Remembering When Red Wings Ruled The Hockey World: Watch Detroit Win

As the Detroit Red Wings lick their wounds and limp to the finish line to complete another season concluding in a playoff absence, perhaps it’s better to look back than look ahead.

It was 70 years ago this week when the Red Wings were the rulers of the hockey world. Yes, back in those days, the NHL season would conclude by mid-April.

A 3-1 victory over the Montreal Canadiens in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final at Olympia Stadium would make Detroit champions of the NHL for the second year in a row, third time in four seasons and fourth time in six campaigns.

That 1954-55 season also marked the seventh successive season that the Red Wings were finishing first overall in the NHL standings. That’s a record which has never been equaled before or since in over a century of NHL competition.

On the decisive night, legendary Red Wings names dominated the scene. Terry Sawchuk got the win between the pipes. Alex Delvecchio scored twice. It was Mr. Hockey himself, Gordie Howe, who would net the Cup-winning goal, redirecting a Marcel Pronovost shot past Canadiens netminder Jacques Plante.

Howe finished that playoff campaign as the leading scorer. He’d account for 9-11-20 totals in 11 games. That set a Stanley Cup single-season mark. It also stood as the Red Wings club mark for decades.

Red Wings Would Spiral Downward

In the fall of 1955, one hockey publication boasted that the Red Wings were planning to imprison the Stanley Cup for all time. Instead, the team was about to head off into hockey purgatory.

Earlier that summer, Detroit GM Jack Adams would ship Sawchuk off to the Boston Bruins. In enusuing years, captain Ted Lindsay, Norris Trophy-winning defenseman Red Kelly and Sawchuk’s replacement Glenn Hall would also be sent packing.

The Wings would finish second to the Canadiens in the 1955-56 season and lose the Cup final series to Montreal in five games.

Doug Harvey takes the puck away from Ted Lindsay,
Doug passes the puck to Jean Béliveau,
Jean Béliveau scores with a blast of a slapshot!

Montreal Canadiens vs Detroit Red Wings.
1955 Stanley Cup Finals pic.twitter.com/7iUVC7djjA

— Evan Streifel (@Evan_Streifel) September 10, 2024

By the 1958-59 season, Detroit would miss the playoffs, finishing last overall in the NHL. The Dead Wings Era was upon us. There wouldn’t be another Red Wings Stanley Cup celebration until 1997.

Nine years without a playoff game. Forty-two years without a title. Which is worse?

Those who’ve suffered through both droughts would simply put it this way:

Neither was a whole lot of fun.