DETROIT ? Amid the red-and-white confetti, as players piled merrily upon Dominik Hasek, the champion Detroit Red Wings finally revealed why they might be one of hockey’s greatest teams ever.

Theirs was a rare convergence of time, talent and fate, where egos don’t matter, where winning games and a big silver trophies became more important than contract extensions, bonuses and individual awards.

The Red Wings are Stanley Cup champions for the third time in six years because their all-stars became all for one. Hall of Famers willingly agreed to be grinders.

And then there’s coach Scotty Bowman, who is so old-school that he’d be running the single wing if he were a football coach. And captain Steve Yzerman, who kept playing shift after shift, grueling game after grueling game, on a knee so badly ripped up he needs reconstructive surgery and might not play for six months.

Hasek, one of the sport’s greatest goalies ever but never a Cup winner before, put aside the individualistic quirkiness that sometimes marks his play, stopping everything in sight. Including, until the proper time, the speculation he may retire.

“We’ll talk about that later,” he said before the Red Wings wrapped up the 10th Stanley Cup in franchise history and the ninth and last for Bowman by beating game-but-not-good enough Carolina 3-1 in Game Five on Thursday night.

Now, there’s plenty of time for talking, for putting all the Red Wings accomplished their 22-3-1 start, the Presidents’ Trophy, the Stanley Cup in historical perspective.

“Everybody on this team at some point stepped up for a big play in a big play,” Yzerman said. “The only thing that mattered was winning, and the only thing that mattered was the team.”