June 18, 1998
BY JOHN LOWE
Free Press Sports Writer
WASHINGTON -- Bob Clarke and Dave Taylor understand Steve Yzerman's impact on the Red Wings. They know how he inspired and elevated his team to a second Stanley Cup.
Yzerman did it through his sacrificing, not his scoring. His sweat, not his stats.
"His leadership is his biggest asset -- just the way he plays night in and night out," said Taylor, who used to do for the Los Angeles Kings what Yzerman does: Play a smart, physical, two-way game while remaining a major scoring threat.
"I can see the rest of the team lifted by his example," said Taylor, now LA's general manager. "It seems he logs an awful lot of ice time. He doesn't retaliate. He keeps playing. He takes the puck to the net. He goes into the corners, he battles, he gets knocked down, he gets back up."
Like Yzerman, Taylor and Clarke were esteemed captains who played fiercely, relentlessly. When they went into corners, battled and got up after getting knocked down, they set examples teammates couldn't ignore.
"I don't think teams like Detroit happen by accident," Clarke said. "They're obviously well-coached and obviously well-led. Leadership comes from the captain of the club."
Then, referring to how the Red Wings swept the finals for the second straight year, Clarke said, "Yzerman has a huge influence on that happening -- on the opposition and also on his own teammates."
All season, Yzerman played with a look of frozen determination. From October to June, his expression said: "We're keeping the Cup."
"I think what drives him is what drives all of us -- you get that taste in your mouth, and you don't want it to go away," the Wings' Darren McCarty said.
Teams can transform individuals, but individuals also can transform teams. Coach Scotty Bowman's defensive style changed Yzerman; and perhaps by playing the two-way game, Yzerman influenced teammates.
McCarty said: "He's one of the hardest workers in there. It's motivation. You can't be on top of your game all the time, but seeing him out there doing all the little things, it's what the team is all about."
The Red Wings have overwhelmed opponents with their team approach. A star blocks a shot; a grinder gets a huge goal. The Red Wings are just too deep and too committed to be denied. They are a team in Yzerman's image.
At times, Yzerman played with pain that few people knew about. His knees aren't the best, and he missed the last week of the regular season with an injury to his side.
Yet he provided another triumph of mind over matter. In the playoffs, he seemed to be everywhere.
"He was phenomenal," McCarty said. Wings defenseman Slava Fetisov, at 40 the league's oldest player, said that if he didn't know better, he would think Yzerman was 25.
But Yzerman is 33, and he has reached a glorious phase of the talented athlete's career: his mature prime. He still has his peak abilities, and he can apply them more wisely than ever, thanks to his wisdom and experience. For examples of other champions in their mature prime, think of Denver's John Elway and Chicago's Michael Jordan.
Dallas general manager Bob Gainey said Yzerman has become such a force because of "a combination of his experience and his natural skills and his belief in knowing now how much has to be done to win."
Knowing how much has to be done to win -- that is the slogan for Yzerman's game. Besides participating in goals throughout the four rounds of the playoffs, he kept blocking shots and stealing the puck and making big hits.
Two forces appear to have moved Yzerman to his Cup-worthy maturity: repeated playoff failures and Bowman. The Red Wings never reached the finals during Yzerman's five 50-goal seasons, the last of which came five years ago.
When Bowman arrived the next season and asked Yzerman to become more defense-oriented, how could Yzerman argue? Having won six Cups, Bowman knew that you don't win titles without defense, no matter how much offense you have.
Yet, in this season's playoffs, Yzerman lurked with the sense and skill of a 100-point scorer. The way he steamed down the ice shorthanded in Game 2 of the finals, stopped and waited for what seemed like a week before shooting and beating Olaf Kolzig on the near side, was the masterpiece that started the Wings' three-goal, third-period comeback.
Montreal general manager Rejean Houle, a forward on Canadiens Cup-winners, isn't surprised that Yzerman has retained his sniper's touch.
"He's an example of a player that wants to play both ways on the ice," Houle said. "By doing that, he becomes better offensively, too.
"When you play well defensively, the other team is getting trapped deep in your zone. And if you're a good player, that gives you more space to go offensively at the proper time. This is what Yzerman is doing."
The last few months support Houle's point. Without wavering on defense, Yzerman led all NHL players with 24 playoff points.
"He's a very good example," Houle said, "one of the better players in the league."
Clarke, now the Flyers GM, elevates Yzerman even higher.
"He's become a complete player," Clarke said. "He's gone from an offensive star to someone who plays every part of the game at both ends of the rink at a very high level. He's probably in the top half-dozen players in the game today.
When Gainey played for Montreal, he was the game's best defensive forward. He knows that Yzerman is reaping rewards that he never did when he scored more goals.
"I think he finds joy in being an all-around player," Gainey said. "I think he finds value in it -- certainly more than he would have believed when he was 22 or 24 or 25."
Indeed.
"Right now," Yzerman said, "after winning last year and this year, I'm having the greatest time in hockey in my life."
He said he wants to play five more seasons, to give him 20. He has much left to enjoy, but little left to prove.
Now, at last, Yzerman has his name on a major individual award: the Conn Smythe Trophy, as this season's playoffs MVP.
"When I came into the league, I don't think anybody really knew how to spell my name or pronounce it," Yzerman said. "So I'm very proud of the fact that the Yzerman name is going on a trophy, that it will be part of hockey for a long time."
That's about as much as Yzerman will say about himself.
"The only thing we really care about is winning and playing well together," he said. "Guys are incredibly unselfish."
He shows them how.