For two and a half decades, the Detroit Red Wings were the gold standard of hockey. They made the playoffs 25 years in a row from 1990-2016 and, over that span, went to eight Western Conference Finals, appeared in six Stanley Cup Finals and won four of them.
Perhaps the most impressive part is the fact the Red Wings didn't skip a beat when the salary cap was introduced during the 2005-06 season. They replenished their core group multiple times and went from one Hall of Fame coach (Scotty Bowman) to another (Mike Babcock).
But the circle of life in the salary cap world has finally caught up to the Red Wings, who are in a full-on rebuild and on the verge of missing the playoffs for the fourth straight season.