Elliotte Friedman said the quiet part out loud about Sergei Fedorov's delayed honor from the Red Wings

For a lot of Detroit Red Wings fans, this night felt overdue by about 20 years.

Sergei Fedorov’s No. 91 should’ve been hanging from the rafters at Little Caesars Arena long before now. It should’ve been raised several blocks away at the former Joe Louis Arena when Steve Yzerman’s banner went up years ago. It should’ve followed Nicklas Lidström’s. It should’ve been there when we told the story of the Red Wings dynasty in full — not with an asterisk, not with a footnote, not with a grudge still stapled to it.

But it wasn’t. And we all know why.

Elliotte Friedman said the quiet part out loud on his 32 Thoughts podcast this week: This would have happened a long time ago if Fedorov hadn’t signed that offer sheet with the Carolina Hurricanes. The one that embarrassed ownership. The one that cost Mike Ilitch $28 million in a single season. The one that turned a contract negotiation into a blood feud.

That moment froze everything. Fedorov was no longer just a Hall of Famer in waiting. He became “complicated.” He became “difficult.” He became the guy who left — not once, but twice. The guy who didn’t finish his career in Detroit the way Yzerman and Lidström did. The guy who made it feel, at the time, like loyalty only went one way.

And for years, the Red Wings organization acted like that mattered more than the banners he helped raise.

Sergei Fedorov’s Red Wings homecoming was long overdue, but the timing is not accidental

Tonight, the Red Wings will give Fedorov the long overdue honor of retiring his No. 91 jersey. Yes, it's beautiful. Yes, it’s emotional. Yes, it’s right.

But it also carries the weight of pettiness.

You don’t accidentally wait this long to honor a player who ranks fourth in goals, sixth in points, and third in playoff scoring in franchise history. You don’t “forget” the first Russian to win the Hart Trophy. You don’t overlook the player who defined speed, elegance and two-way dominance in the modern NHL. You choose to wait.

And now, fittingly, it happens against Carolina –– the very team that detonated the relationship.

Maybe it’s poetic. Maybe it’s closure. Maybe it’s the organization finally saying, “We’re done holding onto this.” Or maybe — just maybe — it’s one last tiny act of theater. One final nod to the wound. A reminder of what once was broken before it healed.

Because the truth is, both sides were right. Detroit took a chance on a Russian teenager when that wasn’t normal. They smuggled him out of a system that didn’t want to let him go. They gave him a stage, a dynasty, a legacy. And Fedorov gave them brilliance.

But he also made a business decision –– two of them, actually. And he’s owned that.

“I made a wrong decision to leave,” Fedorov said in a message to Red Wings fans on social media. “By far, that’s the most and probably the only regret I would have.”

That’s not bitterness. That’s honesty. That’s time doing its job.

This night isn’t about pretending nothing ever happened. It’s about recognizing that what did happen was bigger than contracts and egos and bruised pride. It’s about finally admitting that the marriage was, as Friedman put it, “extremely beneficial” for both sides.

Sergei Fedorov is a Red Wing. He always was. The rafters should’ve reflected that years ago. But if this night — against Carolina, of all teams — finally closes the book on the pettiness, then so be it.

Hang the banner. Let it fly. And let it be nothing but love.