Thirty Years

Another birthday for DetroitHockey.Net, and this one’s a big one.

Thirty.

I wish I had something for that. I really do. All of these milestones feel like they should be commemorated.

At the same time, they also feel like they’re just numbers at this point. Is thirty any different from twenty? DH.N – in its various forms – has been around forever. The number almost doesn’t even matter at this point.

So… What’s next? That’s what I’m always trying to figure out, right?

Well, whatever else happens, this year is going to be different because there will be a whole other team in Hockeytown with the addition of PWHL Detroit (whatever it ends up being named).

I’m certainly going to be covering them, though I don’t know to what extent yet. There are a lot of ways that they’re already more interesting than the Red Wings so it’s not impossible that I end up writing about them more.

Stupid Stat of the Day will continue in some form. I didn’t love some of the stats I ran last year, when I was making an effort to do one every day and attach it to an unbeaten/winless scenario. So I might skip games or I might go back to other scenarios. And I’ll include PWHL Detroit in that somehow but with no history to build from that’ll be a bit more difficult.

The Red Wings will have a Hometown Remix jersey that I’m sure I’ll dislike because I almost always dislike their branding choices. But the Centennial stuff surprised me so maybe there’s hope.

Other than that? I don’t know. We’ll keep on going and see what happens.

Thirty.

Okay then.

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My anniversary tradition is to review the players who have worn that year’s number for the Red Wings since the site was founded. For this year, it’s seemingly easy:

Chris Osgood

But it’s actually not quite that simple.

Osgood was not assigned a number for his first training camp with Detroit in 1991. In 1992 he was given #78 before spending that season with the Adirondack Red Wings. He got his familiar #30 in camp in 1993, debuting for Detroit that season after an injury to Tim Cheveldae and less-than-stellar play by Vincent Riendeau and Peter Ing. He was still wearing that number for the Red Wings when this site was founded in 1996 and kept it until being claimed via the Waiver Draft by the New York Islanders in 2001.

With Osgood off to Long Island, #30 was assigned to Marc Lamothe in training camp and the preseason in 2002. Lamothe didn’t play for Detroit that season but was back in camp in 2003 wearing the number. He debuted for Detroit later in 2004 with both Dominik Hasek and Curtis Joseph injured but he did so wearing #35, which had been assigned to Joey MacDonald in camp.

Osgood returned to Detroit following the Great Hockey Stoppage of 2004-05, reclaiming his number (Lamothe was off to Europe at that point) and keeping it until his retirement in 2011.

The number went unassigned until Development Camp in 2016, when free agent invitee Matej Machovsky was given #30. Cal Heeter got it in Detroit’s main camp a couple months later.

At Development Camp in 2017, with Machovsky back (and under contract) but wearing #32, #30 went to Keith Petruzzelli.

Since Osgood, the closest the number has come to regular season game use was on December 18, 2018, when emergency backup goalie Justin Kowalkoski wore #30 on the Detroit bench while Jonathan Bernier backstopped the Red Wings to a 3-2 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers.

Somewhat-interestingly, #30 was not assigned at the 2019 edition of the Red Wings’ Development Camp but the then-illegal number #00 was, going to free agent invitee Robbie Beydoun. It’s always seemed weird to me that the Wings dipped into disallowed numbers rather than give out one that was actually available.

Sebastian Gotto was given #30 at the Red Wings’ 2024 Development Camp, the most-recent time the number has been assigned.