In the company of real men

Jim Matheson, Edmonton Journal

What made Steve Yzerman great was his determination in the latter days of his incandescent hockey career to survive and thrive on one leg better than most players who have two healthy limbs.

At the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, Team Canada trainers were draining his aching right knee of fluid and shooting the leg full of painkiller so he could get his skates on, never mind race up and down the ice. He wanted to play, so he did, but it was agony, at times, after his knee was scoped three weeks before the tournament.

"I played two pre-tournament games in Montreal and Minnesota and had no swelling. I told Wayne (Gretzky, Olympic team boss)I was fine, then the first tournament game it got sore against Sweden. Then, against Germany, the knee became really painful and it just progressed," said Yzerman.

"I don't know if I willed myself to play, but I said, 'Oh, boy, I've made this commitment. I can't bail out now. I knew I had to work through it as best I could."

Yzerman, who will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame on Monday in Toronto, had his troublesome knee realigned in the summer of 2002. But his play at the Olympics and the fact that he took the Detroit Red Wings to the Stanley Cup final on a leg and a prayer that same year, was the measure of the man.

Mark Messier is the gold seal as far as NHL leaders go, but Yzerman is close. He started out as a scoring machine after Detroit selected the five-foot-11, 160-pounder fourth overall in the 1983 entry draft.

Yzerman later morphed into a two-way force at the request of stern coach Scotty Bowman, eventually playing 22 years with the Wings.

For 10 years, Yzerman racked up points. Then Bowman, who came to the Wings in 1993, said the veteran star had to learn to be as good a player without the puck if he wanted to help the team win.

Yzerman bought into it, playing for a long period with Bob Errey and Darren McCarty, hardly offensive weapons. He had 38 points in 47 games after the first NHL lockout shortened the season in 1994-95. There was genuine talk he might get traded because he and Bowman were supposedly butting heads, but he remained a Red Wing.

"I wasn't putting up a lot of numbers and there are questions about your ability. I had to listen to people saying, 'he's expendable' when I was doing the things I was told to do," Yzerman said.

He said the trade rumours at the start of the 1995-96 NHL season never really bothered him, maybe because he was the first player Detroit owner Mike Ilitch ever drafted and he loved him.

"It was only for a brief period. It was unsettling at first. I had little control over the situation, but it died out and it never came up again," said Yzerman, who was never the fastest player, never the biggest, but then neither was Gretzky.

In fact, New York Rangers defence-man Brian Leetch, who will also be inducted, along with Brett Hull, Luc Robitaille, thought the Detroit captain had a good deal of No. 99 in him.

"His overall elusiveness and smarts with the puck was something else," said Leetch. "It's like when you talk about Gretzky's speed ... no one looked at Gretz as the greatest skater, but his ability to create space and to hold on to the puck, well, Steve was the same. He didn't worry you like (Pavel) Bure if the puck bounced behind you, but he had enough speed to beat you if he got you wrong-footed. His ability to go laterally was something else, and that stickhandling. He could hold onto the puck for such a long time to find other people."

Yzerman refused to blow his own horn.

"My speed was reasonable. I didn't have the top-end speed of a Sergei Fedorov, but I felt I had a change of pace. Gretz was the best at it. You couldn't tell which way he was going; you couldn't hone in on him, like Patrick Kane today," he said.

"I certainly didn't rely on outskating guys, although I did get more powerful."

In the end, when he retired in 2006, he went out on his terms.

Yzerman, who garnered 155 points in 1988-89, but never once made the NHL first or second all-star team because Gretzky and Mario Lemieux were on the scene, was part of three Cup-winning teams. The last, in 2002, he played with Hull, who finished with 741 goals and Robitaille, who had 668--a veritable feast of talent. On that team, there are likely nine sure Hall of Famers: Yzerman, 692 goals); Hull, Robitaille and Igor Larionov, already elected, and Chris Chelios, 1,644 games; Dominik Hasek, six Vezina trophies, two Hart trophies; Brendan Shanahan, 656 goals; Fedorov, 1,179 points, Hart Trophy; and Nick Lidstrom, six Norris trophies.

With Wings, Yzerman was part of 'pretty awesome group'

Dave Gross, Canwest News Service

A hockey hall of fame player amid a roomful of hockey hall of fame potential?

Steve Yzerman says it didn't even cross his mind back in 2001-02 when his Detroit Red Wings boasted one of the most dominant lineups in National Hockey League history.

"People talked about how many potential hall of fame guys were on that team, but players don't sit around ever and discuss, 'Well, I think we're all going into the hall of fame.'

"No one sat around and thought this was going to be our legacy," said Yzerman who heads into the hockey hall of fame Monday night in Toronto with fellow inductees Brian Leetch, Lou Lamoriello, Brett Hull and Luc Robitaille - the latter pair part of that Wings' Stanley Cup winner in '02.

"Oh boy, it just gave us scoring depth," said Yzerman on Tuesday when asked about the additions of Robitaille and Hull, who'd both signed as free agents in the off-season.

"It became particularly evident in the playoffs. You had Brett on one line, Luc on another, Sergei (Federov) and Brendan (Shanahan) on another and then (Kris) Draper, (Kirk) Maltby, (Darren) McCarty line at the time. We really had balanced scoring and I think that was the difference playing Colorado in the semis and then ultimately Carolina (in the final)."

Yzerman's career statistics and the class he brought to the game made him a cinch for induction.

Not many resumes read better than his - Stanley Cup champion in 1997, '98, and 2002; 10-time NHL all-star; Lester B. Pearson Award (1989); Conn Smythe winner (1998); Bill Masterton winner (2003); Olympic gold medal (2002).

"It was a real thrill to get the call last year, but up until that point it was something that wasn't my decision and I didn't sit around thinking about it.

"It does feel strange. I'm not used to it. I guess officially I'm not even in there yet, but, it does feel strange to be considered a hall of famer because growing up and really being in the league, you run into the hall of famers, you see them on TV and it's a pretty awesome group."

Leetch said earlier on Tuesday that Yzerman was one of the best all-around players he faced.

"He wasn't one of the guys you worried about that when the puck bounced behind you - like a (Pavel) Bure trying to get after it - but his ability to go laterally and do it at faster speeds than others, as well as that stickhandling, you know he used to be able to hang onto that puck for long times and make great plays.

"He could do everything at a very high skill level, that's for sure."

Yzerman has shown another ability to stickhandle after his on-ice career ended in 2006.

As general manager of Team Canada for the upcoming Vancouver Winter Games, hardly a minute goes by without someone whispering advice or firing a question his way regarding the roster.

Yzerman's proven quite adept at revealing very little in the detail department. One question thrown his way during Tuesday's conference call concerned netminder Marc-Andre Fleury, who's become something of a media darling with his strong start in Pittsburgh.

"I won't say who has the inside track on being the starter, because we don't need to at this time, and I don't think that's really determined . . ."

One question the Nepean, Ont.-raised centre didn't have trouble nailing down took Yzerman back a few years - to the 1983 NHL entry draft. After the first two selections - Brian Lawton by Minnesota then Sylvain Turgeon to Hartford - speculation was the then-storied New York Islanders were eyeing Yzerman, a star with the OHL's Peterborough Petes.

Yzerman said he was ready, too.

"It's hard to predict," he said with a laugh. "I wore No. 19 because I was a (Bryan) Trottier fan and, not that I really cared where I was drafted, but certainly the thought was there that maybe I'll go to the Islanders and play on the same team with Trottier and (Mike) Bossy one day.

"They took Pat (LaFontaine) . . . and I never looked back."

After 1,514 games and three Stanley Cups, it's not likely the Red Wings did either.