DETROIT — Sergei Fedorov could do it all on the ice. Maybe it’s appropriate, then, that he played multiple roles at the ceremony to retire his number and commemorate his incredible tenure with the Detroit Red Wings.
First and foremost, Fedorov was a gracious star of the show. It was not hard to tell he was touched by the pageantry of the night and the passion of the fans who packed Little Caesars Arena on Monday, 90 minutes before puck drop in a game between the Wings and the Carolina Hurricanes franchise Fedorov once signed a contract to play for.
More on that later.
Throughout the evening, Fedorov gave as much love as he received. At times, it almost felt like — in addition to being the subject of the toast — he could have also been the master of ceremonies for his own event, gleefully calling attention to family members and, of course, some of his former teammates who turned out to support one of the 1990s’ defining players.
The flash Fedorov played with has not gone anywhere. We didn’t call it “swag” when he was dancing around defenders in those famous white Nike blades, but that’s what it was.
Fedorov rolled onto the Motor City ice in one of the Corvettes he used to whip around town in and exited the vehicle with his familiar slicked-back hair and cutting the kind of trim profile that belies his 56 years. He quipped, “Still fast,” to the crowd when he darted over to kiss his wife, Karina, and two children, Alexandra and Viktor, before coming back to the mic. And he spoke with unmistakable emotion when he recalled being a teenager in Russia, suddenly finding himself practising with some of the best players in the land at the tail end of the Soviet era.
“You know their names!” Fedorov exclaimed to the crowd, before rhyming off the handles of some of the legends who eventually comprised the famed “Russian Five” with him in Detroit. When he got to Vladimir Konstantinov — the hard-rock defenceman who was badly injured in a car crash in the days following Detroit’s 1997 Stanley Cup triumph — Fedorov dashed over to the wheelchair-bound Konstantinov and gave his friend a loving embrace.
All the laughs and hugs felt like they were building toward one moment. In a building full of people who longed to see Fedorov’s 91 become the ninth number retired by the Original Six squad, Fedorov addressed the issue that, for too long, put some distance between player and franchise.
“Leaving Detroit when I did was a huge mistake,” he said.
Fedorov sat out a big chunk of the 1997-98 campaign as a restricted free agent before inking a huge, six-year offer sheet with the Hurricanes. Detroit matched the contract and ultimately won two more Cups with Fedorov in the fold.
By 2003, though, there was nothing stopping Fedorov from leaving Michigan as an unrestricted free agent, and he put pen to paper with the Anaheim Ducks. After spending parts of two seasons in Southern California, Fedorov finished out his Hall of Fame career in Columbus and Washington.
Even before offering a Mea Culpa Monday night at the lectern, Fedorov touched on his Detroit departure in a social media video that dropped in the days leading up to his big event.
"By far that’s the most, and probably the only, regret that I have,” he states in the video. “I should have stayed with the Red Wings for the longest time."
He’s there forever now in the form of the banner that hangs high above the ice. And even if he resides in Russia these days, Fedorov left no doubt about the city that’s No. 1 in his heart.
“Detroit is home, always been, no matter where I was,” he said in a press conference about an hour before the Corvette chauffeured him to centre ice. “I swear to God, when I landed every time in Detroit, I felt at ease, I breathed differently, and I enjoy that feeling every time I land. Detroit is home.”
Fedorov certainly spoke with the joy and comfort of a man who felt like he was back where he belonged. And if anyone needed a refresher on Fedorov’s incredible legacy in Detroit, four items that attest to it were lined up about 35 feet to his right as he spoke. In 1994, Fedorov claimed the Hart Trophy as league MVP and the Selke Trophy as the league’s best defensive forward after he scored 56 goals and 120 points.
We didn’t call them “200-foot players” then, but that’s what he was. No other player has won the Hart and Selke in the same season, and Philadelphia Flyers legend Bobby Clarke is the only one who has also won both trophies at all.
