When the Detroit Red Wings announced on Tuesday that they would be retiring Sergei Fedorov’s #91 in January, there were two types of reactions that were the most frequent on social and traditional media. The first was “it’s about time”, and just about (if not more) commonly, “wait, this didn’t already happen?”.
In total honesty, unless this was a topic you cared passionately about, it would be hard to fault you for falling in the latter boat. Even if you were someone who didn’t fully grasp the impact that Fedorov had as a player, and even if you were someone who wasn’t around at the time, you likely still knew him as one of the biggest names of a dynastic Red Wings core, and knew that he had a spot in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
The short answer for why this took so long – sixteen years after his retirement, and ten after his HHOF induction – is a grudge at the top of the ladder. Red Wings owner Mike Illitch never forgave Fedorov for two brushes with free agency.
In 1998, Fedorov signed a six-year offer sheet with the Carolina Hurricanes, which included a poison pill first season that after playoff bonuses that he was much more likely to achieve in Hockeytown than North Carolina, paid him $28 million. To make matters worse, the Hurricanes were owned by Peter Karmanos, a long-time rival of Illitch’s in both professional and minor sports. Fedorov didn’t just look out for himself, as is his right, but he collaborated with the enemy at the same time.
To leave for Anaheim at the end of that contract was the icing on the cake. While the team wouldn’t give 91 to another player, they wouldn’t offer up the ceremony while Illitch was alive. Eight years after his death, the issue has finally been revisited. Whether it’s a matter of enough time passing or a matter of the Red Wings’ upcoming centennial season forcing a fresh look at their history, we’re here now, where we should be.
If you’re unfamiliar with Fedorov’s time in Detroit, or just want an extended trip down memory lane, take an hour and watch the embedded highlight pack above. Not many players can claim to have a mixtape that’s nearly an hour long, much less one that leaves out a dozen years of their professional career, and international play.
Fedorov was a supernova, and while retrospectives are just starting to catch up to him now, he should go down as one of the most complete talents to ever play the game – someone who truly fit the “200 foot player” moniker, and could dominate you on every square inch of the ice. His jaw dropping speed and agility, his off-the-charts Hockey IQ and his endless swagger often made him the most dangerous player on those generationally deep Detroit rosters. He’d blow by you, he’d rip a shot past your goalie, he’d pick your pocket, he’d dominate you at the on the faceoff dot.
He was so responsible across the ice that he’d often get used as a defenceman when the team was short on bodies. Longtime Red Wings coach Scotty Bowman said that he’d be an All-Star on the blue line had he played it full time, while GM Jim Devellano went further and felt he could’ve been a Norris Trophy-calibre defenceman. We’d see it in spurts and it’s hard to not at least somewhat buy into the hype.
Many will point to Steve Yzerman or Niklas Lidstrom as the first star that comes to mind from those 90’s and early 2000’s teams, but it was Fedorov who was the only player in that group to bring home a Hart Trophy as league MVP – not to mention, the only Red Wing to do so in the post-expansion era. Not only did he do that in 1993/94, but he did so while also winning the Selke Trophy as the league’s top defensive forward (an award he probably deserved to win more than twice), and while scoring more goals and points than any Red Wing has produced since.
Fedorov often found another gear come playoff time, landing at just over a point-per-game across thirteen playoff runs with the Red Wings. He led the NHL in playoff scoring in 1995, led in assists in 1996, led in game winning goals when Detroit finally got their Stanley Cup in 1997, led in total goals in 1998 when they repeated, and led in shots on goal when they picked up one more ring in 2002. You could occasionally accuse him of letting off the gas during the regular season, but spring Fedorov was a different beast, with 28 more playoff points (and 21 more even strength points) than the next-highest Red Wing across his tenure.
Beyond the results, Fedorov has no shortage of sidebars across his Detroit tenure that he’ll be remembered for. His defection from home to form the “Russian Five” with Igor Larionov, Slava Kozlov, Slava Fetisov and Vladimir Konstantinov is the stuff of legends (and the subject of its own fantastic book and film). His flashy white Nike skates remain iconic to this day, and was borderline unstoppable in the arcade hockey classic “NHL Open Ice“.
Fedorov, funny enough, wasn’t really one of my favourite players growing up. I didn’t really care for the Red Wings, and I held a grudge against him for beating Pavel Bure in a race in “Wayne Gretzky’s All Star Hockey Tips”, though I’m not going to pretend I didn’t wear that VHS to shreds as a kid in part for that sequence. But as I’ve become more engrossed in the details of the game, he’s someone I keep coming back to as one that I and others may not have appreciated as much as we should’ve. Not just a great player, but one who should be treated with the respect of rarified air. At his best, he was one of the most dominant and versatile players to ever play at the highest level, and one of the coolest to ever do it.
Most importantly to today, as good as he still was as a Russian pro, internationally, and with other NHL teams, the zenith of his career came as a Red Wing. Grudges aside (and yes, it’s extremely funny that his night will come against the Hurricanes), there are few players more overdue for a banner raising in all of professional sport, and with that, I’m looking forward to January 12th.
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