. That is unless they wanted to really gamble on a combo of Osgood and somebody like Patrick Lalime, Johan Hedberg or Mike Dunham...

Hasek was arguably better in the 2007 playoffs than he was in 2002. He slipped a bit against the Ducks, but he was also playing behind a blueline with no Schneider or Kronwall, a trio of Brett Lebda/Andreas Lilja and a near crypt keeper Chelios taking turns playing 20+ minutes a night as overmatched top 4 dmen, Kyle Quincey dressing just to basically occupy space on the bench, and Andreas Lilja possibly getting possessed by Steve Rucchin using a Ouija board hoping to set up one last goal for Teemu Selanne before they both potentially hang them up.

And Osgood was basically a non factor most of that season. Started out OK, then misses a month and a half with a hand injury and struggles to get it going before he misses another 3/4 weeks with an illness and another hand injury.

Given the Wings cap situation, goaltending issues were going to be inevitable coming out of the lockout. I think it ended up working out OK though, especially when you consider they dodged a bullet missing out on Khabibulin and didn't have to further gut the team to make room for his salary...

 

[GMR]

It's amazing that a team which choked against No Name opponents in the 2003 and 2004 playoffs would repeat the same feat and not learn anything from before.

Blame Legace, the Lilja/Lidstrom pairing, Draper on the top line, Jason Williams, etc. Oh and who can forget the deadline acquisition of Cory Cross? At least he gave us that great video of him pounding on Steve Ott.

 

[ShelbyZ]

Oh and who can forget the deadline acquisition of Cory Cross? At least he gave us that great video of him pounding on Steve Ott.

....which ended up being 16.6% of the teams fighting majors for the whole season...

He also wasn't brought in to add anything to the line-up. They spent a 4th rounder on him and said he could compete for a spot on the 3rd pair.... which he and Jason Woolley lost to Brett Lebda....