Tim Ecclestone once sought to explain the difference between playing for the regimented Scotty Bowman in St. Louis, to the atmosphere he found upon arriving in Detroit to play for the Red Wings in 1971.

”I had come from St. Louis, where we had a schedule for everything and it was militaristic,” Ecclestone explained to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in 2016. “This was different. It was like a country club in Detroit.

“Right before we would take the ice, Gordie (Howe) would be reading his book and Alex (Delvecchio would be) smoking his cigar. Then one time there was a golf match on television and it was time to get on the ice and one of the players said, ‘Let’s watch this last putt.’’’

RIP Tim Ecclestone. Ecclestone played 692 regular season NHL games and played in the 1971 All Star Game. After his playing career he stayed in the Atlanta area and worked in the restaurant/bar industry for decades.

Ecclestone was 76.

Godspeed, Mr. Ecclestone. pic.twitter.com/kVeH36CnHb

— The Hockey Samurai 侍 (@hockey_samurai) March 4, 2024

Ecclestone got to play a lot of golf during his time in Detroit. In his three seasons with the Red Wings, they never qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Ecclestone Enjoyed Big Red Wings Seasons

Ecclestone, who died on the weekend at the age of 76, came to Detroit as part of a blockbuster deal with the Blues in February of 1971. He and Red Berenson were dealt to the Red Wings for Garry Unger and Wayne Connelly.

Known for his defensive work as a solid 200-foot player capable of skating on either wing, Ecclestone would enjoy his most productive offensive seasons in Detroit. He’d net a career-high 19 goals and play in the NHL All-Star Game during the 1970-71 campaign. In both 1971-72 and 1972-73, his two full seasons with the Red Wings, Ecclestone was good for 18 goals each season. His 53 points, accumulated in both 1970-71 and 1971-72, were also career bests.

53 years ago today ON THIS DAY in hockey history (February 6, 1971):

The @DetroitRedWings acquire Gordon "Red" Berenson and Tim Ecclestone from the @StLouisBlues for Wayne Connelly and Garry Unger pic.twitter.com/NGdIaSRv15

— Vintage Hockey Showcase (@hockey_vintage) February 6, 2024

Early into the 1973-74 season, the Red Wings would trade Ecclestone to the Toronto Maple Leafs. He’d also later play for the Atlanta Flames. Breaking into the NHL with the Blues, Ecclestone would skate in three successive Stanley Cup finals in his first three NHL season from 1968-70.

The post Obituary: Ecclestone Part of Famous Red Wings Trade appeared first on Detroit Hockey Now.

When the conversation was turning to Igor Larionov’s Torpedo club in the KHL, former Detroit Red Wings coach Scotty Bowman was having himself a hearty chuckle.

“Igor is a pretty humble guy,” Bowman explained. “I was talking to him and I said, ‘How’s your team doing?’ He said, ‘We’re in the middle of the league.’

“I checked the standings. He’s second. The only team that’s ahead of him in his division is (SKA) St Petersburg. He’s 15-10-1.”

Admitting that he was unsure about what to expect when accepting the task of coaching Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod, Larionov has come to embrace the wonderment of the opportunity.

The Professor, @Igor_Larionov. pic.twitter.com/7XtORBR5m5

— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) November 3, 2022

“It’s a great experience, I can tell you that,” Larionov said. “To me, maybe it’s not the same joy (as being a player) but it is good to give your experience to the young players.”

To his great delight, one of the fringe benefits of locating in Nizhny Novgorod is that Larionov is constantly feeling reminiscent of a place were he used to live and won the Stanley Cup on three occasions. Nizhny Novgorod is the KHL version of Hockeytown.

“It’s kind of a town like Detroit, with the auto industry in that city,” Larionov explained. “To me it’s kind of like a reflection of Detroit.

“When you go into the grocery store, people are wishing you good luck. This only happened in Detroit when I played here. It that city, it’s all about the team, about the boys, about success.”

