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Steve Yzerman has yet to play a game this season, but the veteran is still motivating the Red Wings.
The captain skated Tuesday morning, the first time he’s hit the ice since undergoing surgery on his right knee during the offseason, the Detroit Free Press reported Wednesday.
“Totally shocked and surprised me,” a smiling Wings coach Dave Lewis told the newspaper. “I actually told him he looked like he was moving a bit better than he did last year in the playoffs.”
Yzerman, playing it down, went out and skated by himself for about 15 minutes.
“I didn’t really do a whole lot,” Yzerman told the Press. “I didn’t even break a sweat, just skated, just put my equipment on basically. So there wasn’t really much of a test of anything.”
NHL.com column
December 2, 2003
by Larry Wigge
There’s an almost undetectable quiver of Steve Yzerman’s lower lip when he talks about the decision he contemplated after his surgically repaired right knee wouldn’t cooperate in training camp.
“I struggled through training camp, didn’t feel very good,” he admits outside the Detroit Red Wings’ locker room in St. Louis last week following a 2-1 victory against the Blues. “I found it difficult to play. I just couldn’t get much confidence going. … I thought long and hard … then decided to see how it goes. I knew if I couldn’t contribute … then I probably would have had a decision to make. …
“I was clearly going in the wrong direction. … I thought, uh, whether to play or not …”
IGN.com interview
December 1, 2003
Back in 1986, Steve Yzerman became the youngest captain in Red Wings history by sewing the C on his jersey when he hit the legal age of 21. Now, 13 years later, not to mention three Stanley Cups, an Olympic Gold Medal, and over 1,500 points, Yzerman is skating to the forefront again, only this time the C is for coverboy as he mugs it up for Microsoft’s new game, NHL Rivals 2004.
IGN Sports caught up with the fast moving Stevie-Y and asked him about the Red Wings, mullets, and turning some of those octopi into calamari. Here’s what Detroit’s favorite son, by way of Canada, of course, had to say.
IGN Sports: What’s the one thing about the NHL that’s the most difficult for a video game to capture?
Steve Yzerman: I think the hardest thing to capture is what the puck handler sees when he’s taking a shot. From the games that I’ve played, and you’re coming in on the goaltender, you have an idea of where you’re going because you’re looking at the angle through the eyes of the audience or the television and not through the eyes of the player. It’s almost like you see too much, because when it happens for real, everything flies at you so fast, you never get a sense of the ice and where everyone is at that one moment. On replays, they capture it really well, but it’s the one area I’d want to see them work on for future games, trying to capture what the player sees as he skates down the ice.
IGN Sports: What types of things do you see down on the ice that the audience doesn’t pick up on because we’re so far away?
Steve Yzerman: Being out last year with an injury, I sat up high and watched a lot of games, and you see so much more and it just seems so much slower from up top. When you’re on the ice, you have very little time, you see very little, and everything happens really quick. The one thing that I notice from watching a game as opposed to being out on the ice is that you’re able to see a man open, you’re able to say that the puck should be passed here or there, but on the ice you just see it so much differently. Everything’s at eye level, and if you look the wrong way, you might miss out on the perfect pass that everyone up high is screaming about.
