Bill Clement

Detroit is the best team in the NHL. No other club is more talent-laden or has better depth with high-level players both up front and on the blue line. The Red Wings are loaded. Yet, they won’t win a second straight Stanley Cup.

I know that sounds like a contradiction but my feeling this way speaks directly to the extreme degree of difficulty in winning back-to-back championships in today’s NHL. I tabbed Anaheim to repeat as Stanley Cup champions last season and the Ducks didn’t come close. So while I certainly expect Detroit to make the playoffs, the strain of seeking two titles in as many years will prove too much and the Red Wings will exit the playoffs at some point before the finals.

Too little time to recharge
Perhaps the biggest contributing factor working against teams repeating as Stanley Cup champions is the body and mind don’t have enough time to recover — and those are not necessarily mutually exclusive in the case of players coming off a long, arduous run to a title. My first pro coach in hockey used to say “the body follows the mind.” And that’s the truth. But the mind has little opportunity to rest for players who have won a championship. So into the next season a tired mind is followed by a tired body.

To begin with hockey has the shortest offseason and the team that wins the Stanley Cup doesn’t stop skating until June. Other teams finish much sooner so there is a physical price to pay for so many additional days on the ice. Added to that must be all that comes in the wake of winning a Stanley Cup. The majority of players on a title-winning team have so many distractions and so many people that want to see them, so many things that they want to do with friends and family to celebrate the Cup that the offseason — as short as it is — has the perception to them of being even shorter.

And through all of the fantastic revelry and celebration that follows winning a Cup remember these players are supposed to be training for the coming season. Where to find the time to do that? What this all leads to is a complete absence of an island for the mind to kind of wash up on after getting tossed around the ocean in the effort to win the Stanley Cup. And there is no life preserver come the next season and the drive to repeat.

Staying healthy is a roll of the dice
By Stanley Cup finals standards the Red Wings and the Penguins were very healthy teams when they met last June. A few players from each club were nicked up and some missed time but in large measure both clubs were in good shape from an injury standpoint.

Will the Red Wings experience the same overall good health two seasons in a row? I think that’s very doubtful. They can fall back on their tremendous depth but sometimes even that isn’t enough if a club goes through an especially injury prone season and postseason.

Most of this is just about the odds. My head is telling me the Red Wings, who added free agent Marian Hossa in the offseason, have the best team and I know that’s true — on paper — but I start looking at the odds and adding reason to the odds with the short offseason and how difficult it is to stay healthy and how healthy the Red Wings were for the most part in the playoffs last season and I just can’t bet on all of that happening again. Misfortune could easily replace good fortune.

Osgood is on the spot
Detroit’s top goalie Chris Osgood is stronger mentally then he was earlier in his career and he is better physically now and a better athlete because he dedicates himself more to conditioning but it will be a much different demand on Osgood this year than it was last year when Dominik Hasek (now retired) began the season as the starter and Osgood his backup.

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Osgood will have Ty Conklin (who played last season in Pittsburgh) as his backup and Conklin’s a good team player and a great guy to have around, but Osgood is the man this time around. He was not that guy the last two years so there will be a different challenge on Osgood and it will carry with it much more pressure.

It’s unsure how Osgood will respond to that. It’s been a longtime since he has had to be the man in goal. Yes, he is more mature now and in better physical shape but sometimes when you are young and carefree you can just let the pressure roll off your back. Now it will be interesting to see if Osgood can do that as a veteran on a defending Stanley Cup champion.

Osgood has not only the expectation of excelling as Detroit’s No. 1 goalie but also the burden of the team being heavy favorites to repeat as Stanley Cup champions. He’s got a double load to carry, quite different from a season ago.