SUNRISE, Fla. Jim Nill and Ken Holland sat at the Detroit Red Wings table at the 2011 NHL Draft in Minneapolis and couldnt believe what was coming from the nearby Tampa Bay Lightning camp and their protg Steve Yzerman. Kenny and I were kind of sitting back-to-back to him and they were doing their picks and I think that year and they were the right picks he picked a bunch of Ru sians, Nill said. We kinda looked at him and said, Stevies picking all these Ru sians. And that wasnt his style all the time and here he was. MORE: | Imagine that: The brain trust that put together something as unique and remarkable as the Ru sian Five, Yzermans former teammates in Detroit, was now nonplu sed that the Lightnings new general manager was gathering his own collection of Ru sians 20 years later when, similarly, teams just werent drafting players from that country. This wouldnt be the last time Yzerman borrowed from the Red Wings and Hollands model, one that has produced a North American profe sional sports record 24 consecutive playoff appearances, four Stanley Cup championships and featured scores of Hockey Hall of Fame members. As the NHLs 2015 General Manager of the Year sets out to re-create the succe s of his playing days, Yzerman is doing so with a set of challenges the Red Wings never faced, but people in hockey who know him best believe hell find a way to navigate them all. MORE: | In 2011, Yzerman used the Lightnings first three picks on forwards Vladislav Namestnikov, Nikita Kucherov and defenseman Nikita Nesterov in the first, second and fifth rounds, respectively, and was on his way to turning over the roster he inherited when he was hired in May 2010. Save for forward Steven Stamkos, the No. 1 overall pick in 2008, and defenseman Victor Hedman the No. 2 pick in 2009, Yzerman flipped the rest of the roster and within two years the Lightning went from third from the bottom of the league standings in 2012-13 to the 2015 Stanley Cup Final where they lost in six games to the Blackhawks. Losing in his first trip to the Stanley Cup Final isn't new for Yzerman. The Red Wings were swept in 1995 by the Devils before re-tooling and winning in 1997, 1998 and 2002 with Yzerman on the roster. What he has done with the Lightning has been no surprise to the people from the Red Wings organization that raised him as a player and groomed him as an executive. He was a very conscientious player and being captain for so long, you have a lot of problems to solve and thats what you have to do as a manager, Yzermans former coach Scotty Bowman said. Especially in the era that he was playing, we brought in a lot of players and we had to mold them into a team, so thats team building even though youre playing still. Yzerman retired as a player in 2006 after a 23-season career with the Red Wings, 20 of which he was captain. He joined the Red Wings front office immediately and became the team vice president in 2008 before Brett Harrison Jersey taking the Lightning job in 2010, the same year he led Team Canada to an Olympic gold medal as executive director. When he was playing, he was asking questions, Why did you do this trade? said Nill, a longtime Red Wings a sistant general manager and now GM of the Dallas Stars. As a player, he had that focus already. He wanted to know why we did things. As a member of the Red Wings front office, Yzerman exhibited the same qualities that made him a Hall of Fame player and the cornerstone of Detroits model for succe s. Its about guys paying their dues and working hard and being committed, Nill said. He created that environment. I think thats part of it and hes just carrying it over. He watched, he dug in. When he retired, he wanted to be around hockey. He came and he sat in the office and he talked hockey, jumped in the car to scout, he wanted to be good. But one major thing Yzerman has had to deal with that his star-studded Red Wings didnt was a budget. While the Red Wings found value in mid-to-late rounds in the draft, they also added expensive, veteran free agents during their Stanley Cup years, which is a luxury todays general managers dont have because of the salary cap, implemented after the lockout-cancelled 2004-05 season. You look at our 2002 team in Detroit, and I dont know if youd call it a fourth line, but Luc Robitaille, Igor Larionov and Tomas Holmstrom, we had a lot of salary on every line and you just cant do that in the league now, Yzerman said. Robitaille, Larionov and Holmstrom accounted for $6.3 million of the Red Wings $65 million payroll in 2001-02. The first salary cap was $39 million. It is set for $71.4 million in 2015-16. You have to attach a dollar amount, or a cap number, to every player, Yzerman said. So you can say, I like this player, but you have to like him at a certain salary. Some players you like a lot more because of their number and some really good players you dont like as much because of that, but its not a question of like, or whatever, its trying to put it all together to give you the best team. Because of the Red Wings long run of succe s theyve gone more than two decades without a high draft pick, which means theyve had to