The
2002–03 Detroit Red Wings season was the
77th National Hockey League season in
Detroit, Michigan. The Wings scored 110 points, winning the
Central Division, but just one point behind the
Dallas Stars for the
Western Conference's first seed.
Coming off their latest
Stanley Cup victory, the Red Wings started looking towards the future.
Dominik Hasek and
Scotty Bowman had retired over the summer and captain
Steve Yzerman was out for the first 66 games of the regular season. The weight of the team fell on
Sergei Fedorov and veteran
Brett Hull, who helped the Red Wings score the most goals of any team in the regular season. As newly acquired goaltender
Curtis Joseph held steady in net, two more pieces of the Stanley Cup team would be traded over the course of the year.
Maxim Kuznetsov and
Sean Avery left in a trade for Los Angeles's
Mathieu Schneider right before the trade deadline in an effort to push the Wings towards the playoffs. However, the pieces didn't fit as the Wings met the
Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in the first round and shocked everyone by being swept in four games.
Three Red Wings were named to the roster for the
2003 All Star Game: defenceman
Nicklas Lidstrom, center
Sergei Fedorov and head coach
Dave Lewis. It was Lidstrom's seventh appearance at the all-star game, Fedorov's sixth, and Lewis's first appearance as a coach.
The Red Wings sold out all 41 home games in 2002–03 as 20,058 fans packed Joe Louis...
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