From the Archive: The Motor City Method

Seeing hundreds of thousands of fans in Detroit for the NFL Draft this weekend, it's easy to envision a championship crowd of a similar magnitude. The roar, the passion, the euphoria of a fan base given a championship — all in the heart of a city that lives and dies by its oft-maligned teams.

The last time Detroit got a championship by a Big Four sport was when the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup in 2008. The fourth Stanley Cup in 10 years, the city was well-versed in winning, and so was its general manager, Ken Holland.

After the 2008 Stanley Cup win, Holland took some time out of his celebrations to pen a special feature to The Hockey News about the process that won his Red Wings so many Stanley Cups. In it, he outlines nine important areas Detroit succeeded:

1. Good people
2. Players learn from other players
3. Uncovering draft gems
4. On-ice discipline
5. Puck possession
6. Ownership
7. Salary cap
8. Reclamation projects
9. Patience

So how does Detroit stack up to these tenets in 2024?

1. Good people is a subjective criteria, but Detroit has a strong captain in Dylan Larkin and budding young leaders in Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond, among other quality folks.
2. Young rookies are learning from veteran mentors, especially much hyped rookie Simon Edvinsson.
3. You could argue Moritz Seider was a draft gem even if he was picked at sixth overall, though other draft gems will take more time to prove their abilities.
4. On-ice discipline was lacking at times, with late penalties nearly costing the Red Wings in their playoff run (see: the late PK against Toronto). 
5. Detroit could be a far better possession team, or at least translate its possession into shot attempts after a 45.97% Corsi on the season.
6. Ownership hasn't changed from the Ilitch family, although Chris Ilitch is now the owner.
7. The Red Wings are finally a team that can make use of the full salary cap after a long rebuild.
8. Reclamation projects like Patrick Kane, Robby Fabbri, Alex Lyon and Jeff Petry played key roles in last year's lineup, if not the future.
9. Finally, current general manager Steve Yzerman has shown plenty of restraint and patience by not buying at the trade deadline or selling the future for playoff chances.

Can the Red Wings use these nine principles to bring a championship parade to Detroit? Can a sea of red and white one day line Woodward Avenue for a parade? In dreams for now, but the future is brighter than ever in the past 10 years.

From the THN Archive: "The Motor City Method" by Ken Holland

July 1, 2008 / Vol. 61, Issue 30

There is no greater feeling than winning the Stanley Cup.

It represents the culmination of years of hard work, it justifies all the tough decisions that had to be made along the way – and it strengthens the trust and bond between the people who made those decisions.

There is no set formula for building a winner, but over the years, we in the Detroit Red Wings organization have come up with what we consider a pretty trustworthy guideline. We’re no different than any of the other 29 NHL teams in that we are always searching for ways to be better, but there are some areas of operation we have learned not to tinker with too much. We have learned to trust the decisions we made in the past that led us to the ultimate success.

Here are nine important elements of our success:

MY PHILOSOPHY IS to find the very best people you can. When I’m confident we have the right people working for us, it makes it easy for me to get out of the way and let them do their thing. I don’t worry about anybody from within trying to take my job. There is a trust and a bond with the people in our organization, an understanding we are all working for the same result: the Stanley Cup. My feeling is, it’s hard to let somebody go if you’re winning. I also think if you win enough and somebody does take your job, then there will be other opportunities for you.

The only thing that matters to me is winning and I believe we have a lot of people in our organization who share that sentiment. Our assistant GM Jim Nill does such a great job that any time another GM job opens up, I get calls from teams asking for permission to speak to him.

Our management group also includes Steve Yzerman, Scotty Bowman and Jim Devellano. It’s all about the team and if we can find a way to enjoy success, then we all get our just rewards.

