Heavyweight Wings: ‘No one talks about us’

Don’t blame coach Mike Babcock if he’s feeling a little like Rodney Dangerfield these days.

“No one talks about us, they only talk about San Jose and Anaheim in the West,” Babcock said of his Red Wings. “So, to me, we’re just sliding in there unnoticed and we’ll do the best we possibly can.”

Oh yeah, the Red Wings are just sliding in to the Stanley Cup playoffs as Presidents’ Trophy winners for a sixth time. They’re just sliding in with a league record-tying eighth straight 100-point season. They’re just sliding in for the 17th straight spring, which represents the longest current postseason streak in professional sports.

Other than that, the Detroit Red Wings get no respect.

Don’t worry your pretty little wingnut, Detroit is as formidable as any playoff team, and it’s no stretch to suggest Stanley Cup No. 11 is as much of the conversation as Anaheim going back-to-back and San Jose’s dreams of championing for the first time.

And that’s not to dis who emerges from the East, be it the fast Montreal Canadiens, the youthful and skilled Pittsburgh Penguins, Martin Brodeur and the New Jersey Devils or another surprise out of the wide-open conference.

And, as Babcock is quick to remind, it doesn’t stop there.

“Every team is capable of beating the other team,” said Babcock, allowed this cliché since it rings especially true. “We all have very good players. Some of the teams that are younger, and haven’t been making the playoffs, may have more depth in a lot of ways than the other teams just because they’ve got more guys in their system.”

Coincidentally, the Wings have received a big boost from their young and mostly unheralded players.

Everyone knows about veterans Nicklas Lidstrom, Chris Chelios, Dominik Hasek and Chris Osgood, and young stars Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg. Everyone knows about Tomas Holmstrom, Kris Draper, Kirk Maltby, Daniel Cleary, Brian Rafalski and Dallas Drake.

Not everyone knows, however, about Johan Franzen, Niklas Kronwall, Mikael Samuelsson, Valtteri Filppula, Jiri Hudler, Brett Lebda, Tomas Kopecky and Andreas Lilja.

The point is this: the Red Wings are more experienced, poised and seasoned than many realize. This team will not be intimidated, it will not shrink under the pressure of teams that throw size their way (i.e. Anaheim and San Jose). Yet don’t look for Detroit to take anyone lightly.

“We have a very professional group,” Babcock said. “We get prepared to play most every night. We have two solid goaltenders. That’s allowed us to win a lot of close games all year long and be successful.

“Yet, in saying all that, when you come in the rink and you watch as a fan, if you’re expecting us to shellack the other team, that never happens. It doesn’t work like that in this league now.”

If anyone thinks it’s been easy for Detroit this season, guess again. Yes, the Wings got off to another blistering start – 17-6-2 after November turned into 38-10-4 when they went 21-4-2 in December and January. But injuries started to hit in February and they didn’t really stop until mid-March.

In addition, the bottom three teams in the division – Chicago, Columbus and St. Louis – weren’t soft touches anymore. The Blackhawks, Blue Jackets and Blues narrowed the cavernous gulch that existed between themselves and Detroit. As recently as March 19, Detroit was 10-11-2 against division rivals before going 6-1-1 since.

Stiffer competition and mid-season injuries helped lead to a 1-8-2 drought at the end of February. But the hardship taught the Wings something about their team.

“Any time you go through tough stretches, it’s a real positive thing,” said Babcock, who is 161-56-28 which includes three 50-win seasons behind the Detroit bench. “The bottom line is we found out we got a lot of young kids in the minors ready to play in the NHL.”

That’s what makes this Detroit team more of a force. Maybe now the Wings will be better equipped to deal with injuries, assuming they happen. Detroit battled hard through a tough second-round win last year against San Jose, but may have run out of gas at the end of the series against Anaheim because its defensive depth wasn’t what it is now.

The Red Wings are different than the Ducks and Sharks, too. While Anaheim and San Jose wants to use its formidable size to forecheck and wear down an opponent, Detroit will skate teams to death. The Wings are quick on the transition, aggressive on special teams, and prepared to the hilt. They play in a great old barn, too, that seems to be a difficult place to play for a lot of teams.

“The great thing for us this year is our games down the stretch here have been against teams that are good teams that have played us real difficult,” Babcock said.

Now they await a first-round opponent, probably Nashville, Vancouver or Colorado, but Calgary, Dallas and even Chicago remain mathematical possibilities.

“I’ve been on both ends of it in the Stanley Cup playoffs,” Babcock said. “When you’re the higher seed, the other teams have usually been battling like crazy and sometimes you’ve been drifting along.

“I said this I don’t know how many months ago: You look at the team and who you want to play, you don’t want to play anybody. They’re all that good,” he added.

Funny, that’s what others should be saying about Detroit.