Jacques Demers on the Wings
Joe here. In yesterday’s USA Today, former Wings coach Jacques Demers paid high praise to the Wings performance when it comes to balancing European and North American players:
Look at the Detroit Red Wings’ roster and you see names like Lilja, Franzen, Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Lidstrom, Samuelsson, Filppula, Holmstrom and Kindl. In fact, almost half of the team’s playoff roster hails from Europe or Russia. That the Red Wings have been able to blend players from such different backgrounds into a solid team is a testament to the management and coaching philosophies of Ken Holland and Mike Babcock.
But it didn’t start with them. When I was coaching the Red Wings in the late 1980s, our general manager Jim Devellano had the foresight to begin scouting in Europe and Russia because he knew that was the only way the team would be able to rebuild itself.
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