Wings hope to extend their time at the Joe

Detroit trying to add to NHL-best 25-year run of playoff appearances

DETROIT— Mike Babcock took a moment on Wednesday to reflect on the remarkable success of the Detroit Red Wings, a team he coached for 10 years prior to coming to the Maple Leafs.

The Red Wings have been to the playoffs for 25 straight seasons, winning the Stanley Cup four times in that stretch, including once under Babcock. The highest they have drafted since 1992 is 15th overall (Dylan Larkin, 2014). They went 10 years in that stretch without a first-round pick. They have, to put it simply, kept it together. So when Babcock was asked what the key was to the Wings’ success all that time, his answer was not that surprising.

“Ken Holland. Simple,” said Babcock, speaking of his friend and the general manager of the Wings. “He does it right each and every day. They’ve been so good for so long, but you look at all the young players they have and how good they are, they’ve done a heck of a job here.

“The other thing they’ve done here, not only develop players, but develop people. You look at all the people who cane through the organization that are somewhere else and doing a real good job. Ken Holland and (owner) Mike Ilitch are the key.”

The league indeed is littered with coaching and management types that came up through the Wings’ ranks. Steve Yzerman, the general manager of Tampa Bay, and Jim Nill, the Dallas GM, are two of the higher profile executives that earned their wings, so to speak, under Holland.

The idea of drafting players, developing them in the minors or in Europe and remaining patient might not have been invented by the Wings, but they might have been perfected it going back as far as current captain Henrik Zetterberg (210th overall in 1999) and Gustav Nyquist (121st overall in 2008).

Holland’s contract with the Wings, interestingly, expires after the 201718 season, the same year Leaf GM Lou Lamoriello’s deal with Toronto ends. Lamoriello will be 76 by then, Holland 63.

There could well be as many rumours about Holland coming to the Leafs then as there were circling Babcock at the end of his time in Detroit.

But Holland’s job is far from done in Detroit, where a bet is going around: What’s going to end first? The Wings’ time at the Joe Louis Arena, or their 25-year playoff streak?

The Joe, built in 1979 and now the oldest rink in the NHL, is slated to close sometime after the Wings play their last game this season. A new rink, Little Ceasars Arena, will open up next year. Wings fans, of course, are hoping for a lot more hockey at the Joe. That will happen only if the Wings can continue their NHL-best streak of making the playoffs.

It’s not looking good this year. The Wings have uncharacteristically been among the bottom feeders of the Eastern Conference. But stranger things have happened.

The conference is so tight, for example, that a playoff spot is arguably only a winning streak away. Coming into Wednesday’s game against the Maple Leafs, the Wings had earned points in six straight games (three wins, three overtime losses), their best streak since winning six straight Oct. 17-27.

“I want to give our team every opportunity to try to play our way into the mix,” Holland told NHL.com at the beginning of this run. The idea is to finish strong, and have a solid team when the Wings move.

Babcock, meanwhile, is among those who will miss the Joe.

“It’s a great building, lots of history,” said Babcock. “When you sit down on that bench, it’s been there forever, and you know a lot of great players have gone before, the success they’ve had. I had a great 10-year run. I had great players. Owners and management treated everybody well. It’s a great spot.”