May 8, 2004
BY HELENE ST. JAMES
FREE PRESS SPORTS WRITER
Steve Yzerman wants to wakeboard. He wants to ski. He wants to get dressed in the morning and snap on the blue bracelet that was a gift from his three daughters.
He also wants to play more hockey.
Sitting at his stall Friday at Joe Louis Arena as the Red Wings cleaned out their lockers, Yzerman sounded terrific and looked horrific. His left eye was swimming in blood, and the orbital bone was so bruised it had closed half the socket area. Yzerman can't drive yet. Nor can he putt. But he can walk around without feeling dizzy or developing a wicked headache.
Yzerman was injured last Saturday, during Game 5 of the second-round playoff series against Calgary, when a Mathieu Schneider shot was deflected and the puck smashed into Yzerman's face.
At first he couldn't see anything out of his left eye, but it opened to a slit while he was still in the Wings' medical room. By the time he was at Henry Ford Hospital, he could make out objects. Yzerman underwent surgery later that day, stopped by Joe Louis Arena to see his teammates Sunday and watched them get eliminated Monday.
A looming labor war between the NHL and the players' union is expected to reduce or erase next season, yet there's little chance that last Saturday marked the end of Yzerman's career.
"At the time I wasn't really thrilled about the game anymore, but it's not an injury that's career-damaging," Yzerman said. "I'd like to play again."
If a lockout weren't on the horizon, Yzerman's future would be easy. He would play hockey next season. Yzerman, who turns 39 on Sunday, is the Wings' captain. He has been the team's identity for 21 years. He'll never play elsewhere in the NHL, and the Wings will let him play in Detroit until he decides he can't push his body through another season. But a lockout is on the horizon, and the future is difficult.
Yzerman and his wife, Lisa, talked about finding a nice city in Europe and moving their family there for next season so Yzerman could play hockey and their daughters could experience a different life.
"But realistically, I don't think it's going to work," Yzerman said. "We just don't want to be moving them around through schools, stuff like that, too much. So if there isn't a season here, I don't plan on playing."
Though the World Hockey Association announced Wednesday that a Detroit franchise will play at the Silverdome, that's an unlikely option for Yzerman. Instead, he intends to stay in shape, skate three times a week and watch how negotiations go in New York and Toronto.
"My feeling," he said, "is the earliest we'll see hockey is next January, with potential for the entire season to be lost. Players are quite prepared and are expecting there not to be a season next year. From my understanding, the ownership through the entire league is preparing for that as well."
Like many other players, Yzerman is staunchly against a salary cap. He supports cutting the number of teams in the league because he recognizes that some are stuck in markets with little interest in hockey.
He also knows that one day, when he's in the position of management, which is virtually guaranteed to open up for him with the Wings, he will temper his opinion.
"It won't be long before I'm on the other side in some type of position in management, and I'll be arguing the other way," Yzerman said. "But a salary cap doesn't solve all the issues."
Once the labor dispute ends, Yzerman thinks the Wings will need to look different. Not drastically different, just different.
"We're too much of the same type of player up front," he said. "We need to bring in a couple of straight-ahead, physically strong guys who wear you down, who may get a good, hard hit on you, and you may separate your shoulder.
"What we lack is a hardness -- the ability to wear a team down, to tire you out, to punish you. We've got a lot of players, and I am one of them, that are more finesse. We try to go after the puck and create scoring chances.
"We don't have a lot of guys that are just straight-ahead bangers -- the big bodies that drive to the net, knock people off the puck. Two years in a row we haven't scored a lot in the playoffs, and I think that's one element where we need a little bit better balance."
Yzerman praised coach Dave Lewis for trying to get the most out of the players in the two playoff series this season. Had the Wings beaten the Flames in the second round, Yzerman expected to rejoin the lineup during the Western Conference finals, despite his injury.
Instead, the Wings' season ended late Monday night in a 1-0 loss at Calgary. Yzerman, watching on television, held his breath through overtime and hoped nothing bad would happen.
Now his next game might not be until January, or as a 40-year-old in 2005. Whenever it is, Yzerman will look different, too, though not drastically. His latest injury has made him a believer in visors, and he thinks all players should wear them.
Yzerman is scheduled to see his eye doctor for a checkup Tuesday. Drops are temporarily paralyzing his pupil, acting like a cast so a small tear in the iris can heal. The only real uncertainty is how the pupil will react to brightness, whether it will be able to expand and contract normally.
Other injuries are of bigger concern to Yzerman. A spinal fusion in '94 is causing problems, he said. He has had numerous operations on his right knee, though it feels great now, he said.
Yzerman doesn't regard last Saturday's game as his last, when he was helped off the ice while holding a towel to his eye. He wants to be active in retirement. He wants to learn to wakeboard. He has a bracelet, with "Daddy" written on it, that he wants to loop around his left wrist and snap. So he will wear a visor to protect his eyes, and he will work out to protect his body, and he will wait to see when, once again, he can play hockey for the Red Wings.