WATCH: Red Wings welcome ’08 Cup champ Darren Helm back to Detroit

@Darren Helm spent parts of 14 seasons with the Detroit Red Wings, carving out a niche as a responsible two-way forward and winning the Stanley Cup with the team in 2008.

His tenure wearing the winged wheel came to an end on July 29, 2021, when he signed a one-year, $1 million contract with the Colorado Avalanche as an unrestricted free agent.

The versatile 35-year-old forward made his return to Detroit on Wednesday and was greeted warmly by the assembled crowd at Little Caesars Arena.

Helm appeared in 744 regular-season games with the Red Wings between 2007–08 and 2020–21, scoring 112 goals and 251 points with the team.

He established himself as a regular during the Red Wings’ run to the 2008 Stanley Cup, appearing in 18 playoff games that year and scoring four points (two goals, two assists). As the Red Wings returned to the Stanley Cup Final the following season, Helm appeared in all 23 of the team’s playoff contests and scored five points (four goals, one assist).

In 39 games with the first-place Avalanche this season, Helm has four goals and seven points while averaging 10:37 (his lowest mark in that category since the 2007–08 season, where he played 49 total minutes over seven games).

Helm became a free agent in 2021 after the expiry of the five-year, $3.85 million-AAV contract he signed with Ken Holland’s Red Wings in 2016. The product of St. Andrews, Manitoba elected to sign with the team that now has a 37–10–4 record through its first 51 games of the 2021–22 season.

The Avalanche defeated the Red Wings by a 5–2 score on Wednesday evening. @Filip Zadina and @Robby Fabbri scored for Detroit; Helm assisted on @Gabriel Landeskog’s first of two goals in the game, with @Tyson Jost, @Nazem Kadri, and @Valeri Nichushkin also scoring for Colorado.

The Red Wings will return to action on Saturday when they welcome the Toronto Maple Leafs to Little Caesars Arena for a game at 7:30 p.m. ET. You’ll be able to catch that game on Bally Sports Detroit (or on Hockey Night in Canada, if you live north of the 49th parallel).

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