Larionov is a man who held a passionate distate for the neutral-zone trap, resulting in the creation of what’s become known as the dead-puck era in the NHL in the 1990s. He would refer to it as “destroy hockey.”

Larionov Raging Against KHL Machine

In his new position, he’s choosing to also rage against the KHL machine.

“I’m kind of teaching the players to enjoy the game,” Igor Larionov said. “The KHL is kind of a defensive-minded game.

“I have a young team, with the smallest budget in the league. But we play attractive hockey, so we’ve got every game sold out.”

Bowman knows enough about the economics of the KHL to recognize the uphill battle in front of his old center.

“How many teams have a lot of money, about five or six?,” Bowman asked. “It’s a good league but five or six of the teams can get players and keep them. It’s not easy for the other teams.”

That fact of life is immateral to Larionov’s way of thinking. His only message to his team is that they should go for the gusto.

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“We set up the goal to go for the championship,” Larionov said. “We set up the goal, despite that I have no money, but I have the big hearts and a big brain for the players.

“There’s no other way you can tell the players. You can’t say. ‘this is a rebuilding year, we’re gonna rebuild.’ There’s no time to build. You just gotta go right away and surprise everybody.”

The post Larionov Torpedos Himself a Little Slice of Hockeytown in KHL appeared first on Detroit Hockey Now.

There used to be a theory in pro sports that great players didn’t make great bosses, but Scotty Bowman was never buying into that logic.

In fact, he was always welcoming to the notion that the better the player, the sharper the hockey mind.

“When you’ve got that many Hall of Fame players, you know that they can give the input,” Bowman said. “I’m happy to see them in the league.”

The Detroit Red Wings are honoring their 1996-97 and 1997-98 Stanley Cup championship squads this weekend. In sending out the invites to the celebration, the team wasn’t needing to search far and wide to find their old players.

Congrats to legendary @DetroitRedWings coach, Scotty Bowman, for cutting the ribbon to the new @DHSDetroit’s #DetroitHistorical Museum exhibit honoring the ‘97 #RedWings. His handprints were also cast in cement for #LegendsPlaza at the Museum.

Exhibit opens to the public 11/5. pic.twitter.com/WDbfvayDdm

— Mark S. Lee (@leegroup) November 4, 2022

That’s because so many of them are making themselves a second career in the game as coaches, GMs, executives and scouts.

Four of them can often be found inside Little Caesars Arena on a periodic basis. Steve Yzerman, captain of those Red Wings Cup winners, is now executive vice-president and GM of the team. Nicklas Lidstrom works as the club’s vice-president of hockey operations. Kris Draper is Detroit’s director of amateur scouting and Kirk Maltby is a pro scout. Mike Knuble is an assistant coach with the AHL Grand Rapids Griffins, Detroit’s top farm club.

Bowman Says Passion For Hockey Is In The Blood Of Great Players

“I don’t know if you say surprised when players are able to play at the level these guys did,” Bowman answered about seeing so many of his old Detroit players filling key roles in the game. “Why do they want to keep doing it? It’s in their blood.”

With other NHL teams, Brendan Shanahan is president of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Martin Lapointe is serving as director of player personnel and amateur scouting for the Montreal Canadiens. Jamie Pushor is assistant general manager and director of player personnel with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Tim Taylor is director of player development for the St. Louis Blues.

In the KHL, Sergei Fedorov is coaching CSKA Moscow, Igor Larionov coaches Torpedo and Slava Kozlov is an assistant coach with Spartak Moscow.

Stanley Cup Champs As Execs

Many of them are aslo front runners in their front office careers. Both Pushor and Taylor have won Stanley Cups working their front office roles to go with the Cup rings they were earning as players in Detroit. Fedorov was guiding CSKA Moscow to the KHL Gagarin Cup title last season.

