FanHouse Pavel Datsyuk

FanHouse's Adam Gretz takes a look at his top 50 players in the NHL. No. 4 is Detroit Red Wings forward Pavel Datsyuk.

The Detroit player development system strikes again. When discussing the best players in the league the names Ovechkin, Crosby and Malkin are usually the ones that get mentioned. I consider Detroit's Pavel Datsyuk to be part of that group, and there's not much of a gap between him at No. 4 and the No. 3 player on my list.

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FanHouse's Adam Gretz takes a look at his top 50 players in the NHL. No. 8 is Detroit Red Wings forward Henrik Zetterberg.

The Detroit Red Wings have been one of the most successful teams in sports the past two decades, qualifying for the playoffs an incredible 18 years in a row, winning six conference titles and four Stanley Cups.

One of the primary reasons for their consistent success is a player development system that is second to none in the NHL. I remember watching the Stanley Cup teams of the late-90's, and even the 2001-02 team, and foolishly thinking that once they lost players like Steve Yzerman, Brendan Shanahan and The Russian Five (my goodness, those teams were stacked) they would eventually fall back to the pack and have, at the very least, a couple of down years. Not even close.

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It's been a one-way street out of Detroit this offseason, as the Red Wings have watched Marian Hossa, Mikael Samuelsson, Ty Conklin and Tomas Kopecky sign with rival teams in the Western Conference, while Jiri Hudler attempts to make a jump to the KHL (even though the NHL isn't all that happy about it). Such losses would be a sizable blow to most teams, but the Red Wings aren't like most teams.

While it's true they lost some talent and production, and haven't added anything of consequence in the early stages of the offseason, it still shouldn't put much of a dent in the Red Wings' Stanley Cup chances for 2009-10.

Let's take a look at what Detroit is really losing, and what it has coming up through the Grand Rapids pipeline.

The Detroit Red Wings are considered, in most circles, as the model franchise in the NHL. With four Stanley Cups in the past 14 years -- and six trips to the Finals -- it's hard to argue against that belief. Impossible, actually. But are they overrated when it comes to their success at the NHL Entry Draft?

On Monday, the great Maple Leafs blog, Pension Plan Puppets, unveiled an overwhelming analysis of every pick in the NHL draft from 1994 to the present created by one of their members. One of the surprising observations? The Detroit Red Wings are, according to his analysis, one of the worst teams in the NHL when it comes to the draft.

Blasphemy!

The real NHL awards will be handed out Thursday night in Las Vegas, so FanHouse decided to hand out its own special awards for the 2008-09 season.

It's designed to maintain competitive balance and parity across the league, but if you waste valuable salary cap space on free agents that don't pan out or contribute the way you expected, you're pretty much stuck without a paddle because nobody is going to bail you out and take that albatross contract off your hands.

Introducing the FanHouse nominees for the Wade Redden Award for Wasted Cap Space.

The real NHL awards will be handed out Thursday night in Las Vegas, so FanHouse decided to hand out its own special awards for the 2008-09 season.

While there are still many folks firmly planted on both the pro and con sides of the shootout debate, I think one thing that everyone can agree on is that the skill competition does produce some amazing highlight reel goals. Today, I have the pleasure of unveiling the FanHouse nominees for the best shootout goal of the 2008-09 season.

It's officially the offseason, meaning the time is right to look into the future. We'll be running our division-by-division preview of the offseason beginning later in the week, but we wanted to give the two top dogs their own space. Today: the summer outlook for the Red Wings. Tomorrow, the Stanley Cup champion Penguins.

The Red Wings came within one game of repeating as Stanley Cup champions. A goal or two here or there, and their mission – and Marian Hossa's – is accomplished.

Instead, Detroit's first question mark going into the summer months is Hossa. It's widely expected he'll re-sign with the Wings for five years or so, but that will push Detroit essentially to the limit when it comes to the cap, which is projected to be about $57 million again.

In The Face-Off Circle: A game-by-game look at the face-off matchups in the Stanley Cup Final

Tuesday's game 6 between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings proved to be one of the most intense, exciting, and nail-biting games in this year's Stanley Cup Playoffs, as it literally came down to a matter of inches in the closing minutes of the third period. It was also the first game in the series where the two teams were even in the face-off circle, as both teams won 24-of-48 draws.

Which ones had an impact on the game? Find out after the jump.

Heading into Game 6 of the Stanley Cup final, it was pretty much assumed that Marc-Andre Fleury was going to have to come up big in net for the Pittsburgh Penguins to force a seventh game. He not only stood up to the challenge in Pittsburgh's 2-1 win, he made what appeared to be one of the biggest saves of the season when he turned aside Daniel Cleary on a breakaway in the final minute of regulation.

As it turns out, that wasn't even the biggest save of the night. Video's after the jump.

For the Detroit Red Wings it's just one more win for the franchise's fifth Stanley Cup in the past 12 years, cementing themselves as the gold standard in the NHL. For the Pittsburgh Penguins? Losing is no longer an option.

A year after Marian Hossa, playing for Pittsburgh, skipped a last-second shot across the goal line as time expired in Game 6 at Mellon Arena, the two teams square off in the exact same situation on Tuesday night. Can the Wings end it in Pittsburgh again? Will the Penguins prevent Hossa from winning the Cup?

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