REMEMBERING THE LEGACY OF
VLAD THE IMPALER

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Konstantinov with the Cup in 2002.

His number can still be spotted in the stands at games in Detroit—the red 16 sewn on white. He's there too, sometimes, in the owner's box, silently watching the ice below. His younger face still stares out from a picture on the wall facing the entry to the Red Wings locker room, so that every player can lock eyes with him before every period of every game. But what lingers most about the presence and absence of Vladimir Konstantinov is the idea of the player he would have been, and the reality of the team that has come to be without him.

It has been 10 years since Konstantinov sat in a wheelchair in Washington, D.C. and grasped the Stanley Cup his team won for him. Less than a year before that, the Russian defenseman left a team party celebrating the Wings' 1997 Stanley Cup victory, sat down in a limousine driven by a man without a driver's license and wound up in a coma after a horrific crash that took his career and probably should have taken his life. Konstantinov suffered severe brain injuries whose effects still linger.

The Red Wings dedicated their 1998 season to him, and his name is now etched on the Cup twice—for his play in '97 and his inspiration in '98. Most hockey fans remember that scene in Washington, but these Finals provide a perfect opportunity to remember the ferocious athlete trapped inside this weakened body.

It's hard to recall a time when Nicklas Lidstrom did not own the Detroit blueline. But Wings GM Ken Holland does.

"If you asked 100 people back then to name our best defenseman, it would be about even," Holland says. "But a few more might have said Konstantinov."

That sounds preposterous now, as Lidstrom has turned into not only a five-time Norris Trophy winner and a team captain, but also one of the greatest hockey players of all time. Back then, though, Lidstrom toiled mostly in Konstantinov's wake. In a way, he still does.

The current group of five Wings sent out to smother and score—Lidstrom and Brian Rafalski on defense, Henrik Zetterberg, Tomas Holmstrom, and Pavel Datsyuk at forward—compares with any other starting five in recent hockey history. But the original Detroit model of puck-possession and punishing play did not even include Lidstrom. That would be the "Russian Five": Igor Larionov, Sergei Fedorov, Slava Kozlov, Slava Fetisov—who was also in the limo but emerged with minor injuries—and Konstantinov. "What fans know as the Red Wings' elite years, began with the Russian Five," Holland says.

Fedorov still sparks memories of flashy moves and bat-out-of-hell backchecking, but it was Konstantinov, with his muscle and fearlessness, that made the Russian Five work. For a visiting team, keeping possession of the puck is nearly impossible in Joe Louis Arena, but it wasn't an issue before Konstantinov arrived in Detroit.

One statistical example: Lidstrom has the best plus-minus ranking in the NHL over the past 16 years, with a career-best of plus-43. Konstantinov finished his second-to-last year with a plus-60. His last season earned him runner-up in Norris Trophy balloting to Brian Leetch. "He was just hitting his prime," says Lidstrom. "He would have continued to get better, too."

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Vlad the Impaler redefined Red Wings hockey.

Red Wings' Hall of Famer Ted Lindsay, testifying in a lawsuit Konstantinov fought and lost against the limo company involved in the accident, put it even stronger: "He was the best in the world, no doubt about it."

Lidstrom may be the first European captain to win the Stanley Cup, but it was Konstantinov who first changed the perception of European hockey players by not only absorbing contact, but also seeking it. He not only kept his mental sharpness, but also rattled that of opponents.

Niklas Kronwall thrilled Detroiters this season with his devastating mid-ice hits, but for long-time fans, he's only another reminder of what Konstantinov did every night. Vlad the Impaler, as he became known, was both a throwback to old time hockey and a throw-forward to the 2008 team.

Red Wings fans don't complain about five Stanley Cup Finals appearances in 13 seasons, but it's hard not to wonder what the team would have done if Konstantinov (and Jiri Fischer, who retired due to a heart condition) stayed healthy. Just about every playoff series loss in the Lidstrom era, including last year's to Anaheim, came because of a lack of heft and skill on the blue line.

With apologies to the 2002 Cup champions, only now do the Red Wings strangle teams the way they did in the mid-1990s. The additions of Rafalski and Kronwall have finally closed the void left by Konstantinov, and it's not a reach to think Lidstrom and Konstantinov would be paired together now if fate had not intervened. Konstantinov is 41. "He was in such good shape," says Holland. "I think he still would be playing today."

He's not playing, of course. He needs around-the-clock care at his Detroit area home, funded mostly by donations from the Red Wings. His wife no longer lives with him, so Konstantinov—once the Impaler, now just Vladdie—comes to the rink when he can, with the aid of a walker, and grins wide when he sees familiar faces. He attended Games One and Two of these Cup Finals, speaking his halting English to Holland and Red Wings' VIPs, who wish they could better understand his thoughts. He no doubt has a lot to say.

"In this life, if you don't have your health, you don't have much," Holland says softly.

True. But you don't need much to give much—to the franchise that leaves his number unworn, to the fans who still wear it and to the Red Wings themselves, who meet his gaze before every period, and only now have risen to meet his excellence.

Eric Adelson is a senior writer for ESPN Magazine. E-mail him at eric.adelson@espn3.com. Lindsay Berra contributed reporting from Pittsburgh.

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