Brendan Shanahan turned the Red Wings into cham pions, took a group of players that had underachieved through a string of humiliating playoff upsets through the 1990s, none more humiliating that the 1996 defeat to Claude Lemieux and the hated Avalanche, and transformed that team into the NHL’s flagship franchise.
See, so much of what Shanahan did on the ice through the meat of a 21-year career that officially ended this week and stands with any of his generation, has been overshadowed by his contributions in collective bargaining and, most prominently, through the eponymously named Shanahan Summit, of which the originator has said, “It’s not like I have that on a letterhead.”
Shanahan was a mean, fierce power forward who could high-stick Russia’s Alexander Semak across the face in the first game of the 1996 World Cup to earn a one-game suspension in the tournament as easily as he could rifle a one-timer from the left dot as easily as he could stand up as a 38-year-old for a teammate named Jaromir Jagr and square off toe-to-toe at the Garden with a bully called Donald Brashear.
So much of the focus in the wake of this impending first-ballot Hall of Famer’s retirement announcement has been trained on what Shanahan did off the ice and what he will do next — his decision to announce his retirement through the league and not the NHLPA, as is the more common practice, might provide a clue regarding future employment — that his career itself almost has been overshadowed.
Trace the timeline, from his start in 1987 in New Jersey, to his Group I free agent jump in 1991 to St. Louis that returned Scott Stevens, to the trade to the Whalers by Mike Keenan for Chris Pronger in 1995, to the trade he forced out of Hartford a year later to Detroit for Keith Primeau, Paul Coffey and a first-rounder.
He became a 50-goal-scorer in St. Louis. But following the short stop in a city that just was not big enough to hold him — Hartford to Shanahan equaled the Island to Kirk Muller — he became a transformational figure in Detroit.
No Shanahan; no Hockeytown.
In 1994, the first-seed Red Wings lost a first-round Game 7 at home to the Sharks. In 1995, the first-overall Red Wings were outclassed and swept in the Finals by the Devils.
And in 1996, the first-overall Red Wings, who had finished 62-13-7 for 131 points, one off the record established by the 60-8-12, 1976-77 Canadiens, were beaten and bloodied by Colorado in the vicious and enthralling six-game conference final that ended with Kris Draper’s face broken and Dino Ciccarelli whining that he’d shaken Lemieux’s hand.
Those teams had Steve Yzerman, Sergei Fedorov, Nicklas Lidstrom and Mike Vernon. The latter team also included Vladimir Konstantinov, Igor Larionov, Slava Fetisov and Darren McCarty. But they didn’t have Shanahan.
Shanahan arrived early in 1996-97 and by late the following March the Red Wings were beating up the Avalanche in the regular season before beating them in the playoffs a couple of months later. Detroit had twisted history its way to become one of the great teams of the post-expansion era instead of its most underachieving one. No one benefited more from Shanahan than Scotty Bowman in their three-Cup partnership.
He was the NHL’s quintessential power winger, scoring 656 goals while making enemies along the way as does anyone unafraid to express an unpopular opinion and articulate enough to express it well. He is one of the last of the Old Lions of Winter, one of the last originals.
Shanahan will enter the Hall of Fame in three years and when he does so, he will go in because of what he did for the Red Wings and for Detroit, where he surely deserves to see his No. 14 raised to the top of Joe Louis.
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The further away from the incident, the more outrageous Colin Campbell‘s decision to suspend Calgary’s Curtis Glencross for just three games for the Nov. 7 hit to the head that concussed Chris Drury.
The blow was delivered not only to a vulnerable opponent, but to a player who was nowhere near the puck. It came from the blind side. It was a hit directly to the head. It was by definition, therefore, exactly the type of hit to the head general managers and players want legislated out of the game.
Yet Campbell handed out just a three-game sentence to Glencross — it likely would have been two had a major and game misconduct been called — that is no more of a deterrent than a five-minute penalty.
Glencross should have gotten 20 games. He should have lost a quarter of his paycheck. He should have been made an example of. That type of punishment would have served as a deterrent. These two- and three-game sentences mean nothing.
Fact is, these slaps on the wrists only serve to enable hits to the head. The suspensions are as indefensible as the acts themselves.