Red Wings forward Darren McCarty and Avalanche forward Claude Lemieux fight during the first period on March 26, 1997, at Joe Louis Arena (Photo by Julian H. Gonzalez, Detroit Free Press)
Detroit Red Wings great Darren McCarty may have never been an All-Star or the best player on his team, but he’s considered one of the greatest players in franchise history.
McCarty won four Stanley Cups as a member of the Red Wings, was considered the enforcer of the team at the height of their dynasty at the turn of the millennium, and has endless notable moments during his playing career. Those moments include the game-clinching goal in Game 4 of the 1997 Stanley Cup Finals to end the Red Wings’ 42-year title drought and his infamous fight with the Colorado Avalanche’s Claude Lemieux on March 26, 1997, that turned the tide in the rivalry.
The Fight That Changed Everything
The fight with Lemieux—one of the best playoff performers in NHL history who had won the Conn Smythe Trophy in 1995—came about as retribution for his hit on McCarty’s good friend and teammate, Kris Draper, during the previous year’s conference finals matchup. Lemieux showed zero remorse and did not apologize for the hit, despite sending Draper to the hospital with a broken jaw.
It makes matters worse that the Avalanche would defeat the heavily favored Red Wings, who were coming off the NHL’s greatest regular season ever with 62 wins. Colorado would end up winning the 1996 Stanley Cup Finals.
That fight with Lemieux was the biggest one on a night featuring multiple fights, including Detroit’s Igor Larionov and Colorado’s Peter Forsberg, as well as the Red Wings’ Brendan Shanahan against the Avalanche’s Patrick Roy. The game itself featured 18 fighting major penalties and 144 minutes in penalties.
“I scored a Stanley Cup-clinching goal, the only time I ever beat a guy one-on-one; it just happened to be in the Finals,” says McCarty in a one-on-one interview with RG. “I have four cups. But I tell you what, if there’s any one moment, I don’t need to score the goal—but somebody does need to score the goal—but if I had to do anything in my career over again that I want the same way, it’s March 26.”
The funny thing is, not only did McCarty set the tone for that night and what would eventually result in the Red Wings’ Stanley Cup run in 1997, he scored the game-winning goal in overtime on March 26.
Toughness Beyond the Fights
“We didn’t need to have a heavyweight tough guy,” says McCarty. “We were going to stick up for each other, and the toughness of that team was a fact of the resilience all through the lineup. Toughness isn’t about fighting. Toughness is about doing it over and over and over again, and taking the will away from your opponent.”
“That team—out of my four Cup teams—that one was so special,” McCarty continues.
“Obviously it was the first, being from around here (McCarty grew up 40 minutes away in Ontario) and knowing it was the first time in 42 years, it was very special.”
During an episode of Vice TV’s new series, “The Grudge,” McCarty recounts the events of that night and the Red Wings’ epic rivalry against the Avalanche. In what could be considered the NHL’s last true great rivalry, the two Western Conference powers frequently matched up in the playoffs in the late ’90s and early 2000s to determine who would advance to the Stanley Cup Finals.
Between 1996 and 2002, the Red Wings and Avalanche matched up on five occasions, with Colorado winning three times and Detroit winning twice. The Red Wings and Avalanche combined to win the Stanley Cup five out of those seven years.
McCarty goes into great detail about the fights that took place on March 26, but he says the “attitude” heading into the game wasn’t necessarily about the physicality—it was to win the game.
The Red Wings had lost to the Avalanche all three times in the regular season prior to the matchup.
“The attitude was we have to win this game,” says McCarty. “Because we set the League record, they beat us in the playoffs. We played them three other times in the regular season, and we hadn’t won. As much as you want to get the physicality, it doesn’t mean anything—you have to win the game. Because we had to prove to ourselves that we could defeat these guys.”
Rivalry to Respect
Although the two were hated rivals in the ‘90s, McCarty and Lemieux were both interviewed and talked to each other during ESPN’s “Unrivaled” documentary commemorating the 25th anniversary of the fight. The Red Wings great says the two were cordial to one another and says Lemieux now sees the “error” of his ways from that event. Regardless, Lemieux’s actions changed the trajectory of the rivalry and both organizations.
McCarty says had Lemieux apologized for the fight, the retribution wouldn’t have been as bad as it was when McCarty bloodied Lemieux during the March 26 fight. McCarty punched Lemieux, kneed his head, and banged him up against the boards.
The 53-year-old says the rivalry between both powerhouses made each of them great. The Avalanche had a number of future Hall of Famers, including Forsberg, Roy, and Joe Sakic, as did the Red Wings, which featured the likes of Steve Yzerman, Sergei Fedorov, and Nicklas Lidstrom.
“If you haven’t seen Unrivaled on ESPN, after you watch The Grudge, go back and watch that,” says McCarty. “This is the best part, never do you get to hear both sides. You only hear from the victors. History is written by the victors. You hear both sides and you gain more respect as a player for the other side. As we get older, I think we mellow a little bit, but we made each other as great as we were because it was that old-school mentality.”
DJ Siddiqi
