The post Darren McCarty On Red Wings’ Historic Epic Rivalry Against Avalanche And Why The NHL Can’t Replicate That Now appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.

Darren McCarty looks back at the Detroit Red Wings’ rivalry against the Colorado Avalanche and why … More the NHL can’t replicate that in the present day. (Photo by Dave Reginek/NHLI via Getty Images) NHLI via Getty Images Darren McCarty knows better than anybody how intense the Detroit Red Wings’ rivalry was with the Colorado Avalanche at the turn of the millennium. The gritty right winger is considered one of the best Red Wings players of all time. Although he was never an elite player, goal scorer or All-Star, he won four Stanley Cups in Detroit and spent 13 different seasons with the Red Wings. He also grew up just 40 minutes away from Detroit in Ontario, spending his childhood going to Joe Louis Arena, the Red Wings’ old home arena. It doesn’t hurt that McCarty was not only considered the enforcer of those Red Wings teams that won Stanley Cups in 1997, 1998 and 2002, he was at the epicenter of the pinnacle of the rivalry with the Avalanche on March 26, 1997. Detroit had lost the previous season in the conference Finals to Colorado after winning a regular season record 62 games. The loss itself was painful enough considering the Red Wings hadn’t won the Stanley Cup sine 1955, but Avalanche enforcer Claude Lemieux laid a dirty hit from behind on Red Wings center Kris Draper – McCarty’s best friend – that led to Draper suffering a broken jaw and a concussion. Lemieux showed zero remorse for Draper’s injuries and didn’t apologize. It eventually led to a major brawl between McCarty and Lemieux on March 26, 1997 that saw McCarty bloody the Avalanche star in a sequence he calls “Detroit D-Day.” “This story in life and in sports, bad things happen,” says McCarty in a one-on-one interview. “This…

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Filed under: News - @ April 19, 2025 5:29 pm