Red Wings don't miss a beat
DUCKS REPORT
Detroit is always in playoff contention, no matter who it loses in the off-season.
Mathieu Schneider and Todd Bertuzzi headed for Anaheim when the Ducks offered them lucrative two-year contracts, and Robert Lang took the money in Chicago when his services were no longer needed.
Losing that amount of veteran talent would affect most teams. Not the Detroit Red Wings.
After Wednesday's 2-1 victory over the Ducks, Detroit is setting the pace in the NHL with a league-best 37-10-4 record and 78 points. The fact that the Red Wings haven't missed the playoffs since the 1989-90 season and remain among the league's elite in a salary-cap system that makes it harder to keep teams together isn't lost on their opposition.
It also helps to have a core that includes stars Nicklas Lidstrom, Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk along with Cup-winning war horses Chris Chelios, Kris Draper and Kirk Maltby.
"The key to having success is you need to have a couple of guys take less money in a cap system," Schneider said before Wednesday's game. "Nicky Lidstrom did it, Tomas Holmstrom did it, so did Kris Draper. They still got Zetterberg on his four-year deal where he's making two and a half [million].
"It'd be awfully hard to do in a year or two when they've got to sign all those players again. Fortunately, they got some of their top players at a discounted rate."
Ducks defenseman Sean O'Donnell put scouting among the key reasons why the Red Wings have been able to maintain their status as a chief Cup contender every season.
"I think for the last 10 years, that's really been the model organization," O'Donnell said. "With some of the scouting they've done, a lot of their superstars they've gotten after the fourth and fifth round, which is amazing. And they lose guys every year, but it seems like they always have good products [in the system] where they can make that big trade at the deadline or make that last push because they've got so many good young players coming up."
Some of Detroit's younger players, who had bit parts or minor roles in the playoffs last season, have become productive players in their lineup.
Centers Valtteri Filppula and Jiri Hudler have played in all 50 games, with Filppula contributing 14 goals and 25 points and Hudler adding 11 goals and 32 points. Hudler is making $1.15 million and Filppula is earning a cap-friendly $850,000.
