Windsor Star

Red Wings run unlikely to be repeated

- MIKE ZEISBERGER mzeisberge­r@postmedia.com Twitter.com/zeisberger

The year was 1990.

Mario Lemieux hadn’t won a Stanley Cup yet. The Toronto Blue Jays hadn’t won a World Series yet. The Toronto Raptors hadn’t won anything yet, still a half-decade away from entering the NBA. And budding Red Wings star Dylan Larkin, well, he hadn’t yet been born, his arrival on this Earth still six years away.

In April of that year, forward Jim Nill and his Red Wings teammates cleaned out their lockers in the bowels of musty Joe Louis Arena, a disappoint­ing 28-3814 mark in the 1989-90 regular season having sealed their fate of missing the playoffs.

Who could have guessed this scene would not be repeated for the next 21/2 decades? Certainly not Nill, who to this day marvels that Detroit would go on to qualify for the next 25 post-seasons.

Fast-forward to 2017. On Tuesday night, it finally came to an end, the dagger delivered by ex-Wings coach Mike Babcock, whose Toronto Maple Leafs defeated Florida 3-2, thereby eliminatin­g Detroit from the post-season for the first time since Nill and his buddies dejectedly packed up their belongings and walked out of The Joe some 27 years earlier.

Think about that. Qualifying for the playoffs 25 consecutiv­e times. It’s an incredible accomplish­ment, one that an irked Nill feels doesn’t get its due. When he hears or reads about fans criticizin­g Detroit general manager Ken Holland and the Wings organizati­on for allowing the on-ice product to decline this season, his blood boils. Are you spoiled? Don’t you understand just how remarkable 25 straight trips to the Stanley Cup dance really is?

“I sit back and shake my head,” Nill says. “The era that we live in right now, with social media and reading some of the comments about the franchise and Kenny Holland, I’m amazed at the lack of respect that occurred there. It’s an incredible feat and I don’t think it gets as much respect as it should.”

Nill played for the 1990-91 Red Wings team that started the run. Three years later, he joined the Red Wings front office and helped the team win four Stanley Cups while serving in various capacities, including director of amateur scouting, where he oversaw the drafting of late-round future stars Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk. And while he left in 2013 to become general manager of the Dallas Stars, he still busts with pride at the accomplish­ment of his former club in Hockeytown.

“If you would have said 25 years ago that you’d win four titles and have the chance to win another four or five, well, everyone knows how tough it is to do. And if you would have said then that after 25 years there would be a rebuild, I think people would be happy with that. And now here we are and people are complainin­g that that’s the point the team is at. It’s part of the “what have you done for me lately” mentality. But it’s an incredible feat.

“What the Ilitches and Kenny Holland and Jimmy Devellano have done, I don’t think it ever will be repeated. There are some teams in other sports that have had similar success, the (NBA’s) San Antonio Spurs come to mind. But people forget the Wings did it in the salary cap era, too. I think when the salary cap era came in, a lot of people thought that would be the end of the Detroit Red Wings. It wasn’t.”

Devellano remembers the dark days when Red Wings fans — what few of them there were — wanted to use octopuses to strangle players and management for the poor product they were serving up rather than tossing them on the ice to gleefully celebrate the team’s success.

Hired as GM in 1982, Devellano, now a senior VP, is in his 35th year with the organizati­on. As such, there is no better authority to ask about the team’s amazing post-season record finally coming to an end.

“More than any other thing, there is one main reason,” he says. “You can’t pick outside the top 15 of the draft in 24 of 25 years and expect to stay competitiv­e.”

Indeed, since selecting Martin Lapointe 10th overall in 1991, only once have the Wings held a top-15 pick, that coming in 2014 when they snapped up Larkin 15th overall. In the process, they managed to stay relevant thanks to an outstandin­g scouting department, which was able to unearth late-round jewels like Datsyuk (171st overall in 1998) and Zetterberg (210th overall in 1999).

From Nill to Holland to Devellano to former Wings coach/GM Scotty Bowman, there is universal agreement on why the Wings were so successful for so long — drafting. And it all started with the 1989 edition, one Devellano says “is the best you’ll ever find in hockey.”

