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Welcome back Blackhawks, now Red Wings fans can loathe you again.
The Chicago Blackhawks are enjoying a resurgence on and off the ice and are once again relevant in the hockey world as evidenced by a cover story in The Hockey News on December 1st.
Led by super sophomores Patrick Kane (last season’s rookie of the year) and team captain Jonathan Toews, the Hawks are quickly becoming a pain in the posterior for the defending Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings, and this is great for the fans.
Following Detroit’s 5-4 comeback shootout victory over Chicago on Saturday, December 6th at Joe Louis Arena, the Wings sit in second place in the Western Conference while the Hawks are seventh, meaning if the playoffs started today this would be a first round match up. This would be a treat for the fans as these two teams have played some very entertaining hockey over the past two seasons.
Oddly enough these two teams have only played each other 14 times in the playoffs, the last time being in the 1995 Conference Finals won by the Wings four games to one.
Since the arrival of Kane and Toews last season, the Wings record against the Hawks is five wins, four losses and one shootout loss. Two of the Wings victories have come via the shootout this season.
To put it in perspective, between their last playoff meeting and the arrival of Kane and Toews last season the Wings had a record of 38 wins, 14 losses, eight ties and six overtime or shootout losses against Chicago since 1995.
“They’re good, they’re talented. Kane and Toews, (Patrick) Sharp and this (Kris) Versteeg kid, and obviously (Brian) Campbell, and (Brent) Seabrook and (Duncan) Keith, those are front line players, and they have good goaltending,” said Wings coach Mike Babcock, assessing the budding rival. “I expect them to be good for a long time to come, I expect us to have some very entertaining hockey games with them.”
It’s something the players’ sense as well.
“They’ve just carried over from last year,” said Dan Cleary on the Hawks improvement. “They’ve really had our number, they played us well last year. I can remember they beat us numerous times last year, and this year they have played us well. It’s been a shootout kind of game, the last time we were in there it was another shootout win.”
And by the banter in the upper bowl at Joe Louis Arena the rivalry is something the fans have picked up and seem to enjoy as much and if not more than the players and teams. Here is an example of an exchange between some Hawks fans and Wings fans following a penalty call on Detroit:
Hawks fan: CHEATERS!
Wings fan: We won the Cup!
Hawks fan: CHEATERS!
Wings fan: 1961!!
The next meeting between the two teams is The Winter Classic at Wrigley Field on New Year’s Day. It will mark the 700th game between the two teams, the most between two teams in NHL history. The Wings lead the all-time series record against the Hawks with 354 wins, 261 losses and 84 games ending in a tie.
As of January 1, 2009, the second highest number of games against an opponent will be Boston and Montreal at 696 times and then Montreal and Toronto at 692.
From the Press Notes:
Nicklas Lidstrom’s three points on December 4 against Vancouver moved him ahead of Sergei Fedorov into fourth place on the Red Wings all-time scoring list with 956 points. He trails Gordie Howe, 1,809, Steve Yzerman, 1,755, and Alex Delvecchio, 1,281.
The Red Wings currently have the NHL’s best road record at 10-2-2. They were the second best road team in 2007-08 (25-12-4) and set an NHL record for road wins with 31 in 2005-06.
Andreas Lilja was named the Carhartt "Hardest Working Player" for the month of November. He leaddsthe Wings with 26 penalty minutes and 38 blocked shots. He is second on the Wings with 46 hits. He set a career best with points in four consecutive games from November 17 through November 24.
For more info:
on the Winter Classic click here.
If you like this story you might also like these stories:
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NHL ·
Detroit Red Wings ·
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Chicago Blackhawks ·
Jonathan Toews ·
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