Wings Top SI's Decade List

By Adam W Parks

It's December of 2009. About time for everyone to start ranking their 'best of the decade' lists. Sports Illustrated Magazine ranked its decade's best and worst for the NHL with the Detroit Red Wings taking the top honors in several categories.

From Michael Farber, SI.com:

PLAYER OF THE DECADE: Nicklas Lidstrom, Red Wings
He's a man for his era, a defenseman who is practically perfect in every way. With post-lockout rule changes making the off-the-glass, crease-clearing blueline behemoth practically obsolete, the ability to play positional hockey and move the puck became paramount. Lidstrom, a Swede, was the most accomplished at the refined art, winning six Norris Trophies in the decade and becoming the first European to captain a Stanley Cup champion.

BEST COACH: Mike Babcock, Ducks and Red Wings
Canada's 2010 Olympic coach took teams to three Stanley Cup Finals, winning with Detroit in 2008 and losing Game 7s with the middling Ducks in 2003 and the defending champion Red Wings last June. Babcock is relentless and fanatical about details, figuring if the small stuff is perfect, the big picture will take care of itself. He knows the game and -- as important -- the makeup of his teams and character of his players as well as any coach in the post-expansion era.

BEST GM: Ken Holland, Red Wings
Without the gaudy top draft picks that have helped turn teams into champions - Pittsburgh is Exhibit A -- the Red Wings under Holland simply go about their annual exercise of excellence. The result: Stanley Cups in 2002 and 2008 and a trip to the 2009 final. Holland has had fewer salary-cap problems than the estimable Lou Lamoriello of New Jersey, demonstrating a remarkable ability to navigate his franchise no matter what the economic system. Of course, Holland has the NHL's best support group, which included Scotty Bowman (until he left for Chicago in 2008) and still boasts assistant GM Jim Nill and European scouting director Hakan Andersson.

BEST FRANCHISE: Red Wings
Sure, they won two Cups and an NHL-best 15 playoff rounds during the decade, but the following explains why the Red Wings are the franchise of the 2000s: Hakan Andersson, their eyes in Europe, suggested that Holland select a lanky center from Sweden named Jonathan Ericsson with the 291st, and last, pick of the 2002 draft. After the draft, Andersson went to Ericsson's coach and told him he would be better off putting the lanky kid on defense. Ericsson is now in Detroit's top six, a defenseman with star potential.

Not that there is much of an argument for any of those above, but this one is a dead-on hit on the nowe:

BEST SINGLE-SEASON TEAM: 2001-02 Red Wings
Their fourth line in the 2002 Stanley Cup finals featured Igor Larionov centering Luc Robitaille and Tomas Holmstrom. Larionov and Robitaille are now in the Hall of Fame. (Holmstrom will also be going if the Hall establishes a wing for players who set up shop on the edge of the crease during power plays and talk trash.) While Detroit's 116 regular-season points fell two shy of Colorado's team of all-stars the previous year, the Wings' credentials were impeccable. Robitaille and Larionov represent just a sliver of slam-dunk Hall of Famers on that team, which included Steve Yzerman and Brett Hull (already enshrined), Dominik Hasek, Chris Chelios, Brendan Shanahan, Lidstrom and Sergei Fedorov.

This one goes out to Munchum:

BIGGEST NEAR-MISS: Jim Balsillie attempt to buy the Coyotes, 2009
The future of more than a franchise rested in the hands of a Phoenix bankruptcy court judge with the mellifluous name of Redfield T. Baum. If Baum had ruled (against a 26-0 vote of the NHL's Board of Governors) that Balsillie had the best bid for the franchise, pro sports could have turned into a free-for-all. In theory, any potential owner could then have bought -- and relocated -- a team, league rules and wishes be damned. Judge Baum ultimately rejected both Balsillie's and the NHL's bids, but in November awarded the team to the league after it tweaked its bid. Balsillie, the Research in Motion co-CEO, chose not to drag out the legal proceedings with an appeal. That sound you heard was all pro sports franchises heaving a sigh of relief.

This one I called nearly a month ago:

WORST FRANCHISE: Thrashers
Sorry to pick on them, but they edge the Blue Jackets for this dubious on-ice distinction. Both made the playoffs once in the decade. Both were swept in four games, mostly because you can't be eliminated in three. The difference is that Atlanta goalie Kari Lehtonen colored his hair a Thrashers shade of blue to help, ahem, inspire the team. (So much for dyeing and going to heaven.) The Jackets look like they have a firmer foundation heading into the next decade than Atlanta, which, if it can't re-sign potential unrestricted free agent Ilya Kovalchuk, might as well padlock Philips Arena. (Off the ice, of course, the bankrupt Phoenix Coyotes, currently wards of the league, are the runaway winner.)

Peace.