The Curse of The Bouwmeester?
There has been much speculation about the Detroit Red Wings landing a new defenseman this offseason to help offset the loss of both top-4 blueliner Brad Stuart as well as all-century defenseman Nick Lidstrom. The biggest free agents have come and gone. No Suter, no Weber, and not even Matt Carle have packed their bags for Detroit. Thus, the Wings have looked to replace their hole on defense through the trade-market.
A name popping up again and again is Calgary Flames ironman Jay Bouwmeester. The 28-year-old defenseman has been seen as quite a talent for many years, however one thing still alludes this player who currently has over a 550 continuous game streak: 1 playoff game in his career.
He played the start of his career for the Florida Panthers, a team that had struggled during his tenure. After issues with management, he was traded to Calgary, who since then (2009-10) has also failed to make the playoffs. With rumors flying around that he may come to a transitioning Red Wings team, that for the first time in over a decade might have to struggle to make it into the postseason – it does make one stop and think – could such a trade curse the Red Wings?
There are definitely some baseball fans in Boston and in Chicago that I am sure 100% believe in curses in sports. After 21 consecutive seasons making the playoffs, do the Red Wings want to take the Bouwmeester risk – even if it nothing more than a psychological trick?
Bouwmeester’s teams, Florida and Calgary, both have come very close to making into the top 8 of the conference at the end of the season. In fact, in his last year as a Panther, the Miami-based hockey team was kept out of the playoffs only due to a tiebreaker with the Montreal Canadiens. Just this past season the Flames missed the playoffs by one slot as well, 5 points away from the eventual Stanley Cup winners, the L.A. Kings. If Bouwmeester ends up a Red Wing, all Detroit hopeful will pray the pattern does not hold.
Now I am positive that coach Babcock is more concerned with an ironman who will eat up valuable top-4 minutes and GM Ken Holland is making sure he wants to give Bouwmeester 6.6 Millions / year to do so, rather than thinking about repeating “the curse of the goat”. However, for the fans of a storied hockey franchise in the last two decades, they simply do not want to look back after 5 years and say, “it was the curse of the Bouwmeester that ended the Wings playoff streak.”
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