The Marian Hossa Story, One Troubled Bird

With game five of the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs looming later in the day and at the urging of my dad, ( Happy Birthday Daddy ) I decided to go ahead and write a piece about Detroit’s forward Marian Hossa.  Hossa’s story is interesting to say the least.   At the end of last year’s postseason, the blue-chip Slovak forward pondered whether to re-sign with Pittsburgh, which had acquired him at the trade deadline, or take his chances elsewhere as an unrestricted free agent.  His decision to chase a Stanley Cup in Detroit, where he signed a one-year deal, was a slap in the face to the Penguins’ organization because the implication was clear — after seeing the Wings up close in the 2008 Cup finals with the Penguins, Hossa believed Pittsburgh wasn’t championship material.  Fine, I guess this is a business and people are entitled to do what they feel is best for them, but come on, you don’t act the way Hossa acted.  It’s like breaking an unwritten code and I have to wonder what kind of a team mate a guy like Hossa would make.  He seems selfish to me, but that’s why we call it a business.

Now, though, with the series and a Stanley Cup championship on the line, the ultimate irony of the drama may be that Hossa’s lack of production could be a factor in the Penguins’ winning their first Stanley Cup since 1992.  After registering 26 points last postseason playing mostly with Sidney Crosby, Hossa has gone dry for much of this spring. He has scored in just three games the entire postseason and has 14 points overall.  To be fair, he did manage to score two goals in each of those three games and was a key factor in the Wings’ victories in Games 4 and 5 of the Western Conference finals.

Being that this Red Wings team has been without one of its top players in Pavel Datsyuk because of a foot injury ( expected back for Game 5 on Saturday ) and has squandered a two-game lead in the finals, this just might be a good time for Hossa to step up and prove that he, and the Red Wings made the right choice.  Time will tell.