Sports Illustrated article
Jun 22, 1998
by Michael Farber

Led by the stellar all-around play of their captain, Steve Yzerman, the Detroit Red Wings were flashing their championship form against the overmatched Washington Capitals…

STEVE YZERMAN grabbed the puck and rushed down the left wing, carrying Washington Capitals center Esa Tikkanen on his back for the last 30 feet the same way he had carried the Detroit Red Wings for 15 seasons. Whether it’s the weight of a franchise or 200 pounds of fractious Finn, Yzerman, the Detroit captain, never has been afraid of heavy lifting. When Yzerman and his chaperone fell in a heap and rammed into Capitals goalie Olaf Kolzig, the puck squirted free. Red Wings forward Tomas Holmstrom swooped in unattended and put the puck home, just 35 seconds into Game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals. That’s Washington: first in war, first in peace, lousy in the first minute.

This wasn’t hockey, it was a tantalizing game of keepaway. Every time overmatched Washington would get close, Detroit would merrily skip out of reach again. Sometimes the teams would emphasize defense, sometimes offense, but no matter which way the game flowed, the Red Wings would come out a goal better. If you had told the Capitals before the series that through three games they would have held Detroit without a power-play goal, limited the duo of center Sergei Fedorov and wing Brendan Shanahan to one goal, had some production from forwards Peter Bondra and Adam Oates and received superior goaltending from Kolzig than Detroit had had from Chris Osgood, they probably would have liked their chances of winning their first Stanley Cup. Instead, Detroit led the best-of-seven tease 3-0 and had a chance to wrap up its second straight Cup on Tuesday.

The reflected glow from the Cup is soft and flattering, and Yzerman, nicked and dented but still with a striking, boyish face, has never looked better. Last year’s championship illuminated the one facet of Yzerman’s game that 563 career goals and six straight 100-point seasons never could. “Funny how it works,’ he says. “I’m not a huge scorer anymore”-his 155 points in 1988-89 are the most in an NHL season by anyone not named Gretzky or Lemieux-”but over the past couple of years I’ve become the player that I should have been all along. More of a defensive player than an offensive player. This conceit is as remarkable as the Beatles’ announcing they mildly regret having done all that gold-record I Wanna Hold Your Hand stuff rather than heading straight to Sgt. Pepper, but defense has been the foundation of Yzerman’s game since 1994-95.

Before that season Detroit coach Scotty Bowman talked to Yzerman about the evolution of Montreal Canadiens star Jacques Lemaire in the ’70s and Pittsburgh Penguins standout Ron Francis in the early ’90s, offensive centers who, because of the wealth of firepower on their formidable teams, tailored their games to a more defensive style. The one-way Red Wmgs, Bowman said, had to change. With Fedorov’s emergence as a scorer and with the acquisition of center Igor Larionov, a strong, sage locker room voice to complement Yzerman’s, Detroit no longer needed its captain to fill the net. “Actually players like getting to lay off the numbers,” Bowman says now. “You score 50 one year, you’re expected to get 50 the next, and players enjoy not having to get all the goals. They enjoy winning more.”

Recently, Yzerman said his 24 goals in the 1997-98 regular season represented “a career year:’ Everyone took notes and nodded, missing the intended irony. His play in the postseason has been less subtle. In fact, it has been so direct and unmistakable that even old India hands at the CIA could have detected the explosion as long ago as February, when Yzerman played in the Olympics. The experience in Nagano might have been a drag on the NHL, but it rejuvenated Yzerman. He fed off the energy of his Team Canada roommates-Wayne Gretzky, Martin Brodeur and Rod Brind’Amour-and gamboled in the high-tempo games. “I’m not any quicker goal line to goal line,” Yzerman says, “but I’ve been concentrating on moving my feet. It’s just a matter of doing it, getting the puck and going. You get into a tendency of getting the puck and looking around. You should just take off and worry about doing something with the puck later.”

Against Washington, Yzerman took off again. He set up the winning goal in Detroit’s 2-1 Game 1 victory, scored twice (once shorthanded) in the 5-4 overtime win in Game 2, and created the goal that took the Capitals and the home crowd out of the match early in Game 3. He played 70 minutes, high among Red Wings forwards, in the first three games while winning 66% of his face-offs. In an era that supposedly belongs to big, young forwards like Eric Lindros, Jaromir Jagr and Peter Forsberg, easily the best player in this postseason has been a 5′ 11″,185-pounder who is not conspicuously strong, stopwatch fast or, at 33, young. “He’s that rare athlete who can lift his team; Capitals left wing Brian Bellows says of Yzerman. “He defines the personality of his team. Their `no quit’ comes from him.”

