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EDMONTON — The first thing Gustav Nyquist, the hottest thing on ice, said when asked about blowing past The Human Eraser, Zdeno Chara, for a highlight-reel goal was “I think he was caught a little flat-footed.”

Smart thing to say. Chara has size 12 skates, and he might use them to boot Nyquist’s arse next time he sees him. This was not Z’s finest moment as the six-foot-nine, 255-pound Boston Bruins captain came off the bench and was in no-man’s land in the middle of the ice when the five-foot-10, 185-pound Detroit Red Wings winger sailed by Chara for the winning goal — his 23rd in the last two months.

Guaranteed, there were a chorus of “OK, how far back in the draft was this Nyquist taken?”

The prevailing opinion is the Red Wings mine the NHL draft better than anybody else, considering where they pick every June — no first selection higher than 19th overall (Jakub Kindl in 2005) in the last 15 years. Kindl is largely a third-pairing defenceman with detractors. “This Kindl doesn’t read that well,” said one pro scout, when asked why the Czech hadn’t made bigger NHL strides.

The criticism on Kindl is a tad harsh, but for every Kindl, the Wings trot out a Jonathan Ericsson, the Swedish Olympic defenceman currently out with a busted finger. He was the last player taken (291st) in the 2002 draft. Then again, the Wings also took Jesper Samuelsson and Francois Senez with their last picks in other drafts, and I don’t see them on their roster today. So they make mistakes, like everybody does.

On the other hand …

“Their best prospect defenceman isn’t (Xavier) Ouellet or (Ryan) Sproul (second-rounders). It’s that (Alexei) Marchenko (205th pick in 2011),” said another pro scout. Marchenko, 22, currently in Grand Rapids, played in the AHL all-star game this year. He’s out while recovering from ankle surgery, but in his first North American season, the right-handed shooting defenceman has already played an NHL game.

But the Wings of today, suffering through their worst injury-plagued season in many years, have been able to change on the fly courtesy players they drafted: Nyquist, Tomas Tatar, Tomas Jurco, Riley Sheahan.

“(Red Wings GM) Ken Holland’s draft philosophy is to get two players out of every draft (to the NHL), doesn’t matter if it’s first round or fifth or sixth,” former Calgary Flames GM Craig Button said. “They draft players who can skate, with skill but then they become part of a group ... They throw them all in the mix. Some are going to make it, some aren’t.”

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The star is Nyquist, though. He’s got some Datsyuk in him. That goal he scored a couple of weeks ago where he got a breakaway, was hooked, the puck bounced toward the boards and in one motion he whirled and scored from behind the goal-line on Tampa’s sprawled Ben Bishop was incredible stuff.

“The thing about the Wings,” said a scout from another organization, “is their (drafted) players all buy in to what it’s going to take to get to the NHL.”

Nyquist, a product of the 2008 draft, is the son of a surgeon and an architect who went to school at the University of Maine, and is a dazzling talent at 24.