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“Actually I was just talking about that today with Martin Lapointe,” former Red Wings GM Ken Holland said. “That team, and I’m sure it’s the same with championship teams all over, they have passion. The success that we had as a group, as a team, allows you to kind of same in the game.

“Once they got in the game, they kind of take it and run with it, because of their passion, because of their work ethic, because of their understanding of what the National Hockey League is all about.”

The post Bowman, Holland Aren’t Surprised Red Wings Pupils Became Mentors appeared first on Detroit Hockey Now.

Former Detroit Red Wings head coach Scotty Bowman is a free agent. Would general manager Steve Yzerman reach out to his former coach?

I am no longer working for the Chicago Blackhawks as of July 1 as I decided it was time to move on. Still love the game and would like to stay involved.

— scott bowman (@coachwsb) July 12, 2022

Bowman is 88 years old but tweets that he’s looking to still be active in hockey. There’s certainly a history between Yzerman and Bowman is well chronicled. Could it result in a reunion?

The Red Wings brass is a who-who of former players from the glory days of the late 90’s and 2000’s. Bowman is speinding his winters in Florida, where he likes to go to hockey games with Red WIngs senior vice-president Jimmy Devellano. An adviser role doesn’t seem like a stretch.

Malkin Re-Signs with Penguins Preventing Red Wings Bid

For all the intrigue about Evgeni Malkin hitting the open market, Brian Burke and Ron Hextall sure poured an ocean’s worth of cold water on that Tuesday night. Malkin agreed to a four-year, $24.4 million deal that will assuredly keep him in Pittsburgh as a Penguin for life.

The free agent pool is already intriguing enough with Nazem Kadri, John Klingberg, and now Jonathan Huberdeau set to test the market. If there’s ever a year in the rebuild where Yzerman is sure to be more aggressive, it’s this year. In a few hours, everyone will see what Yzerman plans to do.

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In Case You Missed It

Detroit Red Wings prospects William Wallinder and Shai Buium have taken different paths through the pipeline.

Former head coach Jeff Blashill lands in Tampa Bay as an assistant to Jon Cooper.

National Hockey Now

Philadelphia: Oskar Lindblom is bought out by the Philadelphia Flyers.

Boston: Some free agent chatter as the Boston Bruins ready for the floodgates opening.

Colorado: Alexandar Georgiev is still processing the reality that he’s now with the Colorado Avalanche.

Vegas: Five Bold Thoughts for the Vegas Golden Knights offseason.

The post Red Wings Daily: Scotty Bowman is a Free Agent appeared first on Detroit Hockey Now.

It was 19 years ago today that the Detroit Red Wings won the Stanley Cup. As someone who was there to witness the moment, it was a night filled with romance, history and an exclamation point shock finish when Wings coach Scotty Bowman announced after donning his skates to do a tour of the ice with the Stanley Cup hoisted over his head that his unparalleled Hall of Fame career was at an end.

It wasn’t, as so many want to anoint it, the crowning moment for the best team in NHL history. The 2001-02 Red Wings were worthy Stanley Cup champions, a roster filled up with Hall of Fame talent. What they weren’t, though, was the best-ever NHL team.

No, not then. Not now. Not ever.

In fact, they’d struggle to gain a podium finish in the best-there-ever-was category.

The post The 2001-02 Red Wings: No, They Weren’t The Best Team Ever | DHN+ appeared first on Detroit Hockey Now.

This is my first official day writing about the Red Wings for Detroit Hockey Now, but I’ve been preparing for the job for more than half a century.

I was the kid standing in front of our black and white portable TV in the 1960s, twisting the round UHF antenna, with the hope of better reception for the Detroit Red Wings games on Channel 50.

In my lifetime, I’ve watched Red Wings’ home games at three different arenas. I saw Gordie Howe play live. I was at Olympia Stadium when Wilf Paiement took the baseball-like swing at Dennis Polonich’s face. In the late 1970s, I stayed up all night at Olympia to buy playoff tickets. I was there, with standing room only tickets, when Bill Lochead scored a pair, including the series clincher, when the Red Wings beat the Atlanta Flames in a 1979 playoff series.

