Steve Yzerman
Stephen Gregory Yzerman is a Canadian former professional hockey player who is currently the executive vice president and general manager of the Detroit Red Wings, where he spent all 22 seasons of his NHL playing career. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, he is a Detroit sports icon and a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame. After his retirement as a player, he served in the front office of the Red Wings, and then as general manager of the Tampa Bay Lightning, while also being executive director for Team Canada in two Olympics.
Prior to the 1986–87 season, at age 21, Yzerman was named captain of the Red Wings and continuously served for the next two decades, retiring as the longest-serving captain of any team in North American major league sports history. Once voted to be the most popular athlete in Detroit sports history, locals often simply refer to Yzerman as "Stevie Y", "Stevie Wonder", or "The Captain". Yzerman led the Wings to five first-place regular season finishes and three Stanley Cup championships. He retired in 2006 amongst the NHL leaders in total career points and went on to a further career in NHL and international management.
Yzerman won numerous awards during his career, including the Lester B. Pearson Award in the 1988–89 season, the Conn Smythe Trophy in 1998, the Selke Trophy as the league's best defensive forward in 2000 and the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy for perseverance in 2003. He played in ten All-Star Games, and was a first team All-Star in 2000 and a member of the All-Rookie Team in 1984.
Yzerman has represented his country in several international tournaments as a member of Canada's national hockey team. In 2002, Yzerman won an Olympic gold medal, making him one of few players to win an Olympic gold medal and the Stanley Cup in the same year. Yzerman was the general manager of Team Canada for the 2007 IIHF World Championship, which they won. Yzerman was appointed executive director of Team Canada on October 7, 2008, for the 2010 Winter Olympics. Team Canada went on to win the gold medal by defeating the United States. Yzerman was again appointed executive director of Team Canada on March 5, 2012, for the 2014 Winter Olympics. Canada went on to win their second-straight gold medal after defeating Sweden. He was inducted into the IIHF Hall of Fame in 2014.
Playing career
Early years in Detroit (1983–1986)
Yzerman was born in Cranbrook, British Columbia. As a youth, he played in the 1977 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament with a minor ice hockey team from Nepean, Ontario. He attended Bell High School and played for his hometown Nepean Raiders Junior A hockey team. After one season with the Raiders, the Peterborough Petes of the Ontario Hockey League drafted him, and he played centre for the Petes from 1981 to 1983.The 1983 NHL Entry Draft was the first for Mike and Marian Ilitch, who had purchased the Detroit Red Wings in the summer of 1982. Jim Devellano, the Red Wings' general manager at the time, wanted to draft Pat LaFontaine, who had grown up outside Detroit and played his junior hockey in the area. However, when the New York Islanders selected LaFontaine third overall, Devellano "settled" on Yzerman, drafting him fourth.
The Red Wings were prepared to send Yzerman back to Peterborough for one more year, but "after one session, you knew he was a tremendous hockey player", said Ken Holland, the former Red Wings general manager who was then a minor league goaltender for the Wings during Yzerman's rookie training camp. Yzerman tallied 39 goals and 87 points in his rookie season and finished second in Calder Memorial Trophy voting. That season, Yzerman also became the first 18-year-old and youngest player to play in an NHL All-Star Game since the current format was adopted in 1969. This stood as an NHL record for 27 years until Jeff Skinner broke it by eight days.
Rise to stardom (1986–1996)
Following the departure of Red Wings captain Danny Gare during the 1985–86 season, Red Wings head coach Jacques Demers named Yzerman captain of the team on October 7, 1986, making him the youngest captain in the team's history. Demers said he "wanted a guy with the Red Wings crest tattooed on his chest". During the next season, Yzerman scored his then-career high 50th goal against the Buffalo Sabres on March 1, 1988. However, during the same game, Yzerman suffered a knee injury which caused him to miss the rest of the regular season. Despite his absence, the Red Wings would win their first division title in 23 years.During the 1988–89 season, Yzerman recorded 155 points, finishing third in regular season scoring behind Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky. He won the Lester B. Pearson Award, the MVP as voted by the National Hockey League Players' Association, and was a finalist for the Hart Memorial Trophy, the MVP as voted by the NHL writers.
When Scotty Bowman took over as head coach in 1993, Yzerman initially chafed under Bowman's stern coaching style. Bowman, for his part, felt that Yzerman was not concentrating enough on defence; Bowman had long expected his forwards to be good back-checkers as well. Relations between the two became so strained that at one point, the Red Wings seriously considered trading him to the Ottawa Senators. However, Yzerman gradually became a better defender and was considered one of the best two-way forwards in the history of the game.
