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BRANT JAMESThe NHL's top two, each owned by billionaires from Detroit, collide tonight.
From center ice to the front office, nobody wants to call this the most important regular-season game in Lightning history.
"I don't want to put too much on it," center Tim Taylor said.
"It's one of 82," team president Ron Campbell said.
Perhaps they really do mean that, but there is little disputing that when the Lightning faces the Detroit Red Wings for the only time this regular season tonight at Joe Louis Arena, a once meaningless meeting of NHL haves and have-nots will swim in a confluence of story lines.
On the ice, the Lightning has looked beyond the cushy confines of the Southeast Division and taken aim at the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs; the team leads the NHL with 90 points after winning eight straight games. Then there's powerful, star-studded Detroit, again atop in the Western Conference with 89 points.
"They've been the team in the league since January in terms of points," Detroit coach Dave Lewis said of Tampa Bay. "They've done a good job of getting balanced scoring and getting solid goaltending, and they're getting consistent play out of everyone."
Accruing the most points in the league and the Presidents' Trophy that comes with it, once unthinkable, is suddenly within reach for the Lightning. Expanding the lead over a storied franchise that has won three Presidents' Trophies since 1995 would be symbolic for a Lightning franchise living a golden age. Doing so at Joe Louis Arena would be even better.
"Watching them over the last two years, they've grown into a good young team," Red Wings goaltender Manny Legace said of the Lightning. "This year, they've got the experience under their belts and they're playing really solid hockey. It's not surprising."
Red Wings veteran Chris Chelios added: "It looks as if they're doing a good job of playing as a team. They're getting scoring from a lot of people, and the goaltending is good. They're one of the top teams."
"Right now we're playing some real good hockey and we like to test ourselves against some real good teams and Detroit is obviously one of those teams," said Taylor, who won a Stanley Cup with the Wings in 1996-97. "We'd like to see where we match up against them."
Matching up against Detroit has been on the agenda since William Davidson, a Detroiter, spread his sporting empire beyond the Pistons and the Palace at Auburn Hills and purchased a woeful Lightning franchise in 1999. Though Davidson, 81, does not speak on the topic, a business and sporting rivalry has existed between him and fellow billionaire Mike Ilitch since Ilitch bought the Red Wings and Joe Louis Arena in 1982.
Ilitch, 74, pumped millions from his pizza empire into refurbishing the Red Wings from a wilted organization that struggled to sell tickets into a team that competed for Stanley Cups regularly, winning three since 1997.
"You're talking to an old veteran season-ticket holder," Campbell said. "I used to attend 30-35 games a year in the late 70s until I hooked up with Mr. Davidson, so I understandably became a huge NBA fan. Everyone looks at Detroit and thinks "Hockeytown' and of the Red Wings as one of the storied franchises, but when Ilitch bought the team, they had been giving away cars to get fans in. I mean, when they won the Cup in '97, that was the first one of my lifetime."
The Pistons won NBA titles for Davidson in 1989 and 1990 after he built them the Palace at Auburn Hills, a shiny new home that drew away much of the nonsports events that helped fill Joe Louis Arena.
When Davidson bought the Lightning, few in Detroit thought he could turn one of the worst franchises in sports into a Stanley Cup contender, perhaps not even Davidson.
"The team certainly has exceeded anything we thought," he told the Detroit News in Sunday's editions. "We bought it because the arena looked attractive, and the hockey looked doable."
Very doable right now, which underscores, Campbell said, why tonight is not the night the Lightning really needs to prove which billionaire in Detroit has the better horse.
"Don't get me wrong," he said, "there is a lot of excitement with a lot of us in ownership having Detroit ties and wanting to beat the Red Wings. But success in the National Hockey League is measured in the playoffs. I will say this, if we get another opportunity to play them this season, that is going to be the most important game in franchise history."
Game 1 of the Stanley Cup final? That would certainly qualify.
- Times staff writer Damian Cristodero contributed to this report.