The Hockey News article
July 23, 2006
by Bob Duff

For much of his speech, Yzerman was even able to smile.

The man who first brought Yzerman to Detroit felt that was the way it should be.

“I don’t look upon this as a sad day,” said Red Wings senior vice-president Jimmy Devellano. “This is the celebration of a tremendous career.”

A career that may never be repeated.

During an era when the one-team career performer went the way of tube skates, Yzerman skated 22 years in the National Hockey League, every one of his 1,514 games coming in a Red Wings uniform. Yzerman finished with 692 goals and 1,063 assists, one of only six players in league history to garner more than 600 goals and 900 assists.

Yzerman holds Detroit’s single-season records for goals (65), assists (90) and points (155) and is the Wings’ all-time leader in assists. His 19 seasons as Detroit captain are an NHL record. Yzerman shares immortal status with such legendary Motor City athletes as fellow Wings Gordie Howe and Ted Lindsay, Detroit Tigers Ty Cobb and Al Kaline, Detroit Pistons Isiah Thomas and Dave Bing and Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders.

A tribute to Yzerman’s greatness was evidenced in the guest list for his retirement party, which included Howe, Lindsay, former teammates Igor Larionov and Larry Murphy, several current Wings, past coaches Scotty Bowman and Dave Lewis and NHL director of hockey operations Colin Campbell.

Despite all his accomplishments, perhaps it is appropriate Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux overshadowed Yzerman during their careers, because ultimately, even though his numbers look pretty in the yearbook, one stat was all that interested Stevie Y.

Being on top always was the key for the captain. His teammates marveled at the unparalleled competitiveness with which Yzerman approached the game.

He was nastier than bipartisan politics. More ornery than the Tasmanian Devil. The captain accepted no passengers on his ship.

Detroit defenseman Chris Chelios, himself and exemplary captain for many years in Chicago, described Yzerman as “the ultimate captain.”

“No one competed more than him,” Chelios said. “He’s been like that ever since I’ve known him.”

A leader by example, Yzerman never was a touchy feely captain. His sense of humor is biting, his temper explosive.

Just ask any NHL official.

“I’m sure a lot of referees around the league are doing cartwheels,” Yzerman said upon his retirement.

Beloved by Red Wings fans on par with Mr. Hockey, Yzerman shared Howe’s soulless ambivalence towards the opposition.

Yzerman is such a competitor, he admitted he couldn’t turn it off when he went home.

Card games. Monopoly. Scrabble. It didn’t matter. In Yzerman’s mind, only one person can be No. 1.

“I have to win at everything,” he said. “It has cost me some friends.”

Did it ever cost him any sleep?

Hardly.

Yzerman was taking a bullet train to the top and if you didn’t want to come along for the ride, he’d gladly arrange a transfer.

“By far, the most rewarding thing is going through four rounds of the playoffs and winning the Stanley Cup,” he said.

Yzerman ended Detroit’s 42-season Stanley Cup drought in 1996-97 and captained two more title winners in Hockeytown. But when Yzerman first arrived in Detroit as the fourth overall pick in the 1983 draft, he was brought in for his flashy offensive skills, which the Wings hoped would bring fans back to the barren confines of Joe Louis Arena and provide the franchise with a cornerstone to rebuild around.

Although later admitting they had targeted Michigan resident Pat LaFontaine in that draft, it soon became apparent they’d lucked out with Yzerman.

Mistakenly called Why-Zerman by most everyone at training camp during his rookie season, he didn’t impress anyone with his performance in the off-ice drills that fall.

Then, Yzerman put on his skates.

“He was far and away our best player,” said Senators scout Nick Polano, who was Detroit’s coach at the time. “As an 18-year-old.”

“Through the ’80s he really was the franchise,” added Devellano, Detroit’s GM at the time. “He helped us sell tickets and lure other players here because people wanted to play with him. I think that helped bring Scotty here (in 1993), because he knew Yzerman’s abilities and he could see that we were good.”

It was under Bowman that Yzerman’s career took another turn, as he evolved from offensive dynamo into the game’s most dynamic two-way forward.

