Detroit Free Press article
February 11, 2004
by Helene St. James

Now appearing for the Red Wings: It’s captain Metal Mouth.

Steve Yzerman showed up for Tuesday’s practice complete with braces after spending most of the previous day at the dentist, getting his grin back on track. Yzerman lost one lower front tooth, and four other teeth were knocked back when he was whacked in the mouth last Thursday during a 3-2 overtime victory at Colorado.

Yzerman was injured with 1.6 seconds left in regulation when defenseman Adam Foote attempted to use his stick to lift Yzerman’s stick and missed, hitting Yzerman. He needed stitches to close a cut across his upper lip, and spent the All-Star weekend break in pain because of the dislocated teeth.

“In general, I feel pretty good now,” Yzerman said.

“Having these braces on, actually it feels a lot better. It’s kind of stabilizing.”

Yzerman’s new look delighted his three daughters — “they thought it was pretty neat,” he said — and aren’t too bad to deal with. He can still eat solid foods, though he has to chew on one side of the mouth. The braces come off in six weeks.

Yzerman estimated he had lost six teeth in his career, though he said it could also be two. He was nowhere near as ambiguous when asked about Foote, who didn’t get suspended.

“I didn’t expect any suspension,” Yzerman said. “I’ve done the exact same thing, try to lift a guy’s stick and accidentally hit him in the face. Suspensions I think are for something premeditated, like purposely trying to do things wrong.”

It helped that Foote expressed remorse as soon as it happened. “Right away, as soon as I got hit, he was like, ‘Oh, God, sorry,’ ” Yzerman said.