His past is his proof. Steve Yzerman is calling on the two Cup winners he built and the three Cup winners he captained. To bring the Red Wings back where they belong, he's revisiting where he's been.
The Lighting are two-time defending champs because they have the best goalie in hockey and a formidable four in front of him in Victor Hedman, Ryan McDonagh, Mikhail Sergachev and Erik Cernak. Yzerman put four of those five pieces in place, and extended the one he didn't.
The Red Wings were champs in 1997 because they had the Conn Smythe winner in net and Nicklas Lidstrom, Vladimir Konstantinov, Slava Fetisov and Larry Murphy on an all-time blueline. They repeated the next year with Chris Osgood replacing Mike Vernon, though sadly without Konstantinov.
They were champs again in 2002 because -- well, because they had six Hall of Fame forwards. But also because they had a Hall of Fame D pair in Lidstrom and Chris Chelios and a Hall of Fame goalie in Dominik Hasek.
That's not to diminish the other stars on those teams. Some of them were indispensable. But for all their respective talent up front, the Lightning and the Wings won their Cups from the back out.
So when the sixth pick came around in Friday night's draft and highly-touted forward William Eklund was still on the board, Yzerman said there was "zero hesitation or debate" for Detroit to take defenseman Simon Edvinsson. And when the Wings had to package three picks to trade up for goalie Sebastian Cossa at No. 15, Yzerman decided "it was worth it to do that."
The Red Wings emerged from the first round with two potential fixtures of their future.
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"I think it’s imperative to have a good defense to win championships," Yzerman said." You’re not winning without a good goalie and you’re not winning without a good D core. Once you are a solid defensive hockey team, you’re going to be competitive and you can win a lot of nights. And over time we’ll be able to add to the offense."
The Wings didn't draft by need on Friday, certainly not at No. 6. Yzerman was clear about taking the best prospect available. They were following their board, which is built by their own values. The Red Wings value defensemen. Their decision to take Moritz Seider sixth overall in 2019 makes even more sense in hindsight. And now a pairing of Seider and Edvinsson makes sense looking ahead.
"We just see his potential to be a defenseman that can log a lot of minutes and be a solid defender who can add some offense as well," Yzerman said of Edvinsson. "We like his skating ability, his size, his reach and we’re hoping he can become a big-minute defenseman for us."
And they're hoping Cossa will be playing behind him. They're hoping opposing forwards will enter the zone, trailing by a goal with two minutes to play, and see a pair of 6'4 defenseman and a 6'6 goalie standing in their way. They're hoping the goalie will be among the best in the league.
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Forget the size. The Red Wings haven't had a goaltender like Cossa in the system since ... since when? The last time they drafted a netminder this early was 1973. Their last netminder truly worth waiting on was Jimmy Howard, a second-round pick in 2003. After dominating the Western Hockey League the past two seasons, Cossa feels like a missing piece in Detroit's rebuild.
"When we pick him where we did, you hope you’re getting a starting goaltender. And we think he has the talent to do that," Yzerman said. "There’s a lot of work to be done between today and eventually becoming a starter in the NHL, but we think he has that ability. He’s big, but very athletic, technically sound."
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Yzerman still needs to find more talent up front. He doesn't dispute that. He also thinks the Wings have some promising pieces in place like Dylan Larkin and Jakub Vrana and more on the way like Lucas Raymond and Jonatan Berggren. He's working under the premise that No. 1 goalies and top-pair defensemen are harder to find than first- and second-line forwards.
Red Wings director of amateur scouting Kris Draper said the evaluation between Edvinsson and Eklund, who went 7th overall to the Sharks, was rather simple.
"6’4-5 left-shot defenseman versus a 5’10 winger," he said. "Looking at how we want to build the Detroit Red Wings, to get into the playoffs and then build a Stanley Cup champion, we all know the importance of defensemen. So when we were sitting there having the conversations, it just made sense to us."
The Red Wings had two first-round picks in 2018, including sixth overall, and took Filip Zadina and Joe Veleno. There was excitement, but there wasn't the feeling of a plan. The future was just the future, a vague hope in the distance. It looks different now, clearer. Yzerman can see it because he's seen it before.