Introducing Tomas Tatar, the latest in Red Wings' long line of homegrown scoring stars

These are the top 10 goal-scorers in the National Hockey League: Rick Nash, Alex Ovechkin, Tyler Seguin, Vladimir Tarasenko, Steven Stamkos, Joe Pavelski, Patrick Kane, John Tavares, Max Pacioretty and …

Tomas Tatar, a 5-foot-10, 24-year-old forward in his second full season with the Detroit Red Wings after four seasons in the minors.

Tatar has 23 goals, tied with Corey Perry, ahead of 808 others. He has the best possession numbers in the league among players who have appeared in at least 20 games. When he has been on the ice, the Wings have controlled 59.2 percent of the shot attempts.

Once again the Wings drafted a skilled player, stashed him away, let him develop and made him earn an NHL job. Along with other younger players – Gustav Nyquist in particular – Tatar seized an opportunity last season when the Wings ran into injury trouble and helped them make the playoffs for the 23rd straight time.

Now Tatar is a key member of a team with the fourth-best points percentage in the league. He has seven goals and 12 points in the last 10 games; the Wings have gone 9-1-0. He showed what he could do Saturday night in a 3-1 victory over Arizona. As the Coyotes tried to clear their zone, he batted the puck out of the air inside the blue line, creating a turnover, leading to a goal. He scored with a wicked shot on a 2-on-1. Protecting a late lead, he cleared the Wings’ zone and set up an empty-netter.

The best part for the Wings? Tatar still has room to grow.

“His peak years are probably going to be when he’s 27, 28, 29,” said Wings general manager Ken Holland. “So he’s still three, four, five years away from the peak of what he’s going to be as a player.”

You can say scorers are supposed to peak earlier than that; they are. You can point to Tatar’s 16.9-percent shooting percentage and say this is unsustainable; he is hot, no doubt. You can point to how he’s playing with Pavel Datsyuk, one of the best two-way centermen in hockey; that sure can boost a guy’s goal totals and possession numbers.

But look at the Wings’ track record, and know Holland was talking about Tatar scoring goals in the NHL long before he did. As much as Datsyuk has helped Tatar, there is a reason Tatar has been a good fit for Datsyuk, too. Datsyuk is an incredibly creative, pass-first player. Tatar is a smart, shoot-first player whose talent has been nurtured.

“He’s thinking, ‘Score,’ ” Holland said. “Tats has a goal-scoring mentality at a young age that not a lot of people have, or if they do have it, sometimes it gets snuffed out along the way for a variety of reasons.”

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The Red Wings have become famous for finding players, keeping them in the minors or overseas, then watching them make an impact in the NHL. It has been part necessity, part luxury and part philosophy.

Because of their success, the Wings haven’t had high picks, so they have had to draft players with more flaws who need more time to develop. They haven’t been afraid of undersized guys as long as those guys have been skilled and competitive.

But because of their success, the Wings haven’t had to rush their prospects, either. They have been able to give them the time they need to develop – physically, mentally and emotionally – without the spotlight and scrutiny of the NHL.

Time is the only thing the Wings give their prospects. They believe there is a difference between being ready to play in the NHL and being ready to win in the NHL. They want their prospects to overripen in the minors and to take someone’s job in the NHL. They know they won’t hit on every prospect – and they don’t – but doing this gives them more chances.

“Other than Connor McDavid and a few special players, it’s really hard to know where players’ careers are going,” Holland said. “Some players don’t do it in the American League, they get it done in the NHL. Some people produce in the American League, they don’t do it in the NHL. Some people produce in junior, they don’t produce in pros. If it was an exact science the draft would be more right on. So the draft tells you it’s not an exact science. That’s why I’m so big on player development.”

Tatar grew up in Slovakia. He said he had no choice but to become a scorer. “I never was big,” he said, “so this was what people were expecting from me, goals and points.”

He was not a first-round pick, but he wasn’t a late-round gem, either. The Wings’ staff – which then included Jim Nill and Joe McDonnell, now with the Dallas Stars – saw him play at the World Junior Championship. Though he was small, he showed enough promise that they took him in the second round, 60th overall, in 2009.

When he wanted to come to North America immediately, the Wings thought about sending him to the Ontario Hockey League. The Plymouth Whalers had his rights and a center named Tyler Seguin. Maybe playing on Seguin’s wing would be a good experience. But Tatar had been playing in a men’s league in Slovakia and didn’t want to go to junior, so they sent him to the American Hockey League’s Grand Rapids Griffins instead.

“I spent lots of time in the minors, but if you think about it, I came there really early,” Tatar said. “I came there 18 years old.”

