According to the NHL’s public relations social media post, only two Red Wings have scored as many points as Lucas Raymond through the first 250 games of their NHL careers over the last 25 years. Those two former Red Wings are Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk. Raymond scored 72 goals and added 114 assists for 186 points, Datsyuk scored 69 goals and 130 assists, and Zetterberg scored 88 goals and 104 assists.
“It’s a good memory and it’s a special group of people in there, and I’m young but I can learn every day…and I have lots to learn from them,” Datsyuk said about being inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Any young player would be so lucky to come into the NHL playing on a line with fellow future Hall of Famer Brett Hull and Boyd Devereaux. This line was nicknamed The Two Kids and An Old Goat Line. Devereaux was replaced by Zetterberg on this line after winning the 2001-02 Stanley Cup. Playing with a right-winger of Hull’s caliber allowed Datsyuk and Zetterberg to adjust to the NHL game.
Datsyuk and Zetterberg were nicknamed the Euro Twins. These two factored on the same goal 286 times in the regular season and 45 times in the playoffs. This trails only Gordie Howe and Alex Delvecchio (560 in the regular season and 50 in the playoffs) and Howe and Ted Lindsay (379 in the regular season and 46 in the playoffs) as the only duos to factor in more goals in Red Wings history. Zetterberg shared his thoughts on Datsyuk recently for NHL.com:
“My son, Love, is nine now. When we watch highlights from back in the day, I say things like ‘Oh, my God, look at that pass from ‘Pav.’ When you were in it, you didn’t think about it that much, but when you really think of it, he made my career. He was one of the most skilled two-way players who ever played. He was so strong on the puck. Unbelievable defense, but highlight-reel offense.” Datsyuk’s defense is an underrated part of his game given how gifted he was with the puck.
Datsyuk was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame on November eighth after playing for 14 seasons from 2001 to 2016 with the Red Wings. In 953 games played for the Red Wings Datsyuk scored 314 goals and 604 assists for 918 points. Leading the team in scoring in six consecutive seasons, including back-to-back 97-point seasons in 2007-08 and 2008-09, Datsyuk was named one of the NHL’s 100 Greatest Players in the league’s centennial celebration in 2017.
Having a player from Russia on the roster was nothing new to the Red Wings as before this the “Russian Five” was one of the most talented lines ever put together on an NHL team. Sergei Fedorov, Vladimir Konstantinov, Slava Kozlov, Slava Fetisov, and Igor Larionov debuted on the same line on October 27th, 1995 against the Calgary Flames.
Datsyuk was drafted by the Red Wings with the 171st overall pick in the 1998 NHL entry draft out of Sverdlovsk, USSR, after being passed over twice in the draft. Red Wings director of European scouting Håkan Andersson was only in Yekaterinburg, Russia to see defenseman Dmitri Kalinin. The Buffalo Sabres would select Kalinin with the 18th overall pick in the 1998 NHL entry draft. Kalinin only played nine seasons in the NHL with three different teams, while Datsyuk said that he was “happy to have only played on one team in the NHL.”
“I just remember thinking that he’s a small player, he works pretty hard, and he seems to have some ability,” said Andersson. “In the game, you noticed that he had some hands and some sense. Not nearly the stuff that he ended up doing later in the NHL, but you could tell there was something there, so obviously wrote reports on Kalinin, and then I had some notes on this guy too.”
