I first got into hockey during the early 90s. My dad didn't like that baseball had gone on strike, so he turned to hockey. Without convincing needed, I also turned to hockey. The team that I first watched had people such as Tim Taylor, Mark Howe, Paul Coffey, and of course Steve Yzerman, Sergei Federov, and Nick Lidstrom. The goalie at that time was Tim Chevelde. But we got rid of Chevelde for Bob Essensa. When Essensa didn't work, we got a young goalie, and finally an older goalie. These were Chris Osgood, and Mike Vernon. The Wings didn't do too well in the earlier 90s, They would win alot, but didn't go too far in the playoffs. 1993 and '94 marked lows for the Wings in my mind. They had lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs, led by Felix "the Cat" Potvin. When the wings lost to San Jose, it was a killer. San Jose was a eighth seeded team, while the Wings were seeded first. The series went to the seventh deciding game at three games to each team. That was the first game that I remember Osgood being in. Well, the game was tied, and San Jose had dumped the puck around the back of the Wings net, Osgood came out of the net to play the puck. He sent it up the right side of the ice. San Jose picked the puck up there, and put it into the net that Osgood left wide open.

  Those years weren't too good. But I would still not give up on the Wings. The following year, in 1995, the NHL had a brief strike. Because of the strike, the year was shortened, so the two conferences didn't play each other a lot. That year, the Red Wings once again posted the best numbers in the NHL. This time, instead of losing in the first round of the playoffs, the Red Wings advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals, with a win over Ed Belfore (Goalie) and the Chicago Blackhawks in the Western Conference Finals. In the finals, the Wings played a New Jersey Devils team that had developed a new kind of defense. Unfortunately for the Wings, this defense worked a little too well, and the Wings went down in only four games.