Next month will mark five years since the Tampa Bay Lightning lured Steve Yzerman away from the Detroit Red Wings to transfer all he learned under Ken Holland and Scotty Bowman to a floundering Lightning organization.
He learned well and has implemented, with precision, a five-year plan that should be taught somewhere in NHL executive school. He has built a young team loaded with talent at forward, depth and experience on defense and arguably two No. 1 goalies. The man behind the bench, Jon Cooper, is the game's best young coach.
"Front to back, they have a really good team," Red Wings forward Darren Helm told ESPN.com.
This is the postseason when the Stanley Cup window officially opens for Yzerman's Lightning, and it's his former team that provides the first challenge.
It's a Red Wings franchise that continues to operate under the winning culture Yzerman helped build in the dressing room as a player, now enforced by former teammates Henrik Zetterberg, Niklas Kronwall and Pavel Datsyuk. It's a team making its 24th consecutive trip to the playoffs and one that knows its way around the postseason, something we're not entirely sure of yet about the Lightning. Detroit is a proud team, one that won't go down easily.
There will be a temptation to dub this the Yzerman Bowl, and his influence will no doubt be felt everywhere, but Stanley Cup playoff games aren't about executives. They're about the players on the ice, and this series is loaded with storylines and star power on both sides.
Let's dive in!
Fancy stats
This is going to be a battle for puck possession. The Red Wings are one of the original puck possession teams, long before terms such as Corsi and Fenwick were thrown around, so it's no surprise Yzerman has built the Lightning into a possession power as well.
At even strength, the Red Wings control 53.5 percent of shot attempts, the highest among any Eastern Conference playoff team. The Lightning are right behind, at 53.1 percent. Considering all the hand-wringing over the Detroit goaltending this season, the Red Wings finished with a higher even strength save percentage, at .925, than Tampa did, at .919.
But the Lightning were better at scoring at a more consistent rate than their opponents. Their 5-on-5 goals for/against ratio was 1.28 this season, No. 2 in the NHL. Detroit was right in the middle of the pack at 1.04, which suggests the Red Wings relied a little too much on a power play that finished at 23.8 percent (No. 2 in the NHL). That's not an easy rate to duplicate in the postseason.
Gut check
Throwing the numbers out, what other intangibles are there? You might have more urgency to win now in Detroit, with the Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg era winding down, plus coach Mike Babcock could be coaching his final postseason in Detroit, with his contract set to expire after this season. Those factors could provide fuel that might not exist otherwise for some of the younger players.
But the feeling you get in talking to the Lightning is that their flop the past season against the Montreal Canadiens in the playoffs still stings. They had a strong regular season but couldn't win a game in the playoffs. Tyler Johnson was recently asked why he didn't suffer from the sophomore slump that hits many other impressive rookies, and he pointed to that playoff failure.
"All summer it was painful," Johnson told ESPN.com. "You have such a good season, and all people want to talk about is playoffs: 'What happened there?' It fuels you a little more. Now we're having another great season, but we're realizing that the playoffs are really what matters."
The gut says the Lightning will come in laser-focused for the Red Wings.
MVP
We're going to cheat here and highlight two guys: Datsyuk and Steven Stamkos. They are two world-class players who could very easily steal this series with a heroic effort, but they play on great teams, so they don't have to.
Datsyuk has Henrik Zetterberg to back him up, along with the young forwards the Red Wings organization keeps pumping out.
Stamkos is aided by the Triplets, Johnson's impressive line that features Ondrej Palat and Nikita Kucherov.
There are depth concerns on Detroit's defense, so Babcock will have to be smart in deciding which Lightning line he sends his best defenders against. If he focuses on the Triplets, there's a 43-goal scorer in Stamkos waiting to take advantage.
Datsyuk fought through an assortment of injuries this season, but the Red Wings are transformed when he's on the ice. He finished with more than a point per game, with 65 points in 63 games this season. Datsyuk's presence makes Helm more of a weapon when they play together. When Helm played with Datsyuk this season at even strength, his goals-for rate per 60 minutes was 2.84. That dropped to 1.63 without Datsyuk.
Secret weapon
This postseason will mark the playoff debut of Jonathan Drouin, the Lightning's ultratalented No. 3 overall pick from the 2013 draft. Wisely, Cooper is easing him into the NHL, and Drouin averaged just 13:14 of ice time in his rookie season, which he finished with 32 points in 70 games. The playoffs won't be any different, but Drouin had three points in four games against Detroit during the regular season, when the Lightning went 3-1 against the Red Wings. Don't be surprised if there's a moment in this series when Drouin gets an opportunity in the offensive zone and makes an impact.
For the Red Wings, Gustav Nyquist isn't much of a secret, but he played well against the Lightning this season -- four points in four games -- even if his team struggled. For a guy who truly burst on the scene for the Red Wings the past season, he has sneaky playoff experience. This will be his fourth postseason for the Red Wings, and his 23 career playoff games are one more than Steven Stamkos has for his career.
The skinny
We've come all this way without even mentioning the Red Wings goalie controversy. That's the biggest reason the Lightning are going to win this series. It's never good when the regular season -- even one with 100 points -- ends and there isn't a clear-cut starter in goal heading into Game 1. Regardless of whether Jimmy Howard or Petr Mrazek start Game 1, they're going to be looking over their shoulders after the first bad goal. Yes, Lightning goalie Ben Bishop has never started an NHL postseason game, but he has a .920 save percentage in 133 games with the Lightning. Plus, his backup, Andrei Vasilevskiy, might be better than both Detroit goalies. It's an important edge for the Lightning.
This Tampa team is loaded and might be embarking on a long spring. Lightning in 6.