The Captain, Steve Yzerman, took part in today’s short practice at Rexall Place in Edmonton. I expect for Yzerman to play on Monday (Game #6 at 8pm) since it’s an elimination game. He couldn’t tell the reporters if he would play tomorrow night at that point in time.
“I feel better than two days ago,” Yzerman said. “I’m encouraged. Hopefully I’ll feel even better for game time tomorrow.”Asked if tonight being an elimination game will factor into his decision to play, Yzerman said, “Oh, no question. No question. It’s pretty simple, really, if I feel I can be an effective player, I’ll play and if I don’t, then I’m not going to play. If I’m ready to play then I will and if not, then I’ll have to step aside.”
I just hope that he will play and Yzerman’s last game at the Joe won’t be Game #2, which was the last playoff game I attended.Additionally, the Wings called Donald MacLean, “the Grand Rapids Griffins forward who scored 56 goals this season in the AHL,” on Saturday night. Upon which, he flew to Edmonton and practiced with the Wings. MacLean has only played with the Wings three times this season, but his first goal came on the power play against the Oilers on April 11.
Associated Press article
April 29, 2006
Red Wings captain Steve Yzerman sat out Game 5 Saturday against the Edmonton Oilers, missing his second straight game with an upper-body injury.
Yzerman barely played in the first of two overtime periods in Game 3 Tuesday because he was hurt, reportedly with a lower-back injury. He tried to warm up and play in the next game, but didn’t skate with his teammates before Game 5, which began with the first-round Western Conference series tied at 2.
Yzerman contributed an assist in each of the three games he played against Edmonton. In 20 postseasons, he has 184 points — a total that leads all active players and trails just seven in NHL history.
USA Today article
April 20, 2006 Thursday
by Kevin Allen
Just before training camp in 1983, Detroit Red Wings executive vice president Jimmy Devellano says he warned top draft pick Steve Yzerman that the 18-year-old might be returned to junior hockey if he was not “strong enough” to compete at the NHL level.
“He’s 155 pounds, and within the first five minutes and three shifts in training camp, he’s the best player on our team,” Devellano says, laughing. “Here we are, 23 years later, and we are still watching him play for the Red Wings.”
Even in the post-lockout NHL, rejuvenated with supposedly fresh stars, modernrules and more speed, one of the central themes of the playoffs that begin this weekend is whether Detroit’s 40-year-old captain can lead the top-seeded Red Wings to their fourth championship under his leadership. They take on the Edmonton Oilers starting Friday in Detroit (7p.m ET on OLN).
“I think Steve is playing as well as he was five years ago for us,” Detroit general manager Ken Holland says.
USA Today article
April 20, 2006
by Kevin Allen
Just before training camp in 1983, Detroit Red Wings executive vice president Jimmy Devellano says he warned top draft pick Steve Yzerman that the 18-year-old might be returned to junior hockey if he was not “strong enough” to compete at the NHL level.
“He’s 155 pounds, and within the first five minutes and three shifts in training camp, he’s the best player on our team,” says Devellano, laughing. “Here we are, 23 years later, and we are still watching him play for the Red Wings.”
Even in the post-lockout NHL, anew with supposedly fresh stars, modern rules and more speed, one of the central themes of the playoffs that begin this weekend is whether Detroit’s 40-year-old captain can lead the top-seeded Red Wings to their fourth championship under his leadership. They take on the Edmonton Oilers starting Friday in Detroit (7 p.m ET on OLN).
“I think Steve is playing as well as he was five years ago for us,” says Detroit general manager Ken Holland.
ESPN.com column
April 19, 2006
by Scott Burnside
There will be one player who will be the team’s hero and there will be another who will crush the other team’s dreams. Here’s a look at the Heroes and Villains of the first round. …
HERO — STEVE YZERMAN
Back for one more kick at the Stanley Cup can, Red Wings captain Steve Yzerman appears to have saved just the right amount of gas in his Hall of Fame tank to make a difference for a talented, disciplined Red Wings team with another Cup on its mind.The longest-serving captain in NHL history, Yzerman has the innate ability to change the course of a game through a key faceoff win, blocked shot or crucial pass or goal. When Yzerman went down with an eye injury in the second round of the 2004 playoffs against Calgary, the Wings never recovered, losing in six games.
People point to Yzerman’s diminished ice time this season as a reflection of the inevitable decline in his game, but in the past 10 games he’s regularly logged over 15 minutes a night, and you can expect that number to grow as the playoffs go along.
