YZERMAN CONTINUES TO MOTOR ALONG \ DETROIT CENTER IS A SPECIAL PLAYER

Author: Bud BARTH

Article Text:

COLUMN: NHL

He is one of the last of a dying breed, part of a small group that's getting even smaller and will soon be extinct.

Detroit's Steve Yzerman isn't quite one of a kind, because the Bruins' Ray Bourque is still around, too, but when they retire, hockey fans will probably never again see any player - let alone a player of such superstar dimensions - spend his entire career with one NHL team.

This is Yzerman's 17th season, all of them with the Detroit Red Wings Hockey Club Inc. His statistical accomplishments are many, including 606 career goals, 10th on the all-time list; 1,500-plus career points, only the seventh NHL player to reach that plateau; and 900-plus assists, the 10th NHL player to do that.

There's a lot more to Steve Yzerman than his stats, though. He is credited with being the longest-serving captain (in terms of games) in the NHL, having taken the job in 1986-87 at the tender age of 21.

He broke into the league with Detroit during the lean years of Nick Polano, was around for a brief resurrection under Jacques Demers (as well as the collapse of '89-90), and was a key ingredient in the steady buildup under Scotty Bowman that culminated in back-to-back Stanley Cups before last season's playoff loss to Colorado in the Western Conference semifinals.

"I feel like I've played on four different teams, with four different groups of guys," said Yzerman, now 34 years old. "We were rebuilding at one point, got to the semifinals a couple of times under Jacques Demers, then we backed off a bit. Then Bryan Murray came in and we built a strong team, and then Scotty came in.

"Things have gone by very quickly. I've been through a lot, but I don't really look back or think too far back at all. You get caught up in the season you are in."

BEST IN LEAGUE

He has 14 goals in 31 games so far this season for the 21-8-3 Red Wings, who take the best record in the league into today's game at Anaheim. The Wings are determined to recapture the Cup after their loss to Colorado last year greased the way for the Dallas Stars, who are struggling so far this season.

"My feeling is that they (Stars) are going to get stronger and stronger as the playoffs get closer and the season goes on," Yzerman said, a voice of experience in such matters. "They'll become more and more conscious of the playoffs right around the corner and they'll get it cranked up more as it gets nearer."

Yzerman recalls the hangover that affected the Wings early in the season following their 1997-98 Stanley Cup. "You've been through so much, the intensity and the emotion that you have in the playoffs," he said, "and two months later you've got to turn around and come do it again."

The center considered himself more of a playmaker than a goal-scorer when he entered the league in 1983. It has gradually switched around and now Yzerman is considered one of the league's top goal-scorers. He has had five seasons with 50 goals or more, two with 60 or more.

During the 1988-89 season, Yzerman bagged 50 goals in just the first 55 games, finishing with a career-high 65.

"I wouldn't say I'm a classic goal-scorer like (Mike) Bossy or Rocket Richard before him," Yzerman said. "Then, when you say playmaker, I look at Wayne (Gretzky) or Mario (Lemieux) or Adam Oates as your prototypical playmakers - Doug Weight, too. I guess I'm kind of in between, a little bit of both.

OUT OF THE BLUE

"I always thought I was a playmaking centerman and around my fifth year, all of a sudden they started going in more than they ever had," said Yzerman, who in just two seasons skyrocketed from 31 goals to 65, and then 62. "I don't know what changed, but I guess I was happy that it did."

He has settled generally into the 20-goals category, scoring 29 last season, 24 the season before, and 22 the season before that. His popularity hasn't suffered, though. At last count, he had received 168,933 votes - more than 50,000 ahead of the Flyers' Eric Lindros - for the center spot on the North American squad in this year's All-Star game.

As for the part about playing with one team for an entire career, Yzerman agrees he and Bourque may indeed be the final players to do that.

"I think the only thing that makes it a little bit more difficult now is a lot of decisions are going to be based on finances, where in the past I don't think that was necessarily true because there wasn't such a great range in salaries from top to bottom," he said. COMFORTABLE IN DETROIT

He has remained in Detroit for many reasons, he said, partly because "I play on a good team with a lot of good players, (so) I don't feel the burden of having to carry a team or anything like that."

Plus, he said, it helps that the Red Wings are an original six franchise with a great history, that they are winning, and that they play in a city so smitten by the game that it is nicknamed "Hockeytown."

As for his team captaincy, Yzerman said he's fortunate the team has no shortage of conscientious, talented veterans - Brendan Shanahan, Pat Verbeek, Chris Chelios and Sergei Fedorov among them - and that he needs not take a strong leadership role.

"I don't really say a whole lot. I don't really say much of anything," he confided. "We don't have a whole lot of team meetings. ... I don't stand out in the locker room as a leader any more than the other guys, I don't think. ... I really try to stay pretty quiet and work hard."