Detroit Red Wings 25 Year Playoff Streak Snapped as Edmonton Oilers Return After 11 Years

For the first time since 1990 Detroit Red Wings fans will not get the chance to see their team in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, as Edmonton Oilers fans will finally get a chance to see the post season for the first time since 2006.

For the past 25 seasons the Red Wings had made the playoffs every year, even making it all the way to the Stanley Cup Final six times (1995, 1997, 1998, 2002, 2008 & 2009) during that span. They won the Stanley Cup four times in those six appearances (1997, 1998, 2002 & 2008). 

Red Wings Captain, Henrik Zetterberg said, “Right now it is hard to talk about it.”  This is the first-time Zetterberg, who broke into the league in 2002 with Detroit, has missed the post season. Even though he has had a good season stat wise, he is still beating himself up for not being able to help the team take that extra step to clinch the postseason. 

Being the team’s leader, he emphasized most of the season that making the playoffs was not for the purpose of keeping the streak alive, but to compete for the ultimate goal of the Stanley Cup. 

Assistant general manager, Kris Draper said, “It stinks that there is not going to be playoff hockey.” Draper played for the Red Wings from 1993 through 2011 and never missed the post season during his time with the club. 

He added, “I know when I was a player, March Madness, the Masters and Red Wings playoff hockey, that was the favorite, favorite time of year for me. Now it is as if, `One Shining Moment’ won’t play at the end of the NCAA Tournament, or the azaleas won’t bloom at Augusta.”

The final time the octopi will have the chance to be tossed on the ice at Joe Louis Arena, will be when the New Jersey Devils help the Red Wings close out the building during the season finale on Sunday, April 9. 

Senior Vice President, Jimmy Devellano, who has been with the franchise since 1982, when the late Mike Illitch purchased the club said, “No one is ever happy when you do not make the playoffs. But as I told our people, we have a lot of company. Sixteen teams make it. Fourteen do not make it. We have given the fans wonderful hockey for a quarter of a century. It had to happen. It had to happen.”

 

The last time the Red Wings made the post season they finished last in the Norris Division and second from the bottom in the Campbell Conference. 10 teams, including the Vegas Golden Knights, were not even established in the National Hockey League yet. 

Detroit’s record was 28-18-14, with the third column being for ties and not overtime or shootout losses. Not one current NHL player, had begun their NHL careers the last time Red Wings missed the playoffs. 15 current Red Wings were not even born at that time. 

18 of the franchises 25-year streak, they finished in the top four of their conference. The Boston Bruins streak of 29 seasons, from 1967 through 1996 is still the NHL’s longest consecutive streak. The Chicago Blackhawks hold the second longest of 28 seasons, from 1969 to 1997. The St. Louis Blues, like the Red Wings also had a 25-year streak, from 1979 through 2004. 

The Oilers who had not made the post season since their run to the Stanley Cup Final in 2006, became the first Canadian team to clinch a berth in the 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Last season no team from Canada made it in to the dance for the first time since the 1969-1970 season. 

With about 10 minutes remaining in the battle with the Los Angeles Kings, and the Oilers up 2-1 at Rogers Place, the fans could not hold their emotions hold their emotions in, and began chanting “We want playoffs.” It was only expected as they have waited almost 11 years to strike oil between playoff appearances. 

The last post season action the fans in the Alberta, capital was game seven of the 2006 Stanley Cup Final as the Oilers fell to the Carolina Hurricanes. Many quiet summers, leading to the organization stocking up on good draft picks have helped to turn around those 11 years of heartbreak. 

Jordan Eberle, the longest serving member of the team said, “These fans have gone through a lot over the last little bit, and they have done a great job to stick with us.”

At the end of last season, the Oilers closed out their longtime arena, Rexall Place (formerly Northlands Coliseum, Edmonton Coliseum and Skyreach Centre), as they opened their new downtown home arena, to begin the 2016-2017 season.

Center, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins said, “It has not always been the easiest years but at this point right now you kind of forget it. Those years do not really matter come tonight.” 

Nugent-Hopkins, along with Eberle and left wing, Matt Hendricks and defenseman, Oscar Klefbom are the four Oilers from this season’s team who have played in Edmonton prior to the 2014-2015 NHL season. 

Oilers head coach, Todd McLellan, had a better second season with the club than his first one turned out to be. After having coached the San Jose Sharks, for seven seasons, McLellan was brought in last season to help turn the franchise around. 2015-2016 was not very a successful one as the Oilers finished with 70 points and 29^th in the league. 

