Scotty Bowman blog on NBC.com
April 20, 2007

People have asked me about coaching Steve Yzerman in the playoffs, and I go back his most recent years, like our series in Vancouver in ‘02. He came into the playoffs all banged up and we didn’t know how long he was going to able to stay with it after going down 0-2 at home. But then we were seeing him produce in Vancouver with goals and playing hurt. He was terrific in that he kind of willed that series to us because of his determination and the fact that he wasn’t going to shut it down.

I don’t know if there was a moment where I realized Steve was transforming himself as a player. When I got to Detroit, he was a real scoring machine, and they had an offensive-type team, but the team wasn’t going to be able to win in the playoffs. In those years, teams could shut them down. The team eventually got a little better, we changed some players around and got a better mixture. But guys that can play offense, generally — if they want to and they apply themselves — can play defense. Not everybody can play offense, but most people can play defense.

And sometimes, it’s a personal sacrifice, but Yzerman had a lot of responsibility on his shoulders at around that halfway stage of his career. He didn’t want to end up getting the tag that he was never on a winner. That was the big carrot for him to say he was a Stanley Cup winner. He was a good leader anyway, but he would sacrifice some of his individual numbers and he did all that. I pretty much convinced him that his stats weren’t going to be as good as they were, but he wasn’t interested in that. He was more interested in leading the team. Everything was on his shoulders to score goals and get points, but I said to him ‘If you change now and work on all parts of the game, then other players are going to have to pick up in the scoring department.’ I think that’s what happened, and we were able to go to the next level as a team.

I sat with Yzerman at a game in Chicago where he was scouting players for Team Canada at the World Championships. As the GM of the team , he had gotten a lot of input from a lot of different people on players across the league well before he made his final selections. This is a good responsiblility for him in this new role and he feels comfortable. When a guy of his stature calls and gets a player to play in a tournament not many are always interested in, it makes him feel helpful. It’s a good challenge for him.

Remember, international hockey a different style of play, on bigger ice, so speed is a big factor. I look at how guys react to certain situations, how they make impulse plays, how they play their position. If he’s a defensive-style player, you want to know what makes him tick, and he’s an offensive player, you want to look at how he gets himself open. If he’s like Yzerman, he’s able to do it all.