In that particular draft, the Wings landed future Hall of Famers Nick Lidstrom (third round) and Sergei Fedorov (fourth round), forward Dallas Drake (sixth round) and defenceman Vladimir Konstantin­ov (11th round). In 1990, another Russian, Vyacheslav Kozlov (third round) was picked.

“The biggest factor, before you could bring players over from the Soviet Union and Czech Republic, was when they got Fedorov, Kozlov and Konstantin­ov along with getting Lidstrom from Sweden,” Bowman says. “No one else was drafting Russians because they all thought they’d never get them out. Fortunatel­y Fedorov, Konstantin­ov and Kozlov defected. That ’89 draft gave them a decade of superstars.

“As the years went on, we made some good trades, too. Doug MacLean got Kris Draper out of Winnipeg for $1. At different points we traded for Chris Chelios, we traded for Dominik Hasek, we traded for Mike Vernon.”

As the Red Wings progressed toward a Stanley Cup title in 1997, they began to deal high picks for players who would help them win now. As such, Nill and scouts like Joe McDonnell, Mark Leach and European bird dog Hakan Andersson had to take well-researched flyers on potential late-round gems.

It wasn’t easy getting around Russia to scout prospects back then.

Andersson was sitting on a plane on the tarmac in Moscow one day during a snowstorm hoping to fly out to a smaller Russian city to see Datsyuk play for a third time. But when it came to the Russian version of de-icing, Andersson was shocked: a giant fan blew a four-metre-high ring of flames over the wings, which contained gasoline. Andersson understand­ably was relieved when the flight was cancelled.

Still, Andersson had seen enough of Datsyuk. And when he was still available in the sixth round of the 1998 draft, the Wings acted on Andersson’s advice and picked him.

“I trust my people. They’re the ones who see these kids play more than me,” Holland says. “And if you don’t trust them, why are they working for you?”

Lidstrom. Datsyuk. Zetterberg. In Devellano’s mind, those are the three reasons the Red Wings’ streak of post-season appearance­s didn’t end a decade ago.

“Those guys carried us for an extra 10 years,” Devellano says. “When the salary cap came in, you couldn’t just stack onto the foundation of your team with high-priced free agents anymore.”

But the sands of time appear to have run out on the Wings. Lidstrom has retired and Datsyuk moved back to Russia, leaving Zetterberg to carry the load.

While they’re productive players, Gustav Nyquist and Tomas Tatar have yet to fulfil expectatio­ns of being the next Zetterberg or Datsyuk. And while Larkin and Anthony Mantha have high ceilings, they’re a long way from reaching them.

Still, Bowman, the winningest coach in NHL history, says the Wings are nowhere near “rock bottom” with enough prospects on board to fuel optimism. Plus, he says, the late Mike Ilitch left behind a legacy of generosity and goodwill that is conducive to winning.

“When they won the Cup in 1997, the Wings Cup-winning team in ’55 hadn’t got rings,” Bowman says. “There were 11 people from that team who were still around, including Glenn Hall. (Ilitch) sent every member of the ’55 team the same rings as the ’97 team got with each guy’s name on it.

“That’s the type of giving environmen­t he created.”

That environmen­t led to 25 consecutiv­e playoff appearance­s, an accomplish­ment that might never be equalled.

“The era of dynasties in the NHL is over,” Devellano says. “Even as successful as the Blackhawks and Kings have been recently, look at how tough it’s been for teams to go back-toback. That’s what makes our playoff appearance streak so special.”

 ?? GENE J. PUSKAR/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ?? Detroit Red Wings alternate captain Henrik Zetterberg hoists the Stanley Cup after the Wings defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2008.
GENE J. PUSKAR/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Detroit Red Wings alternate captain Henrik Zetterberg hoists the Stanley Cup after the Wings defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2008.
 ?? ABELIMAGES/GETTY IMAGES ?? The drafting of Pavel Datsyuk in the sixth round in 1998 was a prime example of the Red Wings’ scouting acumen.
ABELIMAGES/GETTY IMAGES The drafting of Pavel Datsyuk in the sixth round in 1998 was a prime example of the Red Wings’ scouting acumen.
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