When I became GM in 1997, our scouts might have worried I’d stick my nose in too much. That didn’t happen. You either watch 150 games or don’t get involved. I choose to let others do the majority of the legwork. Jim Nill runs our amateur draft with help from (director of European scouting) Hakan Andersson and (director of amateur scouting) Joe Mc-Donnell. They are the key decision-makers and run the draft. When I go to see amateur games or world junior games, I may write a note and give it to Jim, mentioning what I thought about a player or two, but he knows if he wants to, he can throw my note in the garbage. I point out what I have seen and what my opinion is, just like a scout would, but ultimately it comes down to what our scouts think.

Mike Babcock is the coach and he makes the coaching decisions. When I travel with the team, I may approach Mike after a game and say, “I liked this player,” or “I didn’t like that player,” or “Why did we do this on the penalty kill?” I’m always going to ask questions and give my opinion, but ultimately it comes down to Mike’s decisions. He’s the coach…he’s the boss…I’ve got to support him.

Everybody has their duties and my job is to make sure we have top people running those specific areas. I have to make sure they have all the necessary tools and support so they can do their jobs to the best of their ability.

I like to go out and keep tabs on the players we’ve drafted and signed. Jim runs our AHL affiliate in Grand Rapids, but I like to go down there 10 or 12 times a season to get an idea of how far those guys are from playing with us. I go to the world junior tournament to see our kids there. I saw Brendan Smith, our first round pick in 2007 who plays for Wisconsin, when the Badgers played at Michigan and Michigan State.

At the trade deadline we gather with our pro scouts and talk about what we need and get their opinions of the players we might like to pursue. Ultimately I make the final decision, but that decision is based on the input I get from our people.

It’s the same for our players. Guys like Nicklas Lidstrom, Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk don’t have big egos. They understand they have a job to do and by doing their jobs to the best of their ability, it enhances the chance for our team to be successful as a whole.

IN MY OPINION, when Scotty Bowman arrived as the coach in 1993 and asked Steve Yzerman to go from being a great offensive player to a great two-way player, it set the tone for the organization moving forward. Steve sacrificed offense to become a better faceoff man, shot-blocker and defensive forward. When guys saw that, they couldn’t help but fall in line.

In 2002 we brought Zetterberg over from Europe to watch some playoff games and he said his favorite players were Igor Larionov and Steve Yzerman, then two of our key veterans. I decided it was important to keep Larionov for another year or two, even though he was coming to the end of the line. Coaches can teach players only so much, but they can also learn a lot from veteran players. People look at our team and say we’re old, but we’re old for a reason. Those guys serve a purpose in our organization. They are there to guide our young players. I’d like to think when an older player is done here, he’s done.

WE’VE BEEN VERY SUCCESSFUL in acquiring impact players late in the draft. Part of it is luck, but the question is, why are we so lucky? We put an emphasis on skills and hockey sense. We don’t put an emphasis on size. If you look at Darren Helm, Zetterberg or Valtteri Filppula, they were all weak little kids, but they had hockey sense. We knew they would get strong with time. They were all world junior-type players. Not all of our picks pan out, but the ones that do have skills and hockey sense.

Also, because our team is good, we don’t have to rush players. Filppula was a regular in the Finnish League and when he came over, we put him in the AHL for a year. He had a good rookie season there and the next year he makes it as a regular with our team. You only make our team when you’re ready. You don’t make it just because you were a second round draft pick and you have entitlement. You make our team because you are ready to play.

Because we like skill, when a player joins our team, skill plays with skill. In the end, we obviously got tremendously lucky with Datsyuk and Zetterberg. They are superstars. Sometimes you get lucky with one; we got lucky with two. I said all along if you write down the best 10 forwards in the league, and even if you shrink the list to five, we have two of them. And on top of that, we have Lidstrom – the best defenseman.

PEOPLE ALWAYS SAY other teams mimic the one that wins the Stanley Cup and, on one level, there is some truth to that. Anaheim won the Cup last year and was a very physical team. But I think too much accent was put on the Ducks’ physical play; they were also a very highly skilled team.

