Jake Walman needed a new number to wear, because the No. 8 he briefly wore last season with the Detroit Red Wings had been given to a newcomer.
He liked his birth year, so he googled “Red Wings” and “96” to see what that would look like. The results came up with page after page of Tomas Holmstrom, the former 10th-round pick who went on to win four Stanley Cups and play more than 1,000 games with the Wings.
“I know Holmstrom was the last guy to wear it,” Walman said Monday. “Hopefully I can have a chat with him and represent it well.”
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The first step is to represent it at all. Walman, a former St. Louis Blues defenseman who was thrilled when he was part of last season’s trade-deadline swap that sent Nick Leddy westward, isn’t expected back until mid-November as he recovers from shoulder surgery. Monday marked his first practice since camp began Sept. 22, and he didn’t practice like a guy wearing an orange, non-contact jersey.
“Yeah, on one of the drills, one of the coaches had to remind me it was no contact,” Walman said, smiling. “But I feel I’m ready to go and when they say I’m cleared, hopefully I can jump right in.
“I’m a competitor so I want to get out there as soon as possible. I feel like I’m pretty much 100% right now.”
Few embodied competitiveness better than Holmstrom, who went from being the 257th pick in the 1994 draft to mastering the art of being a net-front player. He retired in 2013 with 1,026 games played and having won Cups in 1997, 1998, 2002 and 2008. Within days of having reached the 1,000-game milestone, teammates presented Holmstrom with a snowmobile, driven onto the ice after a practice at Joe Louis Arena by Henrik Zetterberg.
Holmstrom was the first player on the Wings to wear No. 96.
“The guys on the team think it’s a cool number,” Walman said. “Hopefully I can represent it really well.”
Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @helenestjames. Read more on the Detroit Red Wings and sign up for our Red Wings newsletter. Her latest book, “On the Clock: Behind the Scenes with the Detroit Red Wings at the NHL Draft,” is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Triumph Books. Personalized copies available via her e-mail.