RoughRiders All-Decade Team: Justin Abdelkader

This is how weird a hockey season it's been for Justin Abdelkader.

Despite playing the first four months of the NHL season with them, the Detroit Red Wings shipped him to their AHL affiliate in Grand Rapids, Mich. in late January.

“That was a bummer,” Abdelkader said.

But the strangeness doesn't end there.

“I drove to Grand Rapids and hopped on the (team) bus,” Abdelkader said. “We had a six-hour drive to Toronto. We got there, and the next day, I went to the morning skate.”

Grand Rapids' coaches told him to get off the ice. The Red Wings' Tomas Kopecky was injured, and Abdelkader was being shipped right back to the NHL.

“Pretty crazy,” he said.

Eventually, it was back to Grand Rapids again, where he's been since early February. The 23-year-old former Cedar Rapids RoughRider has a full season in, considering he's had 50 games in the NHL and 18 in the AHL.

“(Detroit) just told me to go down and improve on my overall game,” said Abdelkader, voted the center on the Riders' All-Decade Team. “And to be ready when I get my next call.”

Maybe by next season he'll be a Red Wing for good. Abdelkader is considered an up-and-coming player for an organization that seems to develop a lot of up-and-coming players.

There's no question he's a winner. Abdelkader had 27 goals for the RoughRiders' 2004-05 Clark Cup title team, then had the game-winning goal for Michigan State in the 2007 NCAA championship game.

He made his NHL debut late in 2008. He played in two regular-season games last season but was placed into the playoff lineup because of injuries, scoring two goals in the Stanley Cup final against Pittsburgh.

The RoughRiders proudly show video of those two goals before every home game.

“It's hard to wrap your head around something like that,” said Abdelkader, a Michigan native and lifelong Red Wings fan. “You just don't get that opportunity very often.”