The Wings were elite for a long time and built a comfortable environment. They need younger players such as Mathieu Dandenault, Jiri Fischer, Aaron Ward, Boyd Devereaux, Jason Williams, Yuri Butsayev and Maxim Kuznetsov to jump in. The Wings should not be duped by regular-season success or the notion that injuries absolve everything. They collapsed horrifically in six minutes of Game 4, six infamous minutes. No one outskates age or complacency.
Nothing continues forever.
The next snapshot might be considerably different. Bob Wojnowski's column appears regularly on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.