I can remember two or three times, and as recently as when we lost to Edmonton in the first round two years ago, sitting in Jim Nill’s office with the two of us thinking out loud, wondering if we needed to get bigger and tougher. You analyze what went wrong and what you might do differently if you had the chance. You wonder about your team philosophy and in the end we decided we are who we are – let’s stick with our philosophy because we believe in it. Our philosophy is skill and puck possession. That is no secret. We try to have four lines of skilled players with a puck-moving defense. Let’s stick to the program.

After the work stoppage we brought Babcock in as our coach and we got 124 points, but lost in the first round of playoffs. The temptation to change your philosophy is always there when you lose. It gnaws away at you.

You wonder, “Are we good enough? Are we big enough?” But if you look at the Edmonton series, we didn’t lose because the Oilers were deeper or stronger than we were. We lost because their goalie played great and we had some key injuries. We also had some guys like Dan Cleary, Johan Franzen, Niklas Kronwall, Brett Lebda, Val Filppula – eight or nine guys – who had never been in the playoffs before.

Ultimately, we decided to stick to the program. Mike Babcock did the same thing this year when we got up 3-0 against Dallas and then lost Games 4 and 5. Do you tinker with the lines or make lineup changes? Ultimately, we stick to the program.

THE FIRST THING about puck possession is you need to have skill. Puck possession works for us because of our defense. With Lidstrom, Brian Rafalski and Kronwall, we obviously have guys who can control the game. Lebda can skate and handle the puck. Andreas Lilja can make a pass…Chris Chelios can make a pass. Then we pick up Brad Stuart at the trade deadline and he was a perfect fit for us.

When I hired Mike Babcock, he came in during August of ’05 and he watched our playoff series against Calgary in ’04 when we lost out in the second round. He thought we needed to chip-and-chase more and felt they clogged us up in the neutral zone too often. I told him I disagreed. Mike believed in the chip-and-chase game; I’m a puck-possession guy.

After much discussion, he still felt he wanted to go to training camp and get the puck to holes and put pressure on the puck. Chip-and-chase.

We get to training camp with 60 guys that we break into three teams for scrimmage purposes and when the puck gets dropped, somebody wins it back to Lidstrom who fires it over to this guy and this guy fires it over to that guy and that guy plays it up to that guy. Our players do what they do; they just start playing with the puck. It becomes clear very quickly what kind of a team we are.

Pretty soon if I mention a chip-and-chase player to Mike, he doesn’t want to hear about the guy. Our defense is we hang onto the puck. When we have the puck you are going to have to work really hard to get it back because we’re not just going to give it to you.

It started with the Russian Five in the ’90s and it has worked for us. That’s why I don’t believe in overhauling the team. If you move out a bunch of guys and bring in new players, you have to find a new philosophy. We look for players that we think will be able to play within our system.

Because we like to roll four lines with skill, we look for a certain type of player. Other than Zetterberg and Datsyuk, nobody really wows you. But we get guys who are capable of chipping in on offense. Some teams play a fourth line that you know they can put out all winter and they’re not going to score a point. They’re big and strong and they might fight, but they won’t score. We want some goals out of the fourth line. Because our defense gets the puck and moves it up and we like to hang onto the puck, we need guys up front who can do something when the puck comes to them. If you attack the other team’s net enough, sooner or later the puck has to go in.

I REPORT TO ONE PERSON: Mike Ilitch. I talk to all our people and when I want something, I go to Mr. Ilitch and – boom! – it’s done. I don’t have to appeal to a group of owners like some GMs; just one person.

Mr. Ilitch makes sure we have what we deem necessary for our team to have the best chance to be successful. For instance, our team has a private plane. Our players are fed very well on the plane. Being based in the East, but playing in the Western Conference, it’s important our players are comfortable with all the travel.

Mr. Ilitch will always do what he can to make newcomers feel comfortable. When I joined the Wings in 1994 as the assistant GM, my wife told Jim Devellano, “We’re coming, but we want our children to attend a private Catholic school.” Mr. Ilitch made some calls to some private Catholic schools that were already full and our daughters got in.

We flew two private planes to the final game in Pittsburgh because we wanted to include staff and family in what turned out to be the deciding game. Mike Ilitch made that happen. I don’t recall him ever saying no to anything I have requested. It’s about trying to treat all the people in our organization first-class.

