Who Remembers Former Detroit Red Wings Addition Marian Hossa?

The Detroit Red Wings signed free agent forward Marian Hossa for the 2008-09 NHL season. Many people thought Hossa was just chasing a Stanley Cup Championship, especially when Hossa left for the Chicago Blackhawks, but did he have the option to stay here in Detroit? Take a break from playoffs and draft talk and look back on the Red Wings decisions to extend Johan Franzen instead of Marian Hossa.

After winning the Stanley Cup Championship in 2008, the Detroit Red Wings sought to make another cup run the following year after bringing in a goal-scoring forward in Marian Hossa. In a time where the Red Wings are trying to turn around a team, end a rebuild, and get back to the glory days of the playoffs, take a look back on the good times and decisions made before the time of struggles.

Hossa was a veteran on the runner-up Pittsburgh Penguins team that the Detroit Red Wings defeated in the 2007-08 Stanley Cup Finals. Hossa was traded to Pittsburgh where he managed 10 points over 12 games and 26 points in the playoffs that year as well. After the Penguins were defeated, he sought to try to win a championship when he signed with the Red Wings on a one-year deal for the 2008-09 season.

Even though he was only here for one season, he managed to put up good numbers on a Red Wings team that ironically would go on to lose in the Stanley Cup Finals to the Penguins. In 2008-09 Hossa was the third highest scoring Red Wings player with 40 goals and 31 assists for 71 points. After the 2008-09 season.

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The Detroit Red Wings were at a crossroads where they basically had to decide between Johan Franzen and Hossa who both age thirty at the time. Franzen had been with the Red Wings since the 2005-06 season and was coming off a year where he finished fourth on the team in points behind Hossa, with 34 goals and 25 assists for 59 total points.

The debate was between Franzen and Hossa, and personally, I was a huge Hossa fan. I began to like Hossa when he was with the Red Wings for the 2008-09 season simply because of a board game called Strat-O-Matic hockey, geared more for people like my parents, not the younger generation.

I wish that the Red Wings would have been able to bring back Hossa rather than Franzen, he had a lot of injuries which definitely was not a predictable factor, but it would’ve been nice to keep the 40 goal scorer around for a while longer. With an extreme bias because of a board game, I began following him more and watching Hossa as one of the best defensive forwards in the game during this time. He was indeed a two-way forward and keeping him around instead of Franzen would have been pretty nice for the Red Wings.

Franzen had his up years and his down years because of injury, and that is not his fault, injuries are unpredictable, and concussions really messed him up. Hossa, on the other hand, had better point totals, not factoring in the 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons where he struggled a bit.

Either way, Hossa’s career came to a terrible end just like Franzen’s but differently, for those who did not follow along, Hossa was forced to step away from hockey after the 2016-17 season because of an allergy to the equipment, it was affecting his health too much, and he just felt it best to step away from the game.

The contract extension process could’ve gone either way, Franzen could have walked and turned into a consistent 30 goal scorer with no concussion injuries, there’s no telling since this is a “what-if” scenario.

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But looking back on my younger self, having your favorite player on the hometown Red Wings would have been pretty great to watch. Hossa was a great player as was Franzen, and in a time where all the focus is on the playoffs, or the draft/offseason for those not in the playoffs, it’s nice to take a break and look back on the old Red Wings teams and enjoy that time of winning.

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