DALLAS — Up on the suite level at the American Airlines Center, Chet Regula is talking about how surreal all of this is.



Things have come all the way back around, he is saying, when a familiar face appears.



It’s Jiri Fischer, the Red Wings director of player evaluation — and also a former Red Wing from 1999-2006. A mini-reunion breaks out, and, in all likelihood, it won’t be the last time this happens to Regula in the coming days and weeks.



For 29 years, Regula was the team dentist for the Detroit Red Wings. Saturday, he got to watch as the team drafted his son, Alec, at No. 67 overall — its first pick of the third round of the NHL Draft.



About seven minutes prior to Fischer appearing, Dr. Regula had stepped out of the Red Wings’ suite in Dallas and started to tell the story that set all of this in motion.



Back around the time the Ilitch family bought the team in 1982, he wrote Mike Ilitch a letter...