Also on display was the Ted Lindsay Award Fedorov won during that incredible 1993-94 campaign (when it was still called the Lester B. Pearson Award) for being named the best player in the league by his fellow players. Finally, there was the Stanley Cup Fedorov helped the Wings win three times during his 13 years wearing red and white.
It’s hard to believe all that happened to a kid who grew up in the northern reaches of the former Soviet Union, shovelling snow off the rink that was just five minutes from his house so he could skate, stickhandle and shoot until his hands and feet could take no more. Fedorov recalled that when he first got invited to skate with the national squad as a 16-year-old in the mid-80s, he “could not lift 60 kilos. But the next year, I (have) to tell you, I was lifting everything.”
That growing young man surely had no idea that his hockey future — and that of several other prominent countrymen — would play out in the NHL. But upon his defection in 1990 — one year after the Wings drafted him in 1989 — Fedorov immediately knew he had made the right call.
“I was so happy and excited I couldn’t sleep on the plane, even though we flew a red-eye overnight,” Fedorov said of his first life-changing trip to Detroit. “Six in the morning, I was in Detroit, and I never looked back. It was sunny, and I was very happy.”
Fedorov, along with that first wave of Russian players to make the jump, was a trailblazer whose legacy is still felt by NHLers from that country today.
“Obviously (he’s) one of the first Russians who kind of opened this road for the Russian players to come into North American and play in this league,” said Carolina’s Andrei Svechnikov before the game. “(He’s one) of the greatest Russian players (to play) in the NHL. For me, watching him when I was growing up, watching his highlights, he was always out there for me, somewhere up high, and I just tried to watch his game and enjoy it and take something from it.”
Svechnikov had the honour of taking part in the ceremonial face-off before the game when Fedorov, after No. 91 had been hoisted up, came out to drop the puck and get one more blast of applause from the fans. Taking the draw on the other side of the red line was Detroit captain and Michigan boy Dylan Larkin, a person who certainly took note of Fedorov’s calling cards in his formative years.
“The way he skated, the flare, the speed, the power,” said Larkin, noting he watched videos of the famous clashes between Fedorov’s Wings and the Colorado Avalanche religiously as a kid. “Growing up in Detroit, you try to be like him. He was one of those guys kids looked up to and wanted to have (his style), the moves that he had.”
Fedorov and his Detroit teammates had something else Larkin and the current Wings want, too: playoff success.
This has been a special year in Motown, as the organization celebrates its centennial season in the NHL. And while events that honour past greats are always unique, there’s an added layer to the proceedings when it feels like the team playing underneath all those banners could do something special itself.
The Wings are one of the best squads in the Eastern Conference this year and won their fourth game in a row by beating Carolina 4-3 in overtime on a game-deciding marker that fittingly saw one Michigan kid, Alex DeBrincat, set up another in Andrew Copp to make sure the fans left as happy as they came and Fedorov — watching from high above — could bust out a 90s-style raise-the-roof celebration as the Wings trickled off the ice.
“If you told (us) when we had this date circled on our calendar for Sergei’s night that (we’d have a chance to gain first place in the East), we would probably not believe it,” said Larkin, whose squad is tied atop the conference with Carolina on 60 points. “But there’s belief in our room now, and it does make it more special that we’ve come together, we’ve been winning as a team in different ways and winning in big games as well.”
For all the individual hardware Fedorov won, the reason he and the players of his era are remembered so fondly in Detroit is because they had success in the hugest of games and made banner-raising ceremonies where an entire team was feted a regular occurrence.
“We went through everything together,” Fedorov said to his teammates. “Tough nights, heartbreaking losses and wins that felt like they could lift the whole city.
“I’ll tell you, it’s only a matter of time until the Red Wings will win another Stanley Cup!”
Not surprisingly, that declaration drew a serious pop from the people Fedorov thanked one more time.
“You Detroit fans are special,” he said. “You are loyal, passionate, you show up, always. You embraced me, you supported me, and you make the city feel like home. I felt that love on the ice, and I feel it even more tonight. There is nothing like playing in front of you.”
Those adoring supporters could always call Fedorov one of the greatest Red Wings ever. But now — finally — that status is official.
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