from Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press,

That was no accident Friday. Hank Zetterberg said goodbye to an amazing hockey career exactly where he wanted to do it:

Where it began.

“Having a little media scrum in the corner, in a practice rink, in Traverse City, during training camp,” he admitted Saturday via telephone, in typical understated humility, “that was a perfect ending for me.”

Off sails the captain, off sails the ship. Zetterberg’s retirement is more than just the end of a star career under a particular Red Wing banner. It’s the end of that banner. By the time the Wings hoist another Stanley Cup, they will look nothing like the team Zetterberg began on, and possibly nothing like the one he’s retiring from.

Think about this. The man they call “Z” birthed his Detroit legacy by skating beside the following players, who had all hoisted a Stanley Cup a few months earlier: Steve Yzerman, Sergei Fedorov, Brendan Shanahan, Brett Hull, Igor Larionov, Darren McCarty, even Luc Robitaille. Luc Robitaille? Does Zetterberg go back that far?

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