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.

VILLAIN — CHRIS PRONGER
For someone who ranks as one of the NHL’s most dominant regular-season players (not to mention one of the highest-paid) for most of the last decade, the big defenseman has never quite delivered in the playoffs. Maybe it was all that time in St. Louis, where playoff meltdowns were a springtime ritual. But Pronger will have to turn in a dramatic about-face if the Oilers are going to knock off the Wings. The biggest knock on Pronger has been his inability to play disciplined at crucial times.

His Blues teams advanced to just one conference final during his nine seasons there. During that time, he scored more than one goal just once, while regularly taking penalties at inopportune moments. When the Oilers needed stability down the stretch, there were problems as well. During one late-season stretch, Pronger was a plus only once in the Oilers’ last 11 games as they stumbled into the playoffs due in large part to the even worse play of Vancouver.

There is no doubt Pronger is a force. His 27:59 in average ice time is among the league leaders. He has also re-established himself as an offensive weapon — his 56 points are among the top. But for Pronger to evolve into the player the Red Wings love to hate, a player who can help an underdog achieve an upset, he’ll have to keep his emotions in check.