Why were the Detroit Red Wings so good in the ’90s and ’00s?
An observer should be quick to point out Detroit’s hall of fame lineup. Yzerman, Federov, Shanahan, Draper, Larionov, Lidstrom, Murphy, Hasek, then Datsyuk and Zetterberg and alright, you get the picture. It didn’t hurt that no salary cap until the 2005 meant that management could pay to keep proven guys around. That sweet, sweet Little Caesars pizza money went a long way back then.
Each of these misses the mark. Sure, deep pools of talent and even deeper coffers put the Red Wings in position to win. But money can’t skate, and even the greatest players can hardly play more than half a game. The real reason was the depth of the roster in the unspoken areas: the grinders, the scrappers, the hard-nosed competitors.
For every Yzerman, Detroit had a Draper. For every Shanahan, a McCarty. For every Lidstrom, a Holmstrom.
Depth on the Red Wings teams of old didn’t have everything to do with star power, though that certainly helped. It had to do with depth in the hard facets of the game, too. As much as the Grind Line is uttered with reverence by many a Detroit fan, its importance and that of similar players cannot be overstated to the Red Wings’ era of NHL dominance.
Now in a salary cap era, teams’ depth among the heavyweights matters even more. Players who can check and chip are worth their weight in gold come the playoffs, even if they might not be as noticeable in the regular season to get them there.
Today’s archive pull is a May 2000 article from THN’s Chuck Carlton, exploring just how important Detroit’s depth was to its era of dominance.
“Going deep: Give credit to Detroit’s foot soldiers” by Chuck Carlton
May 5, 2000 / Vol. 53, Issue 34
All the Detroit Red Wings understand is everybody plays and everybody contributes and that’s why they win. Stars know their roles and role players can become stars.
Consider the first round sweep of the Los Angeles Kings and how the stats turned upside down.
Martin Lapointe scored as many goals as Sergei Fedorov. Kris Draper finished with more goals than Brendan Shanahan. And Tomas Holmstrom got one more than Steve Yzerman.
“Whoever wins in the playoffs gets goals from everybody,” Yzerman said. “You don’t rely on one line or one individual. When we won the two (Stanley) Cups, everybody was successful. If you want to go far, you have to have the depth.”
The Kings concur. They shut down all the marquee names and got burned by the supporting actors. In Game 1, Darren McCarty returned from missing 16 games with a groin pull to register a game-high 10 hits and set the early tone by plastering Garry Galley against the end boards.
Game 2 saw Lapointe net his first playoff hat trick. Draper, with just nine goals in his past 141 games counting the playoffs, added two more.
Holmstrom personally decided Game 3 in less than seven minutes of ice time. He drew Kings’ captain Rob Blake into a penalty with the Kings already down a man to set up the first goal and deflected a Nicklas Lidstrom shot past Stephane Fiset for the winner in a 2-1 victory.
“I look at this team and say openly, ‘What team in the NHL can match them with skill, scoring, grittiness and tenacity up front?’ And I can’t come up with a team,” said ESPN analyst Darren Pang. “Depth-wise, I think this team is as confident and as good as ever. When you have a fourth line consisting of a Draper, a Lapointe and a (Kirk) Maltby, that’s just remarkable.”
As expected as the contributions have become for the Red Wings, they relied more than usual on the top scoring line of Yzerman, Shanahan and Pat Verbeek in the regular season as injuries and slumps ate away at the depth.
McCarty missed 24 games this season because of groin problems and managed just six goals. A contract holdout saw him miss training camp and the death of his father, Craig, made for a trying regular season.
“Everything that has happened, no matter what, is rubbed clean; this is like a new season, a fresh start,” McCarty said. “Everything is behind me. I’ve come to grips with everything and accepted everything. Now it’s time.”
The challenge was different for Lapointe.
He weighed 234 pounds after last season on a 5-foot-11 frame. He joked that he would “look at a bag of potato chips and gain five pounds.” Room service wasn’t a convenience, it was a way of life.
Now he’s down to a chiseled 210, still as physical and strong, but quicker. He looks more like the guy who scored nine playoff goals in 1998.
Draper might be the best fourth line center in hockey, but was worried about his position just before the playoffs, especially after a broken wrist earlier this season.
Then there’s Holmstrom, who doesn’t enjoy the pain that comes with assuming personal residence in front of the opposing goalie, as much he accepts it. He not only takes one for the team, he takes two or three or four.
Like early in the season against Vancouver, when a Donald Brashear check left him with a sprained knee. Or March 29 against Vancouver, when Holmstrom got cross-checked in the mouth and took a puck in the cheek, suffering a concussion. Or Game 1 of the playoffs, when Blake played target practice with his head. Or Game 3, when Blake cross-checked him in head instead. Holmstrom’s smile looks like the grill of a Plymouth Fury after a demolition derby.
“He’s a beauty, isn’t he?” McCarty said. “How can you not love that guy? Everybody thinks he’s Swedish, but he’s actually Canadian, he’s up from the Arctic or somewhere like that. He’s got a heart the size of Sweden. He’s a valuable guy on our team. You talk about unsung heroes, he’s definitely one of them with the abuse that he takes.”
But he’s not alone. ■
THN Archive is an exclusive vault of 2,640 issues and more than 156,000 for subscribers, chronicling the complete history of The Hockey News from 1947 until today. Visit THN.com/archive and subscribe today at subscribe.thehockeynews.com
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