On the night of July 22, 1990, in Portland, Oregon, the Detroit Red Wings pulled off the boldest move in franchise history -- not a trade or a signing, but an escape. A year earlier they'd spent a fourth-round pick, 74th overall, on Sergei Fedorov, a jewel of the Soviet Red Army team they had no legal way to sign. Executives Jim Lites and Nick Polano, with Free Press newsman Keith Gave, spent nearly a year planning to get him out. When the Soviet team came to Portland for the Goodwill Games, the window opened -- and owner Mike Ilitch's private jet carried Fedorov to Detroit. He became the 1994 NHL MVP, a three-time Stanley Cup champion, and the first thread of a Russian wave that reshaped the team.

On July 18, 1997 -- barely six weeks after the Detroit Red Wings swept the Philadelphia Flyers to win their first Stanley Cup since 1955, ending a 42-year drought -- Detroit made two moves on the same day that turned one championship into a dynasty. They signed head coach Scotty Bowman to a two-year extension and promoted Ken Holland from assistant GM to general manager. Bowman won two more Cups behind the Detroit bench; Holland's front office won three, added four Presidents' Trophies, and ran a 25-season playoff streak.

The day the Red Wings hired Mike Babcock — and set off the winningest coaching run in franchise history.

Eddie Bush played 26 NHL games — and set a defenseman scoring record in a Stanley Cup Final that still stands.

The morning they tore down the Detroit Olympia — the house that Gordie Howe built.

Ken Holland signed with Detroit as a backup goalie on July 6th, nineteen eighty-three. He played three NHL games total. Then he stayed — and built four Stanley Cup dynasties.

Bob Probert was born on July 5th, nineteen sixty-five. He died on July 5th, two thousand ten — his 45th birthday, on a boat on Lake Saint Clair. The man who protected Steve Yzerman for a decade never got to see sixty.

July 4th, nineteen ninety-seven. Detroit had won the Cup 27 days earlier. Vladimir Konstantinov was in a hospital, 21 days after the limousine accident. The city was holding two feelings at once — and had no idea how to let either one go.

On June 27, 2004, with the 97th overall pick — late in the third round — the Detroit Red Wings selected a 24-year-old Swedish winger named Johan Franzén. Most of the league had passed on him twice. Coach Mike Babcock nicknamed him "The Mule" because he carried the load — and by the 2008 playoffs, Franzén was one of Detroit's most devastating postseason scorers, on the way to a Stanley Cup.