How Christian Fischer Found His Role as the Red Wings' "Motor"

DETROIT—On Monday afternoon, the Detroit Red Wings wrap up practice with a small area game.  Coaches pull the two nets up to the blue line, and the team—divided into red and white factions with their practice jerseys—competes in two-on-two with goalies, an extra skate awaiting the losing side.  As the session nears its end, Christian Fischer—representing Team Red—has a 1-on-0 look at the goaltender, but his shot misses the target.  He leaps in the air at the missed opportunity, then tosses his stick, hardly able to believe the squandered chance.

Moments later, Lucas Raymond scores the game-winner for Team White, but Fischer and his Red teammates are outraged, vociferously raising their objections to the game-winning goal, with none more animated than number 36.  After a moment's consideration, the coaching staff deems the goal a good one, and Team Red has to skate.  Some 15 minutes later in the dressing room, Fischer isn't ready to discuss the controversy.  "I have no comment," he tells The Hockey News, still a bit winded.  "You gotta talk to number 34 Alex Lyon.  He's the one that has caused the controversy.  The red team had to skate.  That's all I know."

For Fischer, it's all in a day's work as a fourth line spark plug on a roster that tends more toward the demure.  "It's a professional room, it's a tight room, but it's an extremely quiet room," said coach Derek Lalonde of his team Tuesday morning.  In that last regard, Fischer is a clear outlier.

"Vocally, I'm obviously one of the louder guys in the locker room, on the bench. I think that's just something that comes natural," Fischer tells THN.  When asked about the sense that there is nothing forced about Fischer's chattering presence, Moritz Seider says that Fischer plays his part "very naturally, a little too natural almost. You almost have to put the brakes on a little bit. Maybe I can't use that much noise right now," before more earnestly referring to Fischer as "a motor of our team" and a guy "who drives the bus every night."

Raymond, whose stall in the Little Caesars Arena dressing room is directly to the right of Fischer's, says, "Just listen to him right now. He's always happy. He always brings good vibes and gives us 100% every night, with the physical play and bringing energy to the team."  In this sentiment, Raymond gets at a crucial factor in making Fischer's volume effective: The fact that the chatter to which Fischer interminably subjects his teammates comes from a player whose on-ice presence is as reliable as any around the dressing room.

As he himself tells it, Fischer's game revolves around "work ethic and blocking shots, just doing all that little sh*t that I know the guys love.  "I think that's energizing," he says, and the testimonials of his teammates and coach suggest that he's right.  When asked about the connection between Fischer's presence on the ice and off it, Lalonde says, "It's a huge correlation. That's who he is. We're looking for some voice in the room. He has that voice. We need it through actions. A fight in a win at home, a blocked shot to get us a point late the other night on the penalty kill. He does a lot of those intangible type things. He gives us a lot."

Fischer managed all of five goals in his first season as a Red Wing a year ago, but his work rate and reliability, whether on the ice or off it, earned him the universal respect of the Detroit dressing room he joined after seven seasons as an Arizona Coyote.  "This guy is so good in the room, close with everyone," Andrew Copp told THN Tuesday.  "On days where maybe it's a little bit more somber around the rink, he lifts everybody's mood up...That's a guy that everyone trusts. You know he's gonna do the right thing. Especially playing with him, I know where he's gonna be. I know what he's gonna do. He's gonna work his ass off. He PKs really well for us. A guy that's so influential, so important to the room. We're very happy to have him, especially after signing a one-year deal [to join the Red Wings in '23-24] to get him back."

Of course, Fischer didn't always play a fourth line role.  He is a product of U.S. National Team Development Program, signaling the acclaim in which he was held among American prospects for the 1997 birth year.  He was selected 32nd overall in the 2015 NHL Draft.  He scored 40 goals in his last year in junior.  He even scored 15 in his first full NHL season, back in 2017-18.  However, to make a career of hockey, Fischer recognized that he'd have to add a different element to his game from just scoring.

"Especially the first year or two in Arizona, you kinda get—I wouldn't say gifted too much—but you definitely get all the opportunity in the world: Play first power play, five-on-three, penalty kill, you name it," he explained.  "You're playing 18, 20 minutes a night.  Eventually, you need to find your role.  I think that's the biggest thing in the NHL.  You need to find what you're good at and do it as good as you can every single night.

"Probably two years into my career, I realized it's pretty damn difficult to be in the top six and produce every night.  Obviously every kid dreams of being the 50-goal scorer on the team, but I learned PK pretty early on in my career.  The older guys in Arizona taught me everything I know with the ways that they survived: Derek Stepan, Brad Richardson, Michael Grabner.  Guys that won Stanley Cups, played 1000s of games, they kinda took me under their wing when I was a young kid and taught me that you need to have a role.  I obviously chose the more defensive side and PK.  I love it.  It's something I've embraced over the last three, four, five years...I wanna be out there when we're up one goal, and we need a D zone draw.  That stuff excites me."

Fischer can pinpoint the precise conversation that set him on a trajectory to the role he plays so well now.  "I remember to this day [a conversation] with Brad Richardson and Derek Stepan," he told THN.  "They taught me how long of a career you can have when you're a top four penalty killer on any team, how valuable that is defensively if you can earn your coach's trust and be deployed out there when needed...Everyone loves a good goalscorer, but you look at every good team, Stanley Cup teams, it's usually that third and fourth line that brings some type of different dynamic than the top six."

For Fischer, learning to embrace that role was less a matter of X's and O's, than of mindset.  "Obviously, when you go out there and you're looking for offense, and you're looking for goals, you kinda take away from some of the defensive thoughts in your head, but now it's part of my DNA," he pointed out.  "Now, I always think of the team first, think of the defense first, and I know the guys respect that.  Probably sacrifice some offense for it, but in the end, just doing what's right."

When asked how it long it was before he felt confident he had mastered that role, Fischer smiles.  "It still comes and goes," he says.  "Sometimes you go through some long stretches without offense, but in the end, once you know how to evaluate your own game, and you know if you played well or you didn't—It's not like I know everything I need to know.  I'm close to 500 games in this league and still learning, still doing a lot of video, and learning things about your own game that you can always do better."

Of course the on-ice aspect of Fischer's role—the 200-foot reliability, the shot blocking, the penalty killing—is critical.  It's what lends credibility to Fischer's off-ice role, but perhaps that off-ice role is even more important.  As Copp explains, an NHL season is long, and adversity is inevitable.  For any team to emerge from that adversity unscathed requires a presence like Fischer's.

"Guys obviously take this very seriously, and I think it's important to have a guy that obviously takes it very seriously too and is dialed in in all those aspects, but you're gonna lose two in a row," Copp explained, of Fischer.  "Sh*t is gonna happen. The more guys that you have that can talk through that and come to the rink in a good mood and excited, not that you're in a good mood that you lost, but just it's such a long season that if you come in with a somber mood, you don't want a two-game losing streak turning into three or four or five. It's important to have those types of guys who can be like 'You know what? The sun's out today. The world's not ending. Win tomorrow and everything changes.' You really have to have that short memory in those aspects, and he's a guy that definitely brings that to our team."

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