In 1995, Yzerman led Detroit to its first appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals since 1966, but the Red Wings were swept by the New Jersey Devils. The next season saw Detroit finish with a then NHL-record 62 regular season wins and were heavily favoured to win the Stanley Cup. Yzerman scored perhaps the most memorable goal of his career in the 1996 playoffs, stealing the puck from Wayne Gretzky and beating St. Louis Blues goaltender Jon Casey with a slap shot from the blue line to win the Western Conference Semifinals in double overtime of Game 7. However, the Red Wings fell short of their ultimate goal, losing in six games to the Colorado Avalanche in the Western Conference Finals.
Stanley Cup titles (1996–2002)
In 1997, Yzerman put to rest all doubts of his ability to lead a team to a championship as Detroit won its first Stanley Cup in 42 years after sweeping the Philadelphia Flyers. The following year, Detroit repeated the feat, sweeping the Washington Capitals and winning their second consecutive Cup title. Yzerman earned the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. He handed the Cup first to Vladimir Konstantinov, who had been severely injured in a car accident just six days after the Cup victory in 1997 and was using a wheelchair.On November 26, 1999, Yzerman became the 11th player in NHL history to score 600 goals. In 2000, he made the NHL All-Star first team and won the Frank J. Selke Trophy as the league's top defensive forward.
In 2001–02, Yzerman re-aggravated a knee injury, forcing him to miss 30 regular season games, though nonetheless still finished sixth in team scoring. Yzerman's knee greatly pained him during the 2002 playoffs, but this did not stop him from leading the Red Wings from an early 2–0 deficit in their opening round series to defeat the Vancouver Canucks and St. Louis Blues en route to Detroit's fifth playoff series with Colorado, and the third time the two teams had battled to decide the Western Conference Championship. Detroit defeated Colorado in a seven-game series and moved on to the Stanley Cup Finals, where they defeated the Carolina Hurricanes to win their tenth Stanley Cup championship in their history. Rather than raising the Stanley Cup first, Yzerman passed the Cup to head coach Scotty Bowman, who announced his retirement following the game.
Final years (2003–2006)
During the offseason, Yzerman underwent a knee realignment surgery known as an osteotomy. He missed the first 61 games of the 2002–03 season, but returned on February 24, 2003, at home against the Los Angeles Kings. After the season, Yzerman won the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy for perseverance.On May 1, 2004, Yzerman was hit in the eye by a deflected slapshot by the Calgary Flames defenceman Rhett Warrener in a playoff game, breaking his orbital bone and scratching his cornea. Yzerman underwent eye surgery following the incident, and was sidelined for the remainder of the 2004 playoffs. The eye injury also forced Yzerman to miss the 2004 World Cup of Hockey. Joe Thornton and Joe Sakic, who each wore the number 19 for their respective NHL clubs and who were now eligible to wear it for team Canada due to Yzerman's enforced absence, both refused the number out of respect for their injured countryman. Yzerman returned in the 2005–06 season, following the 2004–05 NHL lockout, wearing a visor.
On August 2, 2005, Yzerman signed a one-year deal with the Red Wings; this was his last contract signed as a player. On March 31, 2006, he scored his 691st NHL career goal, passing Mario Lemieux for eighth place all-time. Yzerman's humility was evident in an interview prior to his achievement when he was quoted saying, "I don't really know the significance. If anything, it shows how good is; he played almost five years less than I did." He scored his final NHL goal, the 692nd of his career, on April 3, 2006, in a game against the Calgary Flames. Yzerman played his last professional hockey game on May 1, 2006, a loss to the Edmonton Oilers in Game 6 of the first round of the 2006 playoffs and knocking Detroit out of the playoffs.
Retirement
On July 3, 2006, Yzerman announced his retirement from the NHL. Shortly afterwards, Sports Illustrated published a special commemorative edition dedicated to Yzerman entitled "Yzerman: A Salute to Stevie Y." He finished his career ranked as the sixth all-time leading scorer in NHL history, having scored a career-high 155 points in 1988–89, which has been bettered only by Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux. Yzerman's #19 jersey was retired on January 2, 2007, during a pre-game ceremony at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. On November 4, 2008, he was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame. He also became an honoured member of the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2009, his first year of eligibility, inducted alongside 2001–02 Red Wing teammates Brett Hull and Luc Robitaille. In 2017, Yzerman was named one of the "100 Greatest NHL Players" in history.Yzerman holds the NHL record as the longest-serving captain of a single team – he spent 19 seasons and 1,303 games wearing the "C". In addition to being eighth all-time in NHL regular-season goals and sixth in overall scoring, Yzerman finished his career seventh all-time in regular season assists and eighth in all-time playoff scoring. He also ranks second in nearly every significant offensive category in Red Wings history behind Gordie Howe, except for assists – Yzerman has 1,063 assists to Howe's 1,020. At the time of his retirement, only Howe and Alex Delvecchio had played more games as a Red Wing than Yzerman's 1,514. He is now fourth in games played for the franchise, behind Howe, Delvecchio, and Nicklas Lidström, who was his teammate for the final 12 seasons of his career.