‘Detroit Way’ could be a thing of the past

TORONTO • For five years, Teemu Pulkkinen’s been waiting.

During that time, he has broken Teemu Selanne’s 20-year-old rookie assist record in the Finnish hockey league and tied the record for most goals in a single period at the world junior championship. Two years ago he led the Grand Rapids Griffins in scoring. And despite playing in only 46 games last season, he won the goal-scoring title in the American Hockey League with 34 (he played 27 fewer games than the next-highest scorer).

On any team, Pulkkinen would be pencilled in for a topsix role in the NHL. But as a fourth-round pick of the Detroit Red Wings, the 23-year-old, who has three goals and five points in three pre-season games, has been patiently counting away the days like a prisoner waiting for his eventual release.

“If you’re coming here and you’re thinking you’re going to play in the show right away, it’s going to be hard,” said Pulkkinen, who was called up for 31 games last season. “I knew right away when I was drafted. Guys have to play in Grand Rapids first to take a step. I knew that.”

As training camps come to a close, the dominating story around the league is about all the players who could be jumping straight from the draft floor to the NHL. There is, of course, Edmonton’s Connor McDavid and Buffalo’s Jack Eichel. But from Carolina’s Noah Hanifin to New Jersey’s Lawson Crouse and even Pittsburgh secondround pick Daniel Sprong, top-end teenagers are getting ready to make their debuts everywhere you look.

Everywhere, it seems, including Detroit.

While the Red Wings have already returned 2015 firstround pick Evgeny Svechnikov to his junior team in Quebec, last year’s No. 15 pick Dylan Larkin (three goals and one assist in five games) is on the cusp of heading straight from college to the NHL.

For a team that had Tomas Tatar spend four years in the AHL, this is a bit unprecedented. The ‘Detroit Way’ is to let prospects mature in the minors. Unless your name is Datsyuk or Zetterberg, the path to the NHL has been long and tiresome. In fact, you have to go back 25 years when Keith Primeau was the No. 3 pick, to find the last draft pick that went straight to the NHL.

But with an ageing roster and a new head coach, the way Detroit does things could be changing.

“I don’t know about fresh blood,” head coach Jeff Blashill said. “You just want the best players that you have. The one thing about the NHL, the leading scorers in the league are younger than they were years ago. Young legs mean something. Skating is a big part of the NHL now. But in the end, we want the guys who are going to give us the best chance to win.”

The Red Wings, who finished with 100 points last season and made the playoffs for the 24th straight season, added defenceman Mike Green and centre Brad Richards in the offseason. So a letdown is not expected. And yet, it will be challenging for the team to sustain its production.

There are seven players on the roster who are 34 or older. Pavel Datsyuk will miss the start of the season after undergoing ankle surgery in the summer. The team is undergoing a transition. Henrik Zetterberg and Datsyuk led Detroit in points, but Tatar and Gustav Nyquist finished first and second in goals, and 23-yearold goaltender Petr Mrazek emerged as the No. 1 goalie.

With a pipeline that is bursting with NHL-calibre prospects, more players are on their way. And the Red Wings have to decide whether to open up the floodgates or continue to preach patience.

“I still think over 82 games we’re going to need 16 forwards,” general manager Ken Holland said. “The message that we’ve talked to our young people about is you build your resumé and you wait for your opportunity. Fortunately we haven’t felt the pressure where we’re struggling and had to dip in too early, thinking the saviour is down in the American League.”

Prior to this year’s draft, The Hockey News ranked the Red Wings’ prospect pool ninth in the league. Anthony Mantha and Larkin were both ranked among the league’s top 10 prospects, with three others — Xavier Ouellet, Ryan Sproul and Pulkkinen — in the top 50. No other team had more than four.

Part of Detroit’s success is smart drafting. The franchise has not had a top-10 pick since Martin Lapointe in 1991, but has managed to unearth lateround gems such as Jonathan Ericsson, who was the final pick in the final round in 2002.

But the bigger reason is development. Tatar spent four full seasons in the AHL — he was first or second in team scoring in three of those years — before getting a full-time role with the Red Wings. Nyquist spent two years. Ericsson spent three.

Pulkkinen, who spent two years in Grand Rapids, is the latest to go through the process. According to Holland, the 5-foot-10 winger has a “weapon” for a shot. But it was a weapon that took time to develop. You can’t rush that. “The game’s younger and the game’s faster,” Holland said, “but at the end of the day if you’re not prepared mentally and physically and mature enough, it doesn’t matter how young or fast you are. The NHL is not a level where you build a résumé of success, because the NHL is going to peck away at your confidence.”