My NHL writing career started with a feature about Detroit Red Wings player Reed Larson in 1976. At the time, he had no front teeth and the most wicked slap shot I had ever witnessed.  I reported on Steve Yzerman’s first training camp for the Port Huron (Mich.) Times-Herald. You could see in his first shifts that he had magic in his game.

In a tired cardboard box in my home office sits a yellowed newspaper clipping of a story I wrote about Harry Neale becoming the Red Wings’ coach in 1985. At the time, he was still a young man by NHL coaching standards. Today, Harry is 84 

What that means is I’ve been at this game for many, many years. I spent 34 seasons as USA TODAY’s national hockey columnist. I have been all over the world covering more games than I care to count. But I’ve covered more games in Detroit than any other venue.

I am not finished with reporting and writing. And being the watchdog on the Red Wings’ rebuild  makes too much sense. You won’t find too many reporters more qualified to analyze Steve Yzerman than I am.

My analysis of his work now spans five different decades. I wrote about his first day at training camp, his first season and his first goal. I watched him grow into one of the NHL’s most dominant performers. When Yzerman’s 155  points placed him third in the NHL scoring race behind Mario Lemieux (199) and Wayne Gretzky (168), I remember writing that Yzerman was “the NHL’s best player in the mere mortal division.”

In my long career of covering the NHL, Lemieux was the most effective breakaway scorer I ever saw and Yzerman was second. 

He then matured into one of the NHL’s all-time revered captains. At coach Scotty Bowman’s urging, Yzerman transformed himself from offensive wizard to fierce warrior. He became the gritty, hard-checking, shot-blocking beast, all accomplished on one good leg.

The symbol of the Red Wings’ 2002 Stanley Cup championship was Yzerman using his stick for leverage to get up when he was knocked to the ice.

As an administrator, Yzerman has been as proficient as he was as a player. He didn’t win a Stanley Cup in Tampa Bay, but he built most of the roster that won a Stanley Cup in 2020.

Thus far, he seems to be on the right track to turning around the Red Wings. He’s a sharp hockey mind, a savvy trader, and a superb talent evaluator. 

But he will not be a perfect GM. Nobody ever is. Ken Holland was revered as a general manager in Detroit until he wasn’t. Some fans believed he grew stale. I have my own assessment of what happened with Holland. But that’s a story for another day Hockey Now Detroit.

What I can say today is that I will give you an honest assessment of how he is doing. If the Red Wings are on the right path, I will tell you. If they are blundering in certain areas, I will explain that as well.

To me, the job of a reporter isn’t just sitting on the couch and pontificating about what you see. It’s about gathering information, talking to friends, rivals and experts about the subject, gaining as much knowledge as possible before formulating my analysis.

One of my favorite hockey people to talk to is the legendary coach Scotty Bowman. The man’s a hockey genius. He is as sharp today as he was when he was filling his resume with Stanley Cups.

When he was still coaching, I used to joke with people that Scotty Bowman “knows all and sees all.”

He proved that assessment to be true years ago when he asked one of my fellow reporters whether he was aware that my daughter, Kelsey, a middle schooler at the time, wrote for Beanie Baby Magazine.

It was all true. He does know everything that goes on. Of course, the next time I saw Bowman I had to know how in the world he knew my daughter wrote for that publication.

It turned out that Bowman read that magazine because he collected Beanie Babies for his grandchildren when he traveled. He and his wife were the subjects of my daughter’s next feature. I think Bowman likes that tale as much as I do. 

Hope you enjoy my stories, and I hope you will like my analysis of the Red Wings. I think you will find that I’m easy to reach and I don’t mind answering questions. I hope today marks the beginning of a long, enjoyable relationship with Red Wings fans.

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The post Columnist trains for 55 years for his job to cover the Red Wings appeared first on Detroit Hockey Now.