Red Wings Youth Stars as "Good Shepherd" Shine Earns Win to "Cherish Forever"

DETROIT—The Red Wings kids were more than all right in Monday night's 5–2 win over the Los Angeles Kings.

22-year-old Lucas Raymond continued to blossom as a bona fide superstar, scoring to provide his team with an emphatic response just 35 seconds after it conceded a disastrous own goal, then adding an assist later in the game. 23-year-old Elmer Soderblom scored his first goal of the season, giving Detroit its first lead of the night by burying a rebound late in the second period. 20-year-old Marco Kasper scored a decisive third period insurance goal, then clinched the win with an empty net goal in the game's dying seconds.

But, by the time the final horn sounded and the Red Wings surrounded goaltender Cam Talbot to celebrate, the happiest kid—and the one who'd brought smiles to each of his teammates' faces—was the oldest: 31-year-old Dominik Shine.

Shine had to wait 31 years and 462 AHL games with the Grand Rapids Griffins for Monday's opportunity, one he confessed after the game he'd given up believing would come. Nonetheless, with nine minutes and 50 seconds of ice time, two shots, two takeaways, a blocked shot on his very shift, Shine became the oldest Red Wing to make his NHL debut since Vaclav Nedomansky on Nov. 18, 1977.

He'd played less than all his teammates but the only stat that really concerned him was the outcome. "That's what I wanted for this," Shine said, a mix of shock and euphoria registering on his face. "To come out with a win and have everyone in that locker room happy. You can't ask for anything more than that."

Under ordinary circumstances, a win over a legitimate Stanley Cup contender to complete a perfect three-game home stand would be sufficient cause for celebration, but, on Monday night, for everybody but Shine himself, the evening's joy had far more to do with the presence of the oldest rookie on the ice than the victory itself.

"He earned the contract, he earned his way here, and he earned his keep tonight," coach Todd McLellan said of Shine, though he admitted he didn't so much as know the player existed as recently as that morning. "We're pretty excited about winning that game, but we're really excited that he was part of it."

In accordance with the fact that Shine had begun to doubt whether this night would ever come, there hadn't been time to plan for Monday night's debut. He was on the way to buy a pair of skates for his son Cooper when he got a call—the call, really—from Detroit assistant general manager Shawn Horcoff. Instead of Perani's Hockey World in Grand Rapids, Shine was on his way to the show, though not before picking up a ball for Cooper at Dick's Sporting Goods, the not-quite-two-year-old earning compensation for the sudden change in plans

The Pickney, MI–native had plenty of friends and family on hand to watch his NHL debut, but his parents weren't among them. You wouldn't think there's a bad time for a Hawaiian vacation, but after landing in Maui yesterday, they couldn't watch their son's breakthrough in person. "My mom's probably a little upset, but they were watching from the beach," Shine quipped.

Cooper and Shine's wife, Taylor, were at Little Caesars Arena Monday night though, forging an indelible memory before the game had even begun. "I can't put it into words. I saw him in warm-ups," Shine said of catching his son's eye pre-game. "He recognized it was me. He's only 21 months. He's just starting to be aware of his surroundings, what he likes, and things like that. To have him look at me and smile is just—I can't put it into words."

Last season, it was Cooper's birth that convinced Shine a career in professional hockey was still worth pursuing. "There was a point last year where I had my first child, and in the American League, you're away from your family a lot, and I was kind of thinking about maybe being done," he revealed. "And then once I had my kid, I realized that it's really special for him to see me play, so I thought maybe I'll just play one more year and see what happens. I just can't believe—To be here today, it's amazing."

While McLellan may not have heard the name "Dominik Shine" when he woke up this morning, he can nonetheless appreciate the value of a player like Shine to an organization. To the coach, that Shine would stick around the Griffins as long as he did—regardless of his potential path to the NHL—offered proof positive of his worth.

"Within the organization, it's important that somebody shepherds the group somewhere, and you can't have NHL players in Grand Rapids all the time, so somebody has to assume that role," McLellan said. "It sounds like Dominik does that there. He shepherds the group. He takes care of it. He leads, he plays hard for them, he fights for them, he scores for them, and that's likely the reason he's spent seven or eight years there, because he's a good shepherd."

"It's a lot of hockey. It's hard hockey down there," Shine said of his experience in the American League on his long road to the NHL. Whether a second NHL game ever comes, after all that hard hockey for the Griffins, Shine made reality—for himself, for Cooper and Taylor, and for his parents off in Maui—a dream he thought he'd have to let go of. As Shine said Monday night, "It's just something I'll cherish forever."

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