The Detroit Red Wings always seem to find the right roster to compete and many times dominate in the NHL and this season has been no exception. More than a quarter of the way through the 2010-11 season, the Red Wings find themselves sitting in the top spot in the NHL with a 17-4-2 record and 38 points after 23 games.
How do they do it consistently year after year and even decade after decade?
A lot of teams would like to know so they can copy the formula that GM Ken Holland has put together but that’s a difficult task when there is a salary cap that exists; ask the Chicago Blackhawks about that.
The Blackhawks threw all their eggs in one basket last season and went for it all. Luckily for them they got to the Stanley Cup Finals and won the championship, otherwise they would be looking at an uphill struggle to win it this season.
The Blackhawks, who like many teams struggle to stay under the salary cap, were forced to let nine players go from that championship roster since June. A few of those players have found great success in their new homes like Dustin Byfuglien and Andrew Ladd in Atlanta who are No. 1 and 2 in scoring for the Thrashers with Ladd wearing a ‘C’ on his jersey and Big Buff wearing an ‘A’. Byfuglien actually leads the NHL in scoring for defenseman and that stat that may be hard to look at for Blackhawks fans who see their team six points behind division leading Detroit and just two points away from the No. 9 spot in the Western Conference.
So how do the Red Wings stay so consistent? One reason is Holland uses the team’s history of winning to attract several veterans over the years who are looking for an opportunity to have their name engraved on the cup. Players like Brett Hull, Chris Chelios and more recently Mike Modano have joined the Wings late in their careers with hope of hoisting the cup before exiting for the golf course.
Holland normally has blended veterans like these with a strong group of young players and draft picks to find the right chemistry. Going into this season however, many people questioned the Red Wings ability to stay on top since the veteran group far outweighed the youth, making their roster the oldest in the NHL.
Led by 40-year-old Nicklas Lidstrom and Mike Modano the Wings have 14 players over 30 years old with seven of them being over the age of 35. Balancing out the age scale this season is young goaltender Jimmy Howard is leading the charge. Howard has an astounding 15-2-2 record and 2.38 GAA and .919 save percentage. His mentor on the bench, Chris Osgood, has spent most of his career with the Red Wings and after a short stint outside the organization, turned down an opportunity for a huge contract elsewhere to finish his career in Detroit. Other players like Marian Hossa, Brett Hull, Luc Robitaille and Dominic Hasek did the same with Hossa passing up a 70-plus million dollar multi-year deal to skate one year with the team in 2008 .
So GM’s around the league, there is the formula! Have a consistent draft and get veteran players to agree to skate for millions of dollars less per season than their agents can get them from somewhere else. Yeah, good luck with that, unless your Ken Holland running a team in Hockeytown.
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