Christian Fischer was nervous when he walked into the Red Wings dressing room for the first time. He had known only one NHL franchise in his seven-year career; a relationship that came to a stunning end last summer when the Coyotes chose not to qualify the restricted free agent with arbitration rights. 

“You always wonder how you’re going to fit in, or how you’re going to be perceived in a new place after being somewhere for so long,” Fischer said by phone on Monday. “You get so comfortable with the staff and the trainers and everybody and then you have to start over. 

“I’m the same Christian that that you’ve known for eight years and you know how outgoing I am. That was a little concern of mine. I didn’t know how they would take on a specific personality like myself.”

It took mere weeks for Fischer to stop worrying. His friendly demeanor and honest work ethic have helped ingratiate him with the Wings core. It also helped that the Red Wings added so many new faces this offseason, putting Fischer in good company and forcing the team to remake its identity.

“They’ve been awesome,” Fischer said. “They’ve been open to everybody — not just myself — but everybody that signed here. And from day one, they’ve let us kind of have the reins. I think that’s a big thing I will say about our locker room: The players have ownership of the team. There’s not too much that needs to be said that isn’t said in the locker room already, whether it’s in between games or in between periods or after games. It’s the players calling out the players for bad changes or bad turnovers or whatever. 

“We don’t need the coaches to yell at us.We have three or four guys that will yell at you the second you sit down on the bench and you just know, ‘Okay, we’re not going to do that next shift.’ That starts with Larks [Dylan Larkin] as captain, but we have veterans like David Perron, Jeff Petry, Ben Chiarot; guys that have played hundreds of games in this league so there’s accountability from top to bottom.”

Fischer hasn’t played the Coyotes since signing a one-year, $1.125 million contract in the summer, but Arizona will face Detroit on Friday at Mullett Arena. I caught up with Fischer for a Q&A ahead of that emotional return.

You mentioned all of the offseason changes to Detroit’s roster. What is the vibe of that dressing room on a team that sits in a wild card spot with 20 games left in the season?

Fischer: “The Wings obviously have an historic franchise and they’ve a lot of success, but when you look at this team, it’s kind of similar to the early days in Arizona when you look at the core guys. With Larkin and [Lucas] Raymond and [Moritz] Seider, we have five, six, seven guys in their early to mid 20s and that’s kind of the group they’re going to be going forward with.

“They’re gonna have that core intact for a while, and then they have a lot of us that are just kind of pieces to put in there and complement them. It’s pretty cool to see the future of this franchise. You never know what’s gonna happen in the future, but you’d like to think that this is the step out of the rebuild in Detroit with hopefully years of success and years of playoffs coming.”

Is there something to the idea of playing for a so-called Original Six team?

Fischer: “There’s kind of like an aura that just comes with it. Honestly, I didn’t really know what to think, coming in here, and it was a little intimidating. You get here and you’re like, ‘Wow, this is Red Wings.’ You hear so many stories about what it’s like playing here and you remember all the big names. Some of these trainers have been there since the early 2000s, if not even before then. You see all the pictures on the wall. You see all the Stanley Cups in the locker room. It’s a pretty cool feeling just to walk in there every day. I know it’s a cliché, but you really are part of something that’s bigger than you.

“When the Red Wings have success, this city starts to come alive. For the last month or so, you go turn on the TV or you go to dinner and there’s people coming up to you, asking to pay for your dinners and saying, ‘Great game last night.’ It’s not just the goals and Patrick Kane they’re talking about. I’ve gone to dinner with guys and they’ll come up and say, ‘Great blocked shot last night on the PK.’ It’s a very knowledgeable fan base with a history of winning. Honestly, it kind of puts that pressure on you to perform every night. You don’t want to be that team that lets them down.”

Was it weird walking into the room as a Chicago-raised, Blackhawk fan who viewed the Red Wings as the arch-enemy?

Fischer: “I’ve accepted it now and I have no reservations about it now. But early on when I first signed, I can tell you within the first 24 hours, I got some pretty nasty texts from a lot of my friends back home telling me that they’re never going to buy a jersey or they’ll never wear that winged wheel on their chests. I even heard ‘Fuck you’ — everything in the book. That hurt me. I’m thinking, ‘Nobody’s going to be coming to my games. This is terrible.’ But fast forward four or five months and I promise you, they’re coming to Detroit games and they’re wearing my jerseys.

