Old Guard/New Guard

You all remember the days of the Detroit Red Wings and their super lines, Steve Yzerman, Nicklas Lidstrom, Sergei Fedorov ring any bells, these 3 are pretty much through and through members of the red wings, whom in my eyes will always be legends for the team, since they won 3 cups in their careers, Yzerman having a 20 year career with a whole bunch of stats, fast forward to 2013 and here we see the Detroit Red Wings of new, led by none other then Mike Babcock whom is a very good choice for a coach for a team as legendary as they are.

But I digress, the team itself is in a bit of a dis-array over the course of the past few months with the recent retirement of Nicklas Lidstrom whom let's face it was the last of the old guard bringing in the new guard, though I've gotta give props to the fact that Henrik Zetterberg a main stay of the team for the past 10 years has done this well to earn the coveted "C" for his team. This team has somewhat declined over the past few years with a few key old guard retiring, but hey retirement in itself is a very coveted spot, it's a shame though that Steve Yzerman, whom I covet as one of the greats of all time is the GM of the one of the worst teams in the league, sigh how the mighty have fallen, at least Scotty Bowman is rather happy with the outcome of the team, right, am I right?


Let's focus on one of my newer favorites for the team, Carlo Colaiacovo whom was once a Toronto Maple Leaf, he seems to have found his niche in the team as a very solid defensive player working alongside the likes of the best 3rd string defensemen the old guard had Nicklas Kronwall, but let me explain as to why I feel the games these days simply don't feel the same.

Sure we have a few good players here, Bertuzzi, Kronwall, Zetterberg, hell I'll even preach for Jimmy Howard whom in his right mind has proven himself a great goalie and can go as long as he wants without much difficulty, but the old style of the Red Wings is nearly gone, there's few from the old guard left, but those few are proving that they still have some fight left in them, with the majority of the old guard either retiring or finding their way into the Wings organization somehow, goaltending coach, defensive coach, etc, which is all fine. But when the last puck drops it's going to end up to the point where we won't see the second coming of the Red Wings dynasty

The fact of the matter is that the wings aren't as solid in the defensive department as they were back then, I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but the lack of committment is a bit of a downer for fans like myself whom have been watching since the great dynasty of 1997-1998 where it was the back to back wins for the wings. As clearly seen in the photo, Chicago crushed detroit defensively in game 6 of the second round, which is not good.

I'm not sure as to why, but this team really needs a reshape as a whole, it's gotten to the point where defensively, the team is struggling in some areas and re-evaluate as a whole, which I get since there's a whole 3 months in between the next season and next season's schedule has yet to be determined, but the problem is the realignment of the conferences, which puts us in the same exact conference as my other team, the Toronto Maple Leafs for next season along with the worst teams of league in this writer's humble opinion, though being one of the top 8 teams of the 2012-2013 season is no slouch either, it goes to show even the next generation of Detroit players can play among the best of them, I for one am sure as hell proud of them as a team for getting this far, even if the game 7 ends up in Chicago's favor, good on you boys, I'm damn well proud.

In short, feel proud of yourselves detroit, you've gotten to the point where few good teams get to, proven your willing to grind it out till the end of the day and break a few nets to do the job, along with plenty of sticks, so if the Wings survive round 2 tonight, it will be a bit of a miracle, till next time this is Vergil signing off.