This Day in Red Wings History

Detroit handed a cocky 24-year-old the crease on July 27, 2016 -- a coronation that curdled, then came full circle. The story of Petr Mrazek's rise, fall, and return.

Detroit picked up Kris Draper for a dollar in 1993. Eighteen years, four Cups, a Selke Trophy, and a Grind Line legend later, he retired a Red Wing on July 26, 2011.

Detroit got PAID to take on Marc Staal in the summer of 2021 -- a rebuild-economics move buried in a quiet cap-space transaction, and the story behind Steve Yzerman's teardown philosophy.

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.