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DETROIT - If the Detroit Red Wings win the Stanley Cup this year, the greatest share of the glory will go to the team's star players. The goalie tandem of Chris Osgood and Diminik Hasek; the scoring of Henrik Zetterberg and the defensive play of Nicklas Lidstrom. A bit more credit will go to coach Mike Babcock, and more to owner Mike Ilitch for providing the funds and staying out of the decision-making process. But what about Christer Rockstrom? Will he get any credit? Has he received notice from the previous Detroit wins in 1997, 1998, and 2002? Nope.
Yet without Rockstrom, how different might the team's recent history have been? Rockstrom was the director of European scouting until 1990 when he went to work for the New York Rangers. On his way out, he recommended the team hire Hakan Andersson as his replacement, and so began the team's greatest era of scouting success.
Of course, Rockstrom set the stage for the success, but really it has been Andersson who has contributed every bit as much as Ilitch or Babcock or Scotty Bowman to the team's remarkable record over the last decade and more. Indeed, the Wings have seemingly been in first place for so long it's tough to remember the years when Steve Yzerman first joined the winged wheelers in the mid-1980s and Detroit not only never made the playoffs but often finished near last place year after year.
What makes Andersson's work so special is that he has done so much with oftentimes so very little. His drafting success is not reliant on first rounders and guaranteed superstars. No. His forte is the late-round choice whom every other team looks at not once but MANY times and says, 'no, thanks'. Andersson has been able to see the potential of an 18-year-old player's development like no other scout in the world.
The current Detroit roster has seven Swedes, and not one is a fourth-line plugger, a part-timer, a throw-in from some long forgotten trade. Five of the seven are Detroit draft choices and two are free agent signings from the summer of 2005. Amazingly, the highest draft choice of the seven is Niklas Kronwall, who went 29th overall in 2000 - and he might be the least skilled of the seven!
At the other end of the spectrum is Tomas Holmstrom who was selected 257th overall in 1994 and has been with the team for more than a decade. Henrik Zetterberg, who has been among the league leaders in scoring this year, went a preposterous 210th overall in 1999. Johan Franzen was a 97th pick in 2004, and Nicklas Lidstrom, a pre-Andersson selection, was drafted 53rd overall in 1989. That means every NHL team had not one but two chances to take Lidstrom - and passed.
The only Swedish Wings on this year's roster not drafted by the team are Andreas Lilja, who was selected by Los Angeles 54th overall in 2000, and Mikael Samuelsson, taken 145th overall by San Jose in 1998.
Of course, several other factors must be considered when looking at this impressive list and Andersson's spectacular work. First, there are plenty of misses along with these hits over the years. No one recalls, for instance, Jimmy Svensson (228th in 2000), Jonathan Ericsson (291st in 2002), or Mikael Johansson (289th in 2003). Even Andersson isn't perfect.
But why all the late-round Swedes? One thing is certain. This is a country that produces as many world class players as any other country (with the exception of Canada). But take a look at Sweden's record at the World Junior Championships. It's abysmal. When Swedish players are 18 or 19, they are still raw material being developed. They cannot compete against the Canadians and Russians. By the time the players are mature, however, they have proved time and again they are a powerhouse at the senior level World Championships and Olympics. Clearly, Swedish players need more time to develop, and who better to gauge this than a Swede (like Andersson). One might argue that Russians are just the opposite. If they are not superstars by the time they're 19, they likely never will be.
The last test, though, the biggest of them all, is whether a Detroit team loaded with Swedes can win the Stanley Cup. A world championship or Olympics is about two weeks and ten games long. A Stanley Cup is ten exhibition games, 82 regular season games across North America, and then two months of intense, physical, demanding playoffs played at a feverish pace.
Detroit last won the Cup in 2002, but that was a team that still had Bowman as coach, captain Steve Yzerman, as well as a greater Russian element left over from Bowman's five-man unit of 1997 and 1998. In 2003, the team was swept aside by Anaheim in the first round of the playoffs. In 2004, the Wings lost in the second round, to Calgary, in six games. In 2006, after the lockout, they again lost in the first round, to Edmonton in six. Last year, they made it to the Conference finals before Anaheim won in six en route to its first Stanley Cup.
This coming playoffs is a big test on several fronts. It's a huge test for Mike Babcock, as the Wings try to find a coach to replace Bowman and his golden touch. It's a test for Lidstrom, the captain, to see if he can lead the team to its first Cup in the post-Yzerman era. It's a big test for Andersson, to see if the success of drafting late-round Swedes may have reached its peak and has become too much of one thing. Another early loss this year might spell the end of all the above, or it might signal another pioneering way to create a Stanley Cup team.
All because of Christer Rockstrom.
ANDREW PODNIEKS
