Of all traditions in sports, the post-series handshake in the NHL has to be one of my favorites. After being vanquished in a tough series, it's always heartening to see smiles and handshakes, shows of respect to one another. Nick Lidstrom sharing extra words with Suter and Weber. Zetterberg and Weber sharing a civil handshake. Jimmy Howard and Pekka Rinne having a handshake and brief man-hug. Lidstrom and Babcock both having extra words to Barry Trotz. Beautiful moment from a tight series; an obvious show that both teams have great respect for one another.
Now, congratulations to Nashville. They've slain their Goliath, putting down the divisional rival Red Wings, the team that was their standard to beat. They put the NHL's primary current dynasty on their butts and made them the first team out this year. Not only that, but they did it convincingly. For those who watched all five games, did you ever suspect at any point that Nashville would lose the series? I predicted a Nashville victory in 5, but I didn't expect Detroit to spend a lot of it looking deflated. Nashville ground them down and wore on them all series long. The pressure from their top guys was relentless. Have you seen such a stifling defense? The praise of this victory is going to Rinne, who had an impressive save percentage from it, but that was courtesy of a defense that rarely let Detroit have a good shooting lane. The Red Wings are a team that doesn't dump the puck on net often as it is, rather content to cycle the puck until the right shot opens up. With Nashville, the right shot never opened up. Many of the pucks that came Rinne's way were easy saves.
Did you see those sweet Datsyuk highlights, though? No? Oh, right, that's because there weren't any. Yet another mark of that Nashville defense - they controlled the Red Wings' top players. Datsyuk was under such pressure from Fisher or Suter so often that he never got to play wizard on them. The Wings looked tired. How many shots did they not get because their reactions seemed a split-second too slow? Meanwhile, Nashville was all over everything. Trotz said it perfectly early in Game 5 - they weren't going to try to beat the Red Wings at their game, they were going to make the Red Wings play theirs. It worked. They didn't try to play a puck possession game or prevent the Red Wings from doing so. They responded to it with a perfect defense, clogging the shooting and passing lanes and leaving the Wings very little reward for their effort.
The biggest thing the Wings were missing in this game was a grinding element. Babcock even acknowledged after Game 1 that they really didn't have the personnel to exact revenge on Shea Weber for his WWE-style tactics on Zetterberg. Bertuzzi apparently disagreed, but in truth, Babcock was right. The Wings are a finesse team. They have been for a long time. But they also used to keep about a line's worth of grinders - guys like McCarty or Maltby or Draper. Guys who could go out and wear out the opposition, or punch them in the mouth when need be. To be fair, Helm is the new (faster!) Draper, a grinder in the mold of those guys, although a much more significant playoff "x-factor" because of his breakaway speed. Eaves, even fills in that role some. Abdelkader can do that, too, as he led the Wings in fighting penalties this year, but he can't do it alone, and he's still a pretty young kid up against some pretty big Nashville guys. The Wings can finesse their way past a lot of teams, but it was clear from the start of this series that the Predators would have none of that, indeed, were built and schemed specifically to not allow that.
So where do the Wings go from here? There's been talk already among the Detroit media of "blowing the team up" or "shaking things up significantly." That's pretty premature, if you ask me. For one, the Wings were lacking two significant playmakers in Darren Helm and Patrick Eaves. While two injuries shouldn't make or break a series, it leaves a mark, and as some NHL pundits have mentioned, the winning team is often the least injured team. Beyond that, the Red Wings are an older, veteran team, and perhaps Father Time is catching up with them some. Perhaps the new parity of the NHL is catching up more now, as well, as other teams are closing the talent gap more, with several years of planning and modeling paying dividends now. Perhaps some of everything.
As far as shaking things up, well, some of that will happen naturally. There's no certainty that Nick Lidstrom will be back; he'll be 42 in a week and while he still plays at a high level, he's starting to slow down, especially at the end of the year. Brad Stuart is almost certain to be gone; he wants to be on the West Coast, nearer his family and home, and if he offers teams from those areas a discount on his market price, well, he'll find a home there. Tomas Holmstrom is 39 and has acknowledged the wear and tear on his body from the game he loves; he's an unrestricted free agent.
Ken Holland knows these things. There's a reason they traded for Kyle Quincey, who will hopefully be better in a full season wearing the Winged Wheel. Assume that Lidstrom and Stuart both leave; without acquiring any new players, the Wings' starting six defensemen would likely be Kronwall, White, Ericsson, Quincey, Jakub Kindl, and Brendan Smith. Not a bad set. Not what we'd be used to, but honestly not bad. Brendan Smith is considered the top prospect in the Wings' farm, and he showed in a brief stint with the Wings this year that he belongs on the roster. Kindl and Quincey both need work, but that comes from playing. I expect the Wings to go out and acquire another defensemen or two to have depth and competition, but given the above, don't expect a big splash. That's not how the Wings do things. People griped at ho-hum nature of the Ian White acquisition in last year, but he's been huge for the Wings this year and fit into their system perfectly. As for Holmstrom, his departure would only clear the way for some of the other young Wings to rise up - both Gustav Nyquist and Jan Mursak impressed me during their time with the team this year and both, I feel, should be on the roster to start next season.
The Red Wings are entering a period of transition, insofar as the Red Wings transition. If it's not this year, I am certain next year will be Lidstrom's last. The "C" will be passed on (to Zetterberg, I'm sure). A new group of veterans will guide a new group of young players. Just as Yzerman, Draper, and Lidstrom brought up a group of upstarts named Datsyuk, Zetterberg, and Kronwall, so will those guys bring up more. It's how the Wings do things. Maybe then they'll find that ever-important, never-quantifiable "hunger" to bring another Cup to Hockeytown.
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