Detroit Red Wings

Detroit's identity in hockey runs deeper than most, a city that calls itself Hockeytown with genuine historical backing: an Original Six franchise, eleven Stanley Cups, and a 25-season playoff streak that only ended in 2017 and remains the longest in modern major American sports history. That streak's end mattered more here than a normal rebuild would elsewhere, because an entire generation of fans had never actually experienced a Red Wings team that missed the postseason. The rebuild since has been deliberately patient, stockpiling draft picks and prospects rather than chasing a quick fix, which has tested a fanbase that spent a quarter century assuming contention was the baseline. Original Six pride runs through everything here, the winged wheel, the octopus-throwing tradition, the sense that this city's identity and the team's are genuinely fused. Club news is at Red Wings.com.