Let's put to rest right now all talk about how much the Pittsburgh Penguins resemble the 1984 Oilers.
DETROIT – My, how a convenient statistic and 25 years can cloud our memories.
You think you’ve heard enough references to 1984 already? In the name of George Orwell it’s barely begun, my friend.
Over these next couple of days you will be teleported back a quarter century to the fall of the mighty New York Islanders, who were finally supplanted by an Edmonton Oilers team that had dutifully passed every test the Islanders could submit them to -- including a four-game sweep in the 1983 Stanley Cup Final.
We’ll hear the story of Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier walking in defeat past that open door to the Islanders dressing room and noticing how beat up the veteran Isles were in victory, compared to how relatively unscathed the Oilers felt in defeat.
Over the years that story has been surgically distorted more times than Michael Jackson’s face, but it will be told again this week, as if the two Oilers were invited into the opposition’s room to count the ice bags.
And should some plugger like Matt Cooke sift one in to decide Game 1 in Pittsburgh’s favour, the TV stations will yard out that grainy video of Kevin McClelland famously hitting the net with a shot that won the ’84 opener 1-0 on Long Island. It’s the biggest goal in Oilers history, some still say, as if that runaway series might have tilted the other way had McClelland not scored when he did.
The comparison between then and now works, if the term "works" is defined only by the obvious statistic: that 1983 and ’84 is the previous time the same two teams met in a Stanley Cup Final.
But there is just this one little flaw, a fact that will no doubt be forgotten in the name of a good story.
Those Islanders, as great as they were in winning four consecutive Stanley Cups, were on their way out to pasture.
The Detroit Red Wings are nothing of the sort.
After losing that ’84 final in five games to Edmonton — in a series that could have gone 15 games and ended up 14-1 for Gretzky’s boys — the Islanders faded away, winning just two playoff series over the next eight springs. It all ended for that team sometime during Game 3, a 7-2 pasting at Northlands Coliseum that was followed up by another 7-2 shellacking, and then a merciful 5-2 series-capping victory that cemented the passing of the Sherwood from one dynasty to the next and, perhaps, final one.
The problem, of course, with the comparison to the Pittsburgh-Detroit rematch that begins Saturday night at Joe Louis Arena, is that the Detroit Red Wings aren’t finished yet.
Far from it, in fact.
As this series begins, Pavel Datsyuk is 30 years old. Henrik Zetterberg is 28. Johan Franzen is 29. Dan Cleary is 30. Marian Hossa is 30. Niklas Kronwall, who is rounding into one hell of a defenceman, is still improving at 28.
The only fodder for those who say the Red Wings are passing their best before date is Nick Lidstrom, who is 39. And he’ll only be in Las Vegas next month as a finalist for the Norris Trophy.
What’s interesting is that in the spring of 1984, the stars of those Islanders weren’t old either, but younger in fact. Mike Bossy and Bryan Trottier were 27, with Denis Potvin just 31 and goaltender Billy Smith 34. But for some reason – and perhaps its because a 27-year-old player then was athletically "older" than today’s 30-year-old - that group never managed to get out of their division again in the playoffs following the loss to the Oilers.
With players such as Jiri Hudler (25), Val Filppula (25) and Wednesday’s overtime hero, Darren Helms (22), coming up behind, do you see this Red Wings team stalling in the same manner?
Meanwhile the Pittsburgh Penguins, merely by decree of the NHL’s new economy, are not as stacked as the Oilers were a quarter century ago.
While we’re debunking the myth, let’s allow for conversation’s sake that Sidney Crosby is Pittsburgh’s Gretzky and Evgeni Malkin is Mark Messier. Then where do we go from there?
Is Bill Guerin Jari Kurri?
Who is Paul Coffey? Sergei Gonchar?
Is Marc-Andre Fleury a national team goalie today, the way Grant Fuhr was in the Canada Cup years?
Are there six Hall of Fame players on this Penguins roster, as those Oilers eventually supplied?
We rest our case, mostly out of respect to a Red Wings team that is still in the midst of what could be a historic run.
Their depth of skill, in the salary cap era, may not put as many hockey players into the Hall of Fame, but surely should reserve two spots in the builders’ wing for GM Ken Holland and his Swedish genius, scout Hakan Andersson.
As for the series, it promises to be more competitive than the one 25 years ago, with an outcome that likely won’t be as evident after Game 3 as that one was.
How to pick a series in which the incumbent enters with its best two players — Lidstrom and Datsyuk — suffering from injuries, their severity unknown? If neither is in shape to help the Red Wings this series turns into a coin flip, or perhaps even tilts in Pittsburgh’s favour.
We’re guessing at least Lidstrom can go Saturday, but it’s only a guess.
I’ll take Detroit in six.