WE HAVE A CAPOLOGIST, but working with a budget is also my strength. I like numbers. I was a goalie – you’re always working out your goals-against average.

Even when you go back to the days when there was no salary cap, the way we built it then is no different than now. In ’01-02 we had seven or eight high-profile guys and then we looked for support players. Steve Duchesne was looking for work so we brought him in. Then we brought in Jason Woolley. Quality guys. We drafted Pavel Datsyuk and he joined us. We made a pitch for Boyd Devereaux. It is important to supplement your top players with quality depth players.

I don’t think team-building is any different except the guys who used to make $10 million a year now make $7 million a year. I read a book called The Blueprint, about the NFL’s New England Patriots, who to me are the best team in the world at managing the cap. I learned from the book. The Patriots have a lot of above-average players to go with a core of players they draft and develop, and they have a handful of superstars.

I won’t put big money into defenders, guys who only defend. There are guys out there who make millions of dollars that strictly defend. We don’t believe doing that gives you bang for your buck.

I was a minor league goalie, so I really appreciate defense. In 1999, when we were trying to go for the three-peat, we basically cleaned out a draft bringing in experienced players: Chris Chelios, Wendel Clark, Ulf Samuelsson and Bill Ranford. We lost in the second round and over the next six to 12 months, when Jim Nill and I would go for lunch, we’d talk about team defense. I told him when we lose Yzerman, (Brendan) Shanahan and (Sergei) Fedorov, we can stay competitive by being good on defense. Over the past few years we placed a huge priority on signing and drafting defensemen. You can’t have enough defensemen.

I’ll put big money into the goal position if I have one of the top five in the game and I’ll build my team around that guy, but we haven’t had one of the top five guys since 2001-02 when we had Dominik Hasek in his prime. Our feeling is, have solid goaltending. If another team pays $4-5 million a year for a goalie, we’ll pay $1-1.5 million a year and sink the rest of our money into defense. Chris Osgood and Hasek were good enough for us that if we play good team defense, they’ll help us win games.

WE ARE ALWAYS ON THE LOOKOUT for players who have attained a level of success, but might be a bit down on their luck or are looking for another opportunity. In that regard, we were fortunate to get the likes of Osgood, Stuart, Cleary and Darren McCarty among others, who helped us win the Cup this season.

Some of the players we already knew. Stuart, for example, I met through my involvement with Team Canada at the World Championship two years ago when I was the GM. He was a quiet kid who played very well.

The thing is to try to put people in a position where they can succeed. In basketball they have what they call the sixth man. Well, we have what we call the seventh forward – and that’s Cleary. He is a very valuable player for us; able to move up and play on one of our top two lines or he can play on the checking line. He’s one of the best seventh forwards in hockey.

PATIENCE IS SOMETHING you hopefully learn over time. We’ve done that at the coaching and management levels, and it is something we expect our players to learn, too.

When we were playing Nashville in the first round and we’d be sitting in the suite watching the games with the Black Aces – the kids who are on the cusp of joining our team in the near future – and I’d lean over to defenseman Jonathan Ericsson and whisper in his ear, “You notice Lidstrom doesn’t do too much? He doesn’t overextend himself?” Players are obviously going to make mistakes, but not the big boo-boos where you try to force the puck from the corner to the far blueline that gets intercepted and then they come back at you on a 3-on-2 or 2-on-1.

Over the past 10 years I’ll stand by the philosophy that has helped make us a success. We have won six Presidents’ Trophies, four Stanley Cups, we’ve had eight consecutive 100-point seasons. We lost in the first round three times in 13 years, but we’ve gone to the final four seven times in 13 years and to the Stanley Cup final five times in 13 years.

I just think the philosophy seems to be working. Next year we could lose in the first round because we’re out of energy, but judge us on five years; not on one year. ■

The THN Archive is an exclusive vault of 2,640 issues and more than 156,000 stories 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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