The new Detroit franchise purchased the players of the WHL's Victoria Cougars, who had won the Stanley Cup in 1925 and had made the Finals the previous winter, to play for the team.

[23] Adams managed to pass his probationary period by leading the Red Wings to their first-ever playoff series victory, over the Montreal Maroons.

[46][47] Following another playoff upset in 1953 at the hands of the Bruins,[48] the Red Wings won back-to-back Stanley Cups, beating the rival powerhouse Montreal Canadiens.

Habs defenseman Doug Harvey tried to gain control of the wobbly puck with his glove but instead redirected it past Montreal goalie Gerry McNeil.

A successful college hockey coach, Harkness tried to force his two-way style of play on a veteran Red Wings team resistant to change.

[72] In 1982, after 50 years of family ownership, Bruce Norris sold the Red Wings to Mike Ilitch, founder of the pizza chain Little Caesars.

[81] In the 1986–87 season, with Yzerman, now the captain following the departure of Danny Gare, joined by Petr Klima, Adam Oates, Gerard Gallant, defenseman Darren Veitch, and new head coach Jacques Demers, the Red Wings won a playoff series for only the second time in the modern era.

[98] Also joining the Red Wings around this time were draft picks Vladimir Konstantinov, Nicklas Lidstrom, Vyacheslav Kozlov, Darren McCarty, and Chris Osgood.

[110] Misfortune befell the Red Wings six days after their championship; defenseman Vladimir Konstantinov, one of the members of the "Russian Five", suffered a brain injury in a limousine accident, and his career came to an abrupt end.

[112] The Red Wings won the Stanley Cup in four games, this time over the Washington Capitals, and Konstantinov was brought onto the ice in his wheelchair so he could touch it.

[112] The following season, the Red Wings appeared to be poised to win a third consecutive Stanley Cup when they acquired three-time Norris Trophy winner Chris Chelios from his hometown Chicago Blackhawks in March 1999.

[118][119] During the ensuing off-season, the team acquired goaltender Dominik Hasek (the defending Vezina Trophy winner) and forwards Luc Robitaille and Brett Hull.

[123] Strengthened by the additions, the Red Wings posted the league's best record in the 2001–02 regular season and defeated Colorado in seven games in the conference finals after beating the Vancouver Canucks and St. Louis Blues in rounds one and two.

[124] The Red Wings then went on to capture another Stanley Cup, in five games, over the Carolina Hurricanes, with Nicklas Lidstrom winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoffs' MVP.

[127] In the market for a new starting goaltender after Hasek's retirement, they signed Curtis Joseph from the Toronto Maple Leafs to a three-year, $24 million deal.

[130][131][132] The Mighty Ducks shocked the ice hockey world when they swept the Red Wings in four games en route to a Stanley Cup Finals appearance.

[147] The Red Wings won the Presidents' Trophy with a 58–16–8 record, earning them 124 points and secured home ice advantage for the entire playoffs.

[151][152] Continuing the shakeup of the Red Wings roster, the off-season saw the departure of Brendan Shanahan, the return of Dominik Hasek and the retirement of Steve Yzerman.

[166] After goaltender Dominik Hasek played poorly in Games 3 and 4 of the series, both losses, head coach Mike Babcock replaced him with Chris Osgood.

[183][184] The beginning of the season was a struggle for the Red Wings, with key players out of the lineup, including Zetterberg, Tomas Holmstrom, Johan Franzen, Valtteri Filppula and Niklas Kronwall.

[198] Tragedy struck the organization and the rest of the NHL with the 2011 Lokomotiv Yaroslavl plane crash, which killed former Red Wings assistant coach Brad McCrimmon and defenseman Ruslan Salei, who had joined the KHL team during the summer.

Petr Mrazek had earned the starting goaltender role from Jimmy Howard, and Kronwall was suspended for Game 7 as Tampa Bay erased a 3–2 deficit to win the series.

[225] Jeff Blashill, head coach of the Red Wings' top minor league affiliate, the Grand Rapids Griffins, was named his successor on June 9.

[242][243] The Red Wings also became the second team since the 2004–05 NHL lockout, and the subsequent start of the salary cap era, to finish with a sub-.300 points percentage, along with the 2016–17 Colorado Avalanche.

[267][268] This jersey served as the basis for the uniforms worn by Wayne Gretzky's team of NHLPA All-Stars, nicknamed the "99ers", for their exhibition tour in Europe during the 1994–95 NHL lockout.

The majority of this jersey was the traditional red, decorated with a thick diagonal white stripe running from the player's right shoulder across the front towards the left hip.

[281] The Red Wings' logo received significant media attention in August 2017 when it was discovered that a white supremacist group used a modified version of it, in which the wheel's spokes consisted of the occult SS symbol Black Sun; it was the aegis of their shields during the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

[292] In an email to the Detroit Free Press, NHL spokesman Frank Brown justified the ban because matter flew off the octopus and got on the ice when Sobotka swung it above his head.

[293] Typically during the last minute or two of games that the Red Wings are winning, especially around the end of the season and during the playoffs, fans are known to start singing along to Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'."

[298] Announcers: Four members of the Red Wings organization have received the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award: Lynch called the first locally televised game at Olympia for the original WWJ-TV in 1949.