What makes Yzerman’s contributions down the stretch more inspiring is the fact many had written off the almost 41-year-old early this season, some going so far as to suggest he was on the verge of retirement. Not yet.
“He’s just playing excellent,” one top pro scout said on the eve of the playoffs.
Peabody at Michigan Against the World wrote a lengthy tribute to the Captain in honor of his retirement. Below is a brief excerpt, but you can visit his blog to read the rest of the post.
We can sense it in the air. The end of an era is about to occur here in Hockeytown. While he hasn’t come out and said it, everything in Steve Yzerman’s actions (from his humble, non-commital interviews on Jim Rome, to discussing the transition into the front office with Joe D) suggests that The Captain is playing his final spring in the winged wheel. In all likelihood, we are a week away from his final regular season game at The Joe (April 17). This is a moment I’ve been dreading literally my entire life. There is no way anything I write can do Yzerman’s career justice, so I will instead talk about what Stevie Y has meant to me, and in turn, probably every other hockey fan of my age in vicinity of Detroit. This will be poorly-written, I’m sure, because this is one subject I could go on for hours writing about.
I grew up a hockey fan first. I knew hockey before I grew to love football, basketball, and to an extent, baseball. I was one of the few kids in my school to actually play hockey, and by third grade, it was my entire life. Luckily, there were a few of us, a die-hard core of kids, that lived and breathed hockey. As a third-grader, there was absolutely no one cooler than Steve Yzerman. My first memory of Yzerman was watching the Red Wings with my father. Yzerman was a 22 year old player establishing himself as a star in the league. I remember Yzerman breaking the 50 goal barrier in 1988, only to crash into the goalpost the same period, tearing his ACL in what was thought (at the time) to be a career-threatening injury. Yzerman elevated from “favorite player” to Superhero when he managed to make it back by the third game of the Campbell Conference Finals the same season. The Red Wings lost, but as a 7 year old, well, I was hooked.
USA Today transcript for the Yzerman interview with Jim Rome on May 7, 2006.
Steve Yzerman on the Jim Rome Show 4/7: Rough transcript
Steve Yzerman appeared on the Jim Rome show this afternoon on WDFN 1130 AM.I’ve paraphrased as the two gentlemen talked rather quickly. Pleasantries were exchanged at the beginning and end of the interview. Yzerman and Rome asked one another how they were doing, and got on with it:
Rome says: The last time we talked about how you missed 17 games this season, and now you’ve got 5 goals and 7 assists in the last 12 games. How do you feel coming down the stretch?
Yzerman: Prior to the Olympic break I felt that I was coming around things were slowing down on the ice–and I could see things develop a little faster–and after the break, I felt a lot better, but I had the opportunity, in practice and games, to work on my game, and get sharp, and I hope that I can be a productive player in the playoffs.
Rome asks: You seem to have gotten tougher over the years. As you’ve gone through your career, do you feel that you’ve become a tougher athlete?
Yzerman: I don’t think so, I haven’t necessarily gotten tougher, but over my career I’ve played with some pretty darn good veteran players, and as their careers went on, they took better and better care of themselves, in terms of conditioning, and diet, and that helped extend their careers, but they always put team success first. With Zetterberg, Datsyuk, and Lidstrom in the lineup, there’s a lot of depth, and good young players, so I don’t feel like I have to carry the load, and I feel that I’m more effective in a supporting role at this point in my career.
SI.com column
April 3, 2006
by Darren Elliot
Two of the hottest players in the NHL right now are Teemu Selanne and Steve Yzerman. And, no, this is not 1996; it really is 2006. Yet two greats continue to impress and amaze, making time seemingly stand still.
Selanne, 35, continues his renaissance season with the Mighty Ducks after, as he put it, “getting his career back” following surgery last year to repair his badly damaged left knee. He has played with the flair of old all season, but since winning a silver medal with Team Finland at the Winter Olympic Games, his production — 18 points in his last nine games — has continued to soar. Not surprisingly, so too have the fortunes of the Ducks, as they now sit a mere four points behind Nashville in the Western Conference.
Yzerman, meanwhile, is in the midst of an offensive spurt that harkens back to the “Stevie Y” of seasons long gone by. Even Detroit head coach Mike Babcock teased that he saw Yzerman go fast recently, and Babcock will expect it all the time if Yzerman isn’t careful. That’s how it used to be for the Captain — smooth, fast and difference-making. Time and numerous injuries have taken their toll, but Yzerman, 40, has carried on, driven by a force most of us can’t fathom.
