Twenty-three

Today marks the twenty-third anniversary of the founding of DetroitHockey.Net, originally known as YzerFan19’s Detroit Red Wings Home Page.

Obviously, things have changed a lot since then.

I wish I had some words of wisdom to share with regards to that.  Things that I’ve learned or poignant commentary.  I don’t know.  I guess the lesson of DetroitHockey.Net’s most recent year is don’t get into trademark disputes with Major League Baseball.

Absent such a maxim, I’m going to take a page from DH.N’s 17th anniversary post and talk about Red Wings who have worn #23.

Greg Johnson was wearing #23 when this site was founded.  Mike Ramsey wore it for his only two games of the 1996-97 season, after Johnson was traded to Pittsburgh for Tomas Sandstrom; with Tomas Holmstrom having been assigned the #15 Ramsey had worn with the Red Wings up to that point.

Stacy Roest had the number next, before being selected by the Minnesota Wild in the expansion draft and wearing #22 for them.  While Roest was with Minnesota, Todd Gill had his second stint with the Red Wings and took the number up after – like Ramsey – having previously worn #15 for Detroit.

Roest returned to the Red Wings for the 2002-03 season and, with Gill wrapping up his career in Chicago, retook #23.  That didn’t last long, though, as the Red Wings acquired Mathieu Schneider at that season’s trade deadline and gave him the number, with Roest switching to #39.

Another trade deadline acquisition was next to have #23, as Brad Stuart took it in 2008.  Upon his departure in 2012, it was quickly snatched up by Brian Lashoff, who had worked his way from #32 to #25 to #23 during training camps.

Lashoff eventually ceded #23 to Dominic Turgeon, switching back to #32.  Despite the switch, Turgeon actually debuted wearing #45 as the team was on the road when he was called up and his #23 jersey wasn’t available.  Turgeon also briefly lost the number to Scott Wilson but never had to pick another number as Wilson’s entire Detroit tenure coincided with Turgeon being in Grand Rapids.