McLellan said, “First thing was coming in [and] trying to establish boundaries and a work ethic. The second thing we tried to do was work on the mental part of the team, staying in games longer and not folding your hand.”

 

He continued, “Then we tried to reduce the gap between goals for and goals against, and while we were doing all of that we were changing things with our team. Peter [Chiarelli, Oilers general manager] and his staff have done a tremendous job in retooling the team quite quickly. There was progress on those issues this season. Now we have accomplished another task, getting back into the playoffs. Believe it or not, 10 years later, that is probably the easy job. The task gets tougher.”

 

When the Oilers hit a little slump late in the season, veteran forward Milan Lucic became a voice of calm and reason in the room. Lucic signed on with the Oilers as an Unrestricted Free Agent on July 1. 

He said, “You are going to have some adversity and rough patches throughout the season, but us overcoming a lot of them was a sign that we were giving ourselves the best chance to be in this position at this time of the year. Obviously, it is a great feeling to clinch a spot here with six games left. It is a huge first step for our team and the organization.”

Young Calgary Flames Fan Experiences Her Favorite Team Play with Help of Special Electronic Glasses

Olivia Lettich, an 11-year-old, legally blind, Calgary Flames fan, was provided with the opportunity to watch her favorite team on Sunday with the help of a pair of specialized electronic glasses.

eSight, an Ontario based company founded in 2006, created a device like a pair of glasses, that uses a high-speed, high-definition camera which captures the images a legally blind individual is looking at onto two OLED screens in front of the user’s eyes. 

Lettich became legally blind at the age of two, after undergoing nine rounds of chemotherapy and 50 rounds of radiation treatments in her fight with bilateral retinoblastoma, a rare form of eye cancer that mostly affects children. She was diagnosed with the disease at the age of four months. 

While she has attended games at the ScotiaBank Saddledome, Sunday’s game against the New York Islanders provided her with a whole new outlook. Her mother, Meredith, told Metronews Calgary, “She [Olivia] got a little teary when she first put them on, and she said ‘Everything is so beautiful.’” She added, “It is the little things, the details that come out because of the glasses, that she is now able to experience.” 

During the pregame warmups, she was invited to sit on the bench to watch the skate around and after the game she got to meet, Johnny Gaudreau, Sean Monahan and Mark Giordano, three of her favorite Flames players. 

Prior to getting the chance to watch her favorite team defeat the Islanders, Olivia told Metronews, “I am most excited for meeting the players. I am going to be thinking about how cool it is that I can see them.”

She added, “They [the glasses] help me see so much better. I can read and I can watch things from far away. I have a lot of trouble reading because the print is so small to me. With these, I can zoom in enough that can read and watch movies.”

 

Vegas Golden Knights Sign First Player in Team History

The Vegas Golden Knights have signed the first player in the history of their franchise on Monday, as they inked Reid Duke to a three-year entry-level contract. 

Duke, 21, put up 35 goals and 32 assists in 54 games with the Brandon Wheat Kings of the Western Hockey League this season. Duke will finish the season with the Wheat Kings before participating in the Golden Knights Development Camp this summer. 

Golden Knights Assistant General Manager, Kelly McCrimmon said, “I think what is impressive with Reid is a real high skill level and yet a guy that is able to play a big, strong, heavy game.”  

McCrimmon, who prior to being hired by the Golden Knights, was the Owner, General Manager and Head Coach of the Wheat Kings added, “When we project Reid, we think his game will evolve as he becomes a pro. We believe he is going to be a National Hockey League player. It is real exciting for us to be bringing Reid into the Golden Knights organization.”  

Duke was drafted by the Minnesota Wild in the sixth round, 189^th overall of the 2014 NHL Entry Draft. He never signed with the Wild and became an unrestricted free agent. 

McCrimmon said that the Golden Knights have been following the progress of Duke ever since he played with the New York Rangers during the Traverse City Tournament. Duke was also invited last summer to the Montreal Canadiens prospect development camp. 

McCrimmon added, “Obviously, I have a connection to Reid, an affiliation with Reid, but Reid is a player that was identified by [Director of Player Development] Wil Nichol. Wil was really the guy that was eager to continue to evaluate Reid over the course of the season.”  

The Golden Knights made their final payment and were approved to begin operations in acquiring players on March 1. 

The expansion draft will take place from June 18 to June 20 as the Golden Knights will select one player from each of the other 30 teams unprotected list. Vegas must choose 14 forwards, nine defensemen and three goaltenders for their roster. 

The other teams have the option of protecting seven forwards, three defensemen and one goalie or eight skaters and one goaltender.