How Many Wings Does It Take To Lift A Cup?

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How Many Wings Does It Take To Lift A Cup?

By Kevin Patra ⋅ May 27, 2009
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In a city so rich in tradition it’s labeled Hockeytown, on a team dripping with All-Stars, big names and enough championship rings to fill several sets of gloves, a 22-year-old with 23 regular season games played and zero regular season goals scored motored a veteran group to victory.

Darren Helm provided an example of why persistence is paramount in playoff hockey.

With the score knotted at 0-0, and :32 remaining in a 2nd period penalty kill, Helm snatched the puck in his own zone and an dashed toward the red line. Where most players would have flipped the puck into the other zone and changed lines Helm kept driving, eating valuable seconds out of the Chicago Blackhawks power play. A defenseman cut him off and wheeled him around the boards behind the goal. Still he controlled the puck until it ended in the opposite corner. Most would have then retreated and given the opponent a chance for one last power play rush. Instead Helm dug back against three defenders, until he eventually controlled the puck in the corner. By the time the Blackhawk defenders finally knocked the 172 lb. center off the puck there was only :02 left on the penalty. The Red Wing faithful gave him a standing ovation.

Such persistence isn’t always required, but it is sometimes rewarded.

Just 3:58 into overtime Helm sat next to the net. He waited as a Brett Lebda’s shot from the point sailed through. He sat by as Tomas Holmstrom whacked at the puck. Then just when he thought his persistence might not be rewarded the puck squirted out from goalie Cristobal Huet’s pads, a rubber gift from the hockey gods.

Helm slammed that gift into the net and sent the Red Wings to the Finals for a rematch of last years final with Pittsburgh.

“We lose guys and we keep getting the job done,” Lebda told reporters after the game.

Those guys Lebda referred to were only a six-time Norris Trophy-winning defenseman named Nicklas Lidstrom, a Hart Trophy finalist named Pavel Datsyuk, a phenomenal rookie defenseman named Jonathan Ericsson and a four-time Cup-winning forward named Kris Draper.

“Everybody picked up the slack,” said 47-year-old defensemen Chris Chelios, who had already played more than 150 NHL games before Helm was born.

People are astonished by the Wings ability to find guys who can carry their load when the big boys are hurt or are struggling. Not enough credit is given to Ken Holland and his staff for identifying the talent and knowing just how to employ it. ozzy

Tonight they got their money’s worth.

They also got a repayment on their re-investment in Chris Osgood, who looked oh so good in net.

With a depleted back line that necessitated playing the decrepit, yet somehow constantly tanned, Chelios, Osgood stopped 30 of the 31 shots and kept the score even in the 2^nd period when the Blackhawks peppered him with a flurry of scoring opportunities.

Fourteen years after it defeated Chicago and threw a party with the Campbell Trophy only to get blasted in the finals, the Red Wings took their prize and calmly skated off the ice. They are much older and wiser now. They have a bigger trophy they are after.

Perhaps after a few more battle-testing years this young Blackhawk team will know the feeling.

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Kevin Patra lives by the adage: Those who can’t do, write. Currently, he is a grad student at the University of Southern California studying Online Journalism, after spending four years at the University of Michigan obtaining a bachelors degree from the school of Language, Science & Fun. Patra considers using the troughs at Joe Louis Arena as one of the most traumatic experience of his childhood.