Detroit Red Wings
Detroit Red Wings, American professional ice hockey team based in Detroit. The team was founded in 1926 and plays in the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). The Red Wings, one of the “Original Six” teams that made up the NHL from 1942 until the league’s expansion in 1967, are not only one of hockey’s oldest franchises but also one of its most successful teams, having won 11 Stanley Cups.
The Red Wings experienced early success in the 1930s, led by coach and eventual general manager Jack Adams. The team won its first Stanley Cup against the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1935–36 season, followed by a repeat victory the following year. These early Red Wings teams featured future Hall of Fame member Syd Howe, who was also part of the Red Wings’ 1942–43 Stanley Cup-winning squad.
Right wing Gordie Howe and goaltender Terry Sawchuk, two of hockey’s all-time great players, led the team to its greatest success throughout the 1950s, when they won Stanley Cups in 1950, 1952, 1954, and 1955. That era was followed by a slump that featured only two playoff berths between the 1966–67 and 1982–83 NHL seasons, earning the team the nickname “The Dead Wings.”
Detroit drafted centre Steve Yzerman in 1983 and returned to the playoffs the next year. The turnaround was not complete until the 1987–88 season, when, along with forwards Bob Probert and Petr Klima, Yzerman led the Red Wings to their first divisional title in 23 years. The 1990s saw the advent of the “Russian Five,” made up of Sergei Fedorov, Slava Kozlov, Vladimir Konstantinov, Igor Larionov, and Slava Fetisov. The Russian Five teamed with Yzerman, left wing Brendan Shanahan, and defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom under the leadership of coach Scotty Bowman to bring Detroit back-to-back Stanley Cups in the 1996–97 and (without Konstantinov) 1997–98 NHL seasons. Dominik Hašek and Brett Hull, both veteran free-agent acquisitions and frequent All-Stars, were featured on a team that won another Stanley Cup in the 2001–02 season.
Lidstrom, goalie Chris Osgood, and left wing Henrik Zetterberg were star players on the team that won the 2007–08 Stanley Cup against the Pittsburgh Penguins. The following season Lidstrom, Osgood, and Zetterberg, along with centre Pavel Datsyuk (who finished fourth in the league with 97 points), helped lead the Red Wings to a rematch with the Penguins in the Stanley Cup finals, though the Red Wings lost in seven games. During the 2011–12 season Detroit won a record-setting 23 consecutive home games.
As part of an NHL realignment, the Red Wings moved from the Western Conference to the Eastern after the 2012–13 season. The Red Wings’ first three seasons in the Eastern Conference all ended in first-round playoff eliminations. In 2016–17 the team’s streak of 25 consecutive postseason appearances (which was tied for the third longest playoff stretch in NHL history) ended. Detroit failed to make the playoffs the next two seasons, and in 2019 the team hired Yzerman as its general manager; he had previously served as GM of the Tampa Bay Lightning and was credited with turning that franchise around. However, the Red Wings continued to struggle, and the team did not make the playoffs the next two seasons, both of which were shortened due to the COVID-19 pandemic.