Maybe more Cup-worthy than you think

Was 2009 really six years ago?

Not playing for a Cup for that long can turn Hockeytown into a hostile place. It doesn't seem that far away that the Detroit Red Wings and Penguins went at it, toe to toe in consecutive Stanley Cup Finals, each winning on the other team's ice. Detroit was a game 7 slapper off the post from possibly winning back-to-back Cups.

Or the years when hockey's biggest rivalry, the Red Wings versus the hated Colorado Avalanche, produced five Stanley Cup champions in a span of seven years. The last of which, Detroit's 2002 NHL championship, I was lucky enough to experience first-hand (see my panoramic photo above). Boy those were the days huh?

Crash zoom to today. The dream is dead, the team is over the hill, let coach Mike Babcock sign with another team, it's time for the big overhaul, local fans decry. Yet even though it's been more than half a decade since they've played in a conference championship (in either conference), the winged wheels aren't the train wreck some people in town have made them out to be.

In fact, they've been good enough to win Stanley Cups in two of the last three seasons.

Nothing suggests this more than tonight's events. The Tampa Bay Lightning just knocked off the top seeded Montreal Canadiens, in a relatively easy six-game series, and now move on to the Eastern Conference Finals. Why is this significant? Because last month, the Bolts were being matched volt for volt by the tenacious Red Wings. Sitting in their locker room during the second intermission of game 7, they were scoreless, and had as much of a chance to survive and advance as their supposedly superior opponents.

Playoff hockey being what it is, one of the teams had to score, and that goal would likely determine the series. And if history is any indication it would likely be of the junk variety, not pretty but effective nonetheless. Tampa Bay's Braydon Coburn lit the lamp, then the Lightning added an empty netter in the final minute that officially disposed of Detroit. And now that same Tampa Bay team is two opponents away from hoisting the 35-pound chalise.

It's no fluke that Detroit played this Cup favorite so close. Because it also happened two years ago.

Remember the Chicago Blackhawks? The 2010 and 2013 Stanley Cup champs who may well lay claim to "Team Of The Decade" status once all is said and done. The Red Wings were an overtime goal away from denying them second of those two Cups.

Babcock's boys had already eliminated the second-seeded Anaheim Ducks in an epic seven-game slugfest (four of which went into overtime) and had taken a commanding three-games-to-one lead over top-seeded Chicago. After a blow-out loss in game 5, they had taken a 3-2 lead after two periods in front of a raucous Joe Louis crowd. Even after their inexcusable game 6 defeat, Henrik Zetterberg (see below) netted a last-minute goal that sent game 7 to OT. At that point, the series was essentially a dead heat.

So what are we to make of this, or rather, what should we? The team hasn't held hockey sticks in the month of June since 2009. They've limped into the playoffs in recent years, transforming late-season contests from season-ticket-holder freebie gifts into full-blown nail-biters. They literally needed a four-game win streak just to sneak into the 2013 playoffs.

But maybe this is not the most accurate way to judge this team. Given the ascent of the Lightning this postseason, the Blackhawks' success in 2013, and the recent runs of the Los Angeles Kings—who won Stanley Cups in 2012 and 2014 as seventh and sixth seeds, respectively—Red Wing fans may well have been two goals away from an altogether different scenario.

A scenario that involved celebrating their city's 12th and 13th Stanley Cups.