Yzerman simply will not lie down, although he can be pancaked to the ice in the prone position, as Capitals menace Dale Hunter did in Game 1. Hunter knocked Yzerman down in the Washington crease, used him as a Barcalounger for a few seconds and pressed his face into the ice before raking his glove across Yzerman’s kisser in what hockey players call a face wash. When asked the next day if he found the tactic offensive, Yzerman replied, “That depends on whether it’s a new glove or an old glove. Old gloves tend to stink.”

“You’ll notice everyone was getting excited about what Hunter did to Stevie;’ Red Wings associate coach Dave Lewis said. “Except Stevie.”

They had to get excited about something. Game 1 was one of those January-in-June matches, as intense as a zephyr. While playoff series often begin slowly, there hadn’t been this much of a feeling-out process since prom night. “We got a lead; Fedorov said, “and then we stood out there chewing gum or something.” The Red Wings cruised to an early 2-0 advantage, then hung on in the final 10 minutes. If the fans wanted a glut of goals, it seemed, they’d have to wait for the World Cup.

Of course, hockey can also be a game of explosive action, Exhibit A being Game 2. The Red Wings’ Stanley Cup slogan, Raise Your Hands-a reference to their octopus good-luck charm-apparently also was what the Capitals were expected to do while asking permission to play with the puck in the first period. But Detroit’s dominance translated into a mere 1-0 lead, Washington put three goals past Osgood in the second period, and the situation blessedly dictated that the more skilled Wings embark on an aggressive, eye-catching game of catch-up. “We like to play that way” a grinning Yzerman said the next day. “Our coaches don’t.” The Capitals blew leads of 3-1 and 4-2, with Yzerman’s shorthander seven minutes into the third period kick-starting the Detroit comeback, but they should have had a 5-3 advantage with fewer than 10 minutes remaining when Tikkanen made a gaffe that altered the series.

Tikkanen is the most prolific playoff scorer in history-at least in terms of postseason production (72 goals) compared with that of the regular season (244), a ratio unmatched among players with at least 30 playoff goals. Tikkanen has a heavy shot, one that Osgood was obliged to respect when Tikkanen skated in alone after gathering in a rare Yzerman giveaway. He put Osgood down with a fake slap shot, pulled the puck wide and had a net more vacant than his stare after he pushed the puck past the far post Tikkanen’s blunder was the most blatant Cup mistake since the McStick incident late in Game 2 of the 1993 finals. Montreal caught Los Angeles Kings defenseman Marty McSorley using an illegal stick, scored on the ensuing power play and then won in overtime to rob the Kings of a 2-0 series lead going back to LA.

After Tikkanen’s misplay, the Red Wings stormed back to tie the game in regulation before winning it in overtime on Kris Draper’s goal. An extra session wasn’t needed in Game 3 because Fedorov scored the winner with five minutes left, but Yzerman was the most dangerous forward in the final minutes even as the Capitals pressed. “When the game is on the line, that’s when you see his real value,’ Bowman says. “We move him from center to left wing, and he does the job. He’s the perfect example for our team because he’s going to make the big play.” Yzerman, who led playoff scorers with 24 points through Sunday, has been making them all along, from the Dead Things era of the 1980s to a franchise that could call itself the Team of the ’90s and blush only moderately. The difference between then and now is the Red Wings have a group of players who are talented enough to follow, who also are flattered by their reflection in the Cup. Yzerman will win the Conn Smythe Trophy as MVP of the playoffs-unlike the rest of the country, the voters have to watch the games-and it will be one more vanity mirror for a player who had to lower his sights to secure a place in history.

“When you’re a kid playing hockey and going to all those tournaments, you’re winning everything, so you kind of take it for granted; Yzerman says. “You have no doubts that this guy’s a winner or that guy’s a winner. As my career went along without an NHL championship, there were times when I began to wonder if there was something missing in me. You fall back on the idea that, if you do your best and your teammates do their best, everything will work out. But I admit to having had some doubts along the way. The perception other people have of you changes once you win the Cup, but for me, winning it the first time reconfirmed what I wanted to believe-even when I was having those doubts:

The doubts are gone, and the Capitals seem sure to follow.