People often forget it was a Peter Forsberg skirmish with the mild-mannered Igor Larionov that morphed into a melee between Darren McCarty, Claude Lemieux, Patrick Roy and Mike Vernon in the infamous March 26, 1997, game between the Avalanche and Detroit Red Wings.
People often forget it was a sucker punch from Detroit’s Slava Kozlov against Adam Foote that really got the bad blood flowing between the Avs and Wings in the 1996 playoffs, leading to two Lemieux suspensions for subsequent actions in the series.
Forsberg and Foote haven’t forgotten, but they don’t want their playoff renewal meeting with Detroit to be about the past.
“I think we’re a little different from everyone, where we’re not even thinking about it,” Foote said Wednesday, before the Avs boarded a flight for Detroit, where they will play the Red Wings in a Western Conference semifinal series starting tonight. “We know it’s just a team we have to get through to get to where we want to go. As you get older, you don’t get as much caught up in the hype, I think.”
Things have a way of getting contentious between the teams, which will meet for the sixth time in the postseason since 1996, with the Avs holding a 3-2 edge. The last meeting of the regular season included a hit by Colorado’s Ian Laperriere on Nick Lidstrom that injured the Detroit star’s knee. Detroit coach Mike Babcock then got into a heated exchange on the bench with Avs assistant Tony Granato. That was tame compared with the blow-up between Marc Crawford and Scotty Bowman during the 1997 playoffs, a memorable moment for Forsberg.
“Of course, that’s something I remember,” Forsberg said. “But we’ve just got to focus on Game 1. It’s been awhile since the Avalanche and Red Wings played in the playoffs, and I think it’s going to be a good series. I don’t know if it’s going to be the way it was in the past, but it’s definitely two great teams that are going to be out there, with a lot to play for.”
Avs coach Joel Quenneville was around for the first year and a half of the team’s existence as an assistant to Crawford, and has vivid memories of the rivalry’s beginning. But all he’s thinking about now are ways to stop Detroit’s formidable lineup.
“They’ve got the puck a lot, and I think they manage it better than anybody in the game,” Quenneville said. “I think when we do get it, we want to make sure we’re better at it, protecting and trying to control (it). They put a lot of pucks at the net and shoot from a lot of off-angles. We’ve got to be aware of their quick plays. They may get more shots in the games, but let’s make sure we stop them from the high-quality stuff.”
Said Foote: “They like getting on you to make plays and they have a lot of skill. So we have to make sure we’re aware of what they want to do, and take care of the middle of the ice and our end.”
Adrian Dater: 303-954-1360 or adater@denverpost.com
