DetroitHockey.Net turns 28 today.
For the first time in a while, I don’t have anything to say regarding the site’s birthday. I’m used to scrambling for some profound collection of words but this time I don’t even have anything particularly superficial.
So I’m just going to skip right on to my annual tradition of talking about the jersey number represented by the site’s anniversary…
When the site was founded in 1996, #28 was assigned to Mike Knuble. He’d picked it up in training camp the year before but never wore it for a regular season game with the Red Wings, instead debuting wearing #22, as his call-up at the end of the 1996-97 season came after Detroit had acquired Tomas Sandstrom, who took over the number.
Sandstrom was gone by training camp in fall of 1997 but Knuble kept #22 and #28 was assigned to Yan Golubovsky, who’d worn #70 in the previous camp.
When Golubovsky didn’t make the team out of camp in 1999, he lost #28 to free agent signee Steve Duchesne, who had worn #15 in camp. Golobovsky made his season debut in November wearing #44.
After Duchesne retired in 2002, the number went un-assigned for a season.
With Mathieu Schneider’s acquisition at the 2003 trade deadline and his selection of #23, prospect Paul Ballantyne needed a new number and ended up with #28 in time for the 2003 Prospects Tournament. For the second consecutive season, though, Ballantyne would lose his number. After having worn #59 in training camp – and with Schneider wearing the #23 he’d worn in his original stint with the Red Wings – Kevin Miller was given #28 during a four-game call-up in December 2003.
By the time the Great Hockey Stoppage of 2004-05 was resolved, both Ballantyne and Miller were out of the organization. In 2005’s training camp, #28 was assigned to Bryan Helmer.
At training camp in 2006, #28 would go to Tomas Kopecky, who had previously worn #44 and #27 and #22 in camps and had debuted the previous season wearing #32 (after #22 was assigned to Brett Lebda, who had worn #41 in camp that year).
Kopecky only had #28 for a year, switching to #82 in 2007 to accommodate the Red Wings’ signing of Brian Rafalski, who took over #28.
Upon Rafalski’s surprise retirement in 2011, Tomas Jurco was assigned #28. He’d never wear it in a regular season game, though, as he switched to #26 for the lockout-delayed 2013 season after the Red Wings signed Carlo Colaiacovo, who took #28.
Colaiacovo only lasted a season in Detroit and by training camp in 2013, #28 was assigned to Triston Grant of the Grand Rapids Griffins. It was assigned to another Griffins-bound player in 2014’s camp, Kevin Porter, before Marek Zidlicky got it upon being acquired at the 2015 trade deadline.
When training camp opened in 2015, #28 belonged to Vili Saarijarvi. Saarijarvi had worn #71 in that summer’s development camp but by the time the main camp opened, Dylan Larkin had claimed that number (having switched from #25, which was taken by Mike Green, and unable to take #17, which Brad Richards took) and Saarijarvi was on to his second number.
Luke Witkowski signed with Detroit in the summer of 2018, taking #28 and pushing Saarijarvi to #29. Upon Witkowski’s departure from the organization (the first time) in 2020, #28 was assigned to Gustav Lindstrom.
For camps in 2023, #28 was given to Grand Rapids-signed Riley Sawchuck.
It is currently assigned to Michael Brandsegg-Nygard.