Did they, though? I was looking for the average length of an NHL career and ran across
this that says over half of NHLers play less than 100 games in their career. Between 2000 and 2015 the Wings have drafted 33 such players, and Alan Quine needs just three more games to add to that total. They've also had 14 guys break the 500 game mark, and will hopefully add to that with guys like Mantha, AA, Larkin, Jarnkrok, Janmark, etc. continuing their careers. So, they aren't just drafting guys who have come up, played ~20 games a year for four or five years. They had drafted guys who have came up, stuck, and enjoyed some pretty significant careers.
They didn't find another Datsyuk or Zetterberg or Kronwall. And the wings hitting on Z&D where they did in their respective drafts is so incredibly rare that it's unfair to expect that to have happened again. But if it had then all of these middle6 forwards that I've seen bad mouthed are suddenly the supporting cast on another team likely making deep runs into the playoff every year.