rely heavily on their scouts to find good players that were overlooked by other teams. Yzerman has done the same in Tampa with a tight-knit group of scouts whose judgment he trusts in the utmost, knowing that he cant do it all himself. Thats allowed the Lightning to strike gold on players like undrafted Tyler Johnson, J.T. Brown and Andrej Sustr. In addition to Nesterov in the fifth round of the 2011 draft, the Lightning got Ondrej Palat in the seventh round. In 2012, they drafted Cedric Paquette in the fourth round. All were members of the 2015 Lightning that went to the Stanley Cup Final. These guys are driving through the snow watching games all over the place, Yzerman said of his scouting staff. They want to live and breathe hockey and thats kind of what we do. If youre looking for world news and what not, youre not getting that discu sion from us. Its hockey. One of Yzermans former teammates, Jamie Pushor, a pro scout for the Lightning, says the people Yzerman hired made all the difference in the teams prosperity. We have a lot of guys who are experienced and like what they do and I think thats really important, Pushor said. You have to have the work ethic and the pa sion for the game. (Scouting) is totally different from playing and coaching. Youre traveling on your own, youre watching all these games. You have to love going to the rink. Bowman probably could have gone on and on about which of Yzermans moves has impre sed him the most. There was acquiring three defensemen within a year that all made an impact right away. The Lightning signed free agent Anton Stralman a year ago for $4.5 million per year for five seasons. Stralman and Hedman turned into an elite pairing. Yzerman also traded a second-round pick for Jason Garrison just before the 2014 NHL Draft. And at the 2015 deadline, the Lightning acquired Braydon Coburn from the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for Radko Gudas, and a first- and a second-round pick. Everyones always looking for defensemen, Bowman said. Theyre in the top four. So to get three defensemen that can play in your top four on your team that goes to the Final, thats pretty well impo sible. Then there was the trade for 6-7 goalie Ben Bishop in April 2013, the Lightnings starter, in exchange for forward Cory Conacher and a fourth-round pick. The Lightning drafted Andrei Vasilevskiy with the 19th pick a couple of months later, and he blo somed into arguably the world's top young goaltender. Getting the goalie, Bishop, was another stroke of genius for him, Bowman said. Another primary principle of the Red Wings, and now Lightning, is patience. From the day he took over, Yzerman stre sed the importance of young players taking the time to develop in the minors or college so they dont struggle when they get to the NHL, believing that only in rare cases should a player go from the draft stage to an NHL lineup. One of the best succe s stories of this approach is Kucherov, who was a third- and fourth-line forward in 2013-14 and played 17 games in the AHL that season before bursting onto the scene in 2014-15 as part of The Triplets line with Johnson and Palat. They formed the NHL's highest scoring line, a remarkable accomplishment considering the teams best player, Stamkos, wasnt on it. Yzerman fired coach Guy Boucher late in the 2012-13 season and hired Jon Cooper from the team's AHL affiliate. Cooper helped develop many of Tampa Bays top young players. And then there was Martin St. Louiss trade demand late in the 2013-14 season as speculation swirled about St. Louis and Yzermans strained relationship that boiled over when Yzerman left him off Team Canada for the 2014 Sochi Olympics. St. Louis was later added as an injury replacement after Stamkos broke his leg. Once again, Yzerman spun a deal that left the Lightning better off when he shipped St. Louis to the New York Rangers for forward Ryan Callahan, a first-round pick in 2014 and a second-round pick in 2015. I think the toughest thing he had to do is he had a player that wanted to be traded in Martin St. Louis, Bowman said. These are not easy decisions and he met them head on. The hard parts of Yzermans job are hardly behind him. Stamkos can be an unrestricted free agent after the 2015-16 season, though Yzerman has said its his top priority of the offseason to give Stamkos an extension. The No. 3 pick in the 2013 draft, forward Jonathan Drouin, struggled through his rookie season, and as Cooper stre sed the organizations me sage of patience. Whether Drouin buys into that remains to be seen. And there is the ever-looming salary cap, which will test Yzermans team of scouts further if the Lightning are forced to get rid of players when they become too expensive to keep. After getting so close to a championship, Yzerman, his staff and his group of young players still have a long way to go, but the people who know him best feeltheres no better person for the job. This year we had a good year, we came close, Yzerman said. Well try to maintain a good team and hang around the playoffs and get in there and occasionally have a good run and hopefully win a Stanley Cup. Ed Westfall Jersey