Still, four seasons is four seasons. From 2009-10 through 2012-13, Tatar came up to play only 27 games in the NHL.

“Obviously when you’re in Grand Rapids you’re not happy you’re not here,” Tatar said. “It’s kind of frustrating. But at the end of the day, it’s going to help you. This is the right way for development. I mean, it helped me a lot to be in G.R. and play my minutes there, be in certain situations on the ice and just learn. The hard way, I think, is the right way.”

Tatar scored consistently in the minors – 16 goals in 58 games, 24 goals in 70 games, 24 goals in 76 games, 23 goals in 61 games. His coming out party came when he scored 16 goals in 24 playoff games in 2013, leading the Griffins to the Calder Cup, winning the MVP award.

“That’s a lot of goals in pro hockey,” Holland said. “I mean, I respect the American Hockey League.”

Still, the Wings didn’t give Tatar a spot in the lineup to start the 2013-14 season. Stuck behind veterans, needing to prove himself, he was a healthy scratch in eight of the Wings’ first nine games.

“Coach explain to me that I’m the youngest guy, I have to wait for my chance,” Tatar said. “And then I started on the fourth line. I had to build the trust in the coach, and it took me maybe 40 games.”

“It wasn’t even so much earn my trust,” said Wings coach Mike Babcock. “It was the fact that I had a bunch of veteran guys that were getting the first opportunity. Then once he got in it’s like anything. If you’re a forward and you take care of the puck, you have a chance to play. And then after that, do you know where to stand defensively? And then after, it’s if you can generate any offense. So I mean, Tats has always had good instinct, been a good player. He’s just grown up and gotten better obviously.”

Nyquist was the best story last season. A fourth-round pick in 2008 who spent three seasons in college and two more in the minors, he started in Grand Rapids again because of the logjam. He came up and produced 28 goals and 48 points in 57 games. He was especially hot down the stretch when the Wings were missing Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg.

But Tatar made strides, too. He learned what Babcock wanted – how to manage the puck in certain situations. He finished with 19 goals and 39 points in 73 games.

He signed a three-year, $8.25 million contract in the off-season and came to camp in the fall knowing what to expect, confident. He has played with Datsyuk, and opponents haven’t been able to key on them because the Wings, much healthier this season, have had other threats. He has seven power-play goals; the Wings rank first on the power play. Not only does he have 23 goals, he has matched his point total from last season already in 52 games. He’s on pace for 36 goals and 61 points.

“He’s a better player than he was down in Grand Rapids, I think,” Nyquist said. “He’s improved a lot. He’s playing with some great players as well. …

“I think a big thing for young guys coming up, I know I feel the same way, you get more comfortable after you’re up here, and you’re having some success, and you’re putting the puck in the net, and you feel like you can score at this level. You see openings that maybe you didn’t see before. You learn the game more. You learn how you’re going to score at this level. It’s a little bit different than how you score in the AHL. That’s all part of it, of becoming a better player, and I think he’s doing a good job of that.”

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The Red Wings won the Stanley Cup in 1997, 1998 and 2002 with Steve Yzerman and Sergei Fedorov among others. When they won the Cup again in 2008, Yzerman and Fedorov were long gone. A key reason: the Wings found Datsyuk in the sixth round in 1998 and Zetterberg in the seventh in 1999, and Datsyuk and Zetterberg became stars.

Now Datsyuk is 36, Zetterberg 34. They are still elite when healthy. The Wings are where they are this season with a mix of veterans and younger players performing at a high level. But eventually the next generation will have to take over. Can Nyquist and Tatar do it? How good can Tatar be?

“With Tats, can he be a consistent 30-goal scorer? I don’t know,” Holland said. “He has 19 goals as a 23-year-old, and he has 25 to 30 goals as a 24-year-old, you’d like to think he’d be 20 to 25 goals a year. Now, can he take it up another level?”

It’s not an exact science. But here’s the thing: Datsyuk and Zetterberg weren’t exact replicas of Yzerman and Fedorov, and Nyquist and Tatar – wingers, not centermen – don’t need to be exact replicas of Datsyuk and Zetterberg. The Wings have evolved over the years and need to evolve again. They have other young players like Riley Sheahan and Tomas Jurco and more prospects in the pipeline like Anthony Mantha and Dylan Larkin.

It’s not about pigeon-holing particular players into particular spots with particular expectations. It’s about planting lots of seeds in fertile soil, watering them, letting them grow. Hopefully some blossom. Then you have assets. Then you go from there.

“I don’t think you ever really know where they’re going to find their water level,” Holland said. “I mean, my feeling on player development is to give them every opportunity to fulfill their potential.”

Tatar is the latest in a long line.

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