Yzerman is the only player in history to register a 150-point season and also win the Selke Trophy as the NHL’s top defensive forward.

“When you first come into the league, you want to make your mark individually and Stevie did that,” said Boston Bruins coach Dave Lewis, a teammate of Yzerman’s during those early years in Detroit and later his coach.

“Through the years, you learn that to win and be successful, you have to be a more all-around player. He saw that and we reaped the rewards because of it. Stevie turned into the complete package.”

For all his greatness on the ice, Yzerman will be remembered as much for his astonishingly high pain tolerance and his uncanny ability to overcome horrific injury.

A collision with a goalpost late in the 1987-88 season shredded the ligaments in his right knee and was supposed to end his season, but he returned to play during the third round of the playoffs.

He rebounded from that ailment to post career-best totals (90 assists and 155 points in 80 games) during the 1988-89 campaign and won the the Lester B. Pearson Trophy, presented by the NHLPA following a player vote to determine the league’s most outstanding performer.

A herniated disk that led to surgery cost him much of the 1993-94 season, but he was back the following campaign to lead the Wings to their first Stanley Cup final appearance since 1966. A fractured orbital bone suffered during the 2004 playoffs was expected to end his career, but Yzerman returned for a farewell season following the lockout.

The most enduring images of Yzerman’s intestinal fortitude were forged during the 2002 playoffs. His oft-wounded right knee in tatters, he painfully willed himself through eight weeks of playoff hockey.

“(That year) typifies his will to win,” said Detroit teammate Kris Draper. “He couldn’t practice and he swelled up when he played. He was wrapped in ice bags from his ankles to his waist after every game. He could barely get up when he fell.”

While Yzerman’s numbers rival those of Gretzky and Lemieux, it is a fitting testament to Yzerman’s class and character that his leadership is what places him in a class of his own.

“Steve Yzerman was a tremendous hockey player who epitomized everything good about our game,” said Phoenix Coyotes coach Gretzky. “He loved the game and played with passion every night.”

Despite his Hall of Fame resume, skating in the same era as the Great One and Mario the Magnificent limited Yzerman to a solitary first all-star team selection in 2000. Other individual recognition came in the form of the Masterton (2003) and Conn Smythe (1998) trophies. Many believe he is the greatest player never to win the Hart Trophy.

“Steve was not that interested in individual honors,” Bowman said. “He worried about competing, about winning. He didn’t take a second off.”

That was especially apparent when Yzerman helped Canada capture its first hockey gold medal in 50 years at the 2002 Winter Olympics.

“We had a bunch of guys who were really top players,” said Canadian coach Pat Quinn, “but they were all players who logged a minute-and-a-half shifts in the National Hockey League.”

After an opening loss to Sweden, Quinn sought to shorten his team’s shifts and when leaders Yzerman and Lemieux bought into the plan, everyone followed suit.

“They shortened their shifts and picked the pace up and that’s why we became a competitive team,” Quinn said. “That’s what leadership is all about: your good guys showing the way for the rest of the team.”

It also is about knowing when it is time to pass the torch. And at age 41, Yzerman recognized that time was now. He pulled himself out of consideration for the 2006 Canadian Olympic team when he knew he couldn’t physically perform at that level and did likewise when he realized his eroding skills would hold the Wings back from greatness.

His numbers last season certainly weren’t embarrassing - 20 assists and 34 points in 61 games - but they hardly were Yzerman-ish.

“I thought a lot about coming back and playing, but when it came time to actually make the call to (Wings GM) Kenny (Holland), I couldn’t do that,” Yzerman said. “I really felt to do the things I had to do over the course of the summer - through training camp and into the regular season and be ready to go, be 100 per cent and be an effective and really good player for the team - I just felt that because of the condition of my knee, I wasn’t going to be able to do that.”

Yzerman would not allow himself to become a burden to the team he’s given so much to. It was his last selfless gesture as a player, the sort of act from which his legend was woven.

“He just does the right thing time in and time out, even when the right thing is very hard to do,” said Detroit coach Mike Babcock. “Most of us go for the path of least resistance. That’s not Steve Yzerman.

“He was always about the team.”

Even in retirement.