Griffins’ Calder Cup win a bright spot in an otherwise dire season for Red Wings fans

Earlier this week, the Stanley Cup was awarded to a team not named Detroit, as has happened over 100 times in history. No big deal, right? Well, it shouldn’t be. But for many, it was just the icing on the worst cake they’ve ever tasted, for one very specific reason.

No longer would the 1997 & 1998 Wings teams hold the candle as the most recent two-time champions. For many, the Penguins winning was a dagger that hurt quite a bit, especially because they were one game away from doing it against the very same Penguins in 2009. For others, they’re indifferent. But whatever you feel, for many reasons, it’s undeniable this was one of the worst seasons ever for the Wings. Maybe it stings just a little more considering what a trying year it was in Detroit.

It’d be disingenuous to compare the loss of Mr. Hockey and Mr. I to the loss of a player, an arena, another team winning the Stanley Cup, and a playoff streak.

At the same time, the 2016/17 Detroit Red Wings Hockey Club, were, in a word, disastrous. It was a bad culture, and a confused, upset, and often angry fanbase watched an extremely ugly on-ice product for 82 games this season. It was a team that already had 30% of its regulation wins by game 7 of the season, and no real hope for the year once December hit.

On one hand, it’d be hard to feel bad for a franchise who has won four Stanley Cups since 1997. The Wings run of success was something mostly unprecedented in the modern era. Most fans in the NHL long for the day their team wins a single Stanley Cup, but many Detroit fans have been able to see their team do it four whole times.

On the other hand, this season was quite abysmal. It wasn’t so much the point total, but the way they went about things. The roster was a mishmash, the team was incredibly disorganized. There was nothing positive about this season, it seemed. What about next year? Will it get better? Was there anything to look forward to?

And then, suddenly, hope.

Last night, a fun thing happened:

The Calder Cup is kind of a mixed bag.

Taking one look at the quick summary how the season shook out, it’s clear there were a whole lot of negatives. Some lowlights:

Yeah, it was an awful year. It seemed like the Red Wings would head into the offseason with nothing positive or to look forward to.

And then… hope.

The best thing to happen to the Wings this season, might have just been the success of their AHL team.

It’d really be hard to argue otherwise. Winning some sort of championship trophy is always better than not winning at all, and the Wings were a bottom 10 team basically all year long.

At the end of the day, we don’t really know what the future holds for the Wings out of this group. The biggest example that AHL success doesn’t always correlate to NHL success is well, their own 2013 champion team.

Like we say in the article’s first line, it’s the second time in five years that Grand Rapids has won it all… and obviously, the Wings have nothing to show for it. Since the last time the Wings won the Calder Cup, they’ve won a total of 5 NHL playoff games, while six players from that team remain in the organization as NHL regulars: Tomas Tatar, Gustav Nyquist, Luke Glendening, Riley Sheahan, Petr Mrazek and Danny DeKeyser. A couple of the team’s prospects, such as Mitch Callahan and Ryan Sproul have stuck around, but they’re getting close to past the expiry date of legitimate NHL contributor.

Since 2009, the list of Calder Cup winners, with their NHL affiliates:

The good news is, none of these teams have been awful over that time frame since they won. The bad news, the Wings looking forward are probably in the worst position of all these teams moving forward.

While it might be assumed,Just 7 of their regular skaters from this season are in the U-25 range for this upcoming season (1993 or later birthdays), in Evgeny Svechnikov, Joe Hicketts, Dylan Sadowy, Tyler Bertuzzi, Martin Frk, Robbie Russo, and Daniel Renouf. Jared Coreau mixes into that group as well, but looks far from a sure thing in the NHL ice time we’ve seen him in this past season with the Red Wings.

The future is uncertain in Detroit, and Grand Rapids as well. Things could turn around next season, or we could be looking forward to another draft lottery next season. But for one night last night, or one playoff run, if you were watching more closely, Red Wings and Griffins fans could forget about all that and enjoy winning a championship for the organization.