“Growing up, I can remember those Detroit-Chicago games and the rivalry that they had; how crazy the games were. That was the first thought when I signed, but it goes away pretty quickly.”

Speaking of childhood memories, what’s it like playing alongside Blackhawks legend Patrick Kane?

Fischer: “I’ve gotten lucky enough to get pretty close with him here over the last couple of months. He’ll probably chirp me for saying this but he’s probably the first player that I’ve played with where I was a little starstruck. From age 9 to 15 or 16, I had season tickets to the United Center and basically watched his first five years in NHL. That was basically my childhood in Chicago so obviously to play with him now and see the stuff up close is probably one of the coolest things that I’ve done in my career. 

“He comes as advertised, if not more, but whatever you see is not even close to how talented that guy is and he’s one of the most down-to-earth humans I’ve ever met. For a guy that has had that much success with winning three Cups and being an MVP and all the accolades that he has, he’s still one of the hardest workers.

“That guy loves hockey. He’s on the ice 24/7. Optional skates, he’s out there. He’s watching video on his own or on the bus ride home games, watching other teams’ power plays and stuff. He is really dialed in to the game of hockey, which is really cool to see a superstar care that much. And he’s still so good. He can play another five years easy.”

What’s your role in Detroit?

Fischer: It’s been two situations pretty much the whole year; third or fourth line. I’ve played probably 20-25 games this year at center because of random injuries throughout the year. I’m playing a lot of fourth line center right now, but there was a 20-game stretch where I was playing with [Andrew] Copp and [Michael] Rasmussen; more of a matchup line like I did in AZ.

I have to give a special shout out to Brad Richardson and Michael Grabner and Derek Stepan. They grabbed me pretty early on in my career and told me, ‘Hey, if you can learn how to penalty kill, you’re gonna have a very long career.’

“When you’re 18, 19 years old, all you want to do is play power play and score 20 goals. You want to do all the other fun things, but I’ve got to give those guys a big shout-out because they kind of put some sense into me early in my career and then kind of taught me how to do little things with faceoffs, the picks, the D-zone, the wall play — all that stuff that I love.”

There was a time when you hoped and thought you’d be a Coyote forever. How do you view your departure from Arizona now?

Fischer: “I went through three or four GMs, three or four head coaches. I survived quite a few changes but for whatever reason that’s just the way the dice kind of rolled that last year. I was a restricted free agent and you’d have to think that there’d be some sort of deal to get done in a pretty easy way. I didn’t have too many rights as an RFA, but I had a pretty decent season offensively (13 goals, 27 points) and I did have arbitration rights, which I think probably played a factor. 

“I had no intention of not playing there my whole career. I gave a lot of effort to that organization, and I always tried to do everything that I could just to be an every-day NHL player, but to be completely honest, it probably sucked for a couple days and then I got over it. That’s business; that’s hockey.

“Looking back, I probably was very fortunate to be able to stay in one spot for almost eight years and kind of grow with Kells and Schmaltzy and Crouser. Very few people get to stay in one place and kinda get to see it play all the way out to the end. Looking back at it now, career-wise I think it was the right time and probably the right change of scenery.”

What comes to mind when you think about returning on Friday?

Fischer: “I don’t have one regret or one bad word to say about Arizona. They gave me the start that I needed in my career and seven really fun, great years with a lot of great teammates. I have so many memories and lifelong friends from Arizona. I talk to Kells and Schmaltzy and those boys weekly, if not daily.

“I still own my house in Arizona. I will call Arizona home when I’m done playing hockey. I think that speaks volumes about the Coyotes and how much they mean to me and kind of what they’ve done for my career. I’m very much looking forward to getting back there. I miss Stan [Wilson], I miss [Jason] Rudee and the trainers. A lot of these boys will be friends of mine for the rest of my life.”

Will you have a large contingent of supporters at Mullett Arena on Friday?

Fischer: “I’ve got my mom, dad and brother coming, and then probably 10 to 20 local Arizona friends. That game has been marked on the schedule for a while. That game’s gonna cost me some money.”

Top photo of Christian Fischer via Getty Images

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