In the inaugural season of Little Caesars Arena, the data said the Red Wings played in front of capacity crowds every night. It said they finished fourth in the NHL in total attendance. But your eyes knew better. So did your ears. If the Wings were selling tickets, they weren't filling seats. And so the atmosphere was rather dull, more pizza parlor than hockey rink.
Are things beginning to change? LCA was rocking on opening night this year when the Wings went blow for blow with the Lightning in a 7-6 OT loss. And it was rowdy again two nights later when Detroit beat Vancouver for its first win of the season. With fans back in the building for the first time since the pandemic to watch a rising young team, maybe this is the year LCA finds it voice.
"The building just seems really loud," Jeff Blashill said Tuesday morning before the Wings would host Columbus. "When we first came into this building, we didn’t have enough people in the seats. There were lots of people here, but they were either in the club level eating or checking out how beautiful the arena is. Now everybody’s in the seats and it just seems really, really loud. So it’s a great, great building with a great atmosphere."
Fans were barred from LCA for most of last season. Their excitement to return was evident last Thursday. They rollicked and roared on a night the Red Wings brought back legends like Nicklas Lidstrom and Henrik Zetterberg for an overdue celebration of Dylan Larkin's captaincy and Tyler Bertuzzi became the first player in franchise history to score four goals in a season-opener. Barring a few empty seats, the capacity crowd actually looked and sounded like a capacity crowd.
The crowd was a bit smaller for the Canucks -- down from 19,515 to 16,274 -- but still jazzed up on a Saturday night. While expectations remain low for the Wings, excitement is high with the arrivals of rookies Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond and even goalie Alex Nedeljkovic. In one season, Detroit has gone from the NHL's fifth oldest team to its fifth youngest. There's a buzz around Hockeytown that's been dormant for several years. It will only grow louder if the Wings continue to play fast, physical hockey.
"The atmosphere’s been great," Blashill said. "I think both games were highly emotional, which I think is a positive. We want to make sure we play with lots of compete and lots of emotion, and I think the crowd’s been awesome. It’s a loud building. It’s been a while since we’ve had that."
Earlier this week, Blashill noted that both of the Wings' first two opponents "have said it's felt like a playoff game." He said that's a great sign for Detroit because it means "there's a lot of fight on the ice." There's been very little in seasons past, and thus very little noise in LCA. Just a lot of vacant seats. But the team is getting younger as the arena grows older, and everything feels new again after the fans were forced to watch from afar. The birth of the building was always going to wait for the re-birth of the Red Wings.
This is the LCA that Blashill's been waiting for -- and maybe LCA as we'll know it.