The hockey world really turned on Steve Yzerman overnight.
Let the record shoooowwww I was an early adopter of not thinking Steve Yzerman was all that great.
http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/big- ... contender/Quote:
When Yzerman hung up his skates and moved into the role of vice-president of the Detroit Red Wings in 2006, he made it sound like an internship. “For me, initially, it’s going to be almost an education in how the business works and the management side of running a team,” Yzerman said. “What I’ll be doing is spending time with Kenny [Holland] and Jim Nill and Jimmy D [Jim Devellano] in the hockey department, and observing how they operate, whether it be contract negotiations, player analysis, just sitting in, listening and watching hockey.”
At the time, everyone inside the organization thought this was rich, the mere suggestion that Yzerman had anything to learn about the business of the Red Wings. After all, he had been in the middle of it for more than 20 years. He knew better than anyone that a few basic principles applied.
At its root, Detroit wasn’t a players’ organization. No star had all the pull, like Mario had in Pittsburgh. Communication didn’t go from ground up. It went from the top down on every count. Players were put in their place by the coaches—first by the most brutal taskmaster, Scotty Bowman, and then the less draconian Mike Babcock. (Let us skip over the brief interregnum of Dave Lewis.) The working hands had to develop a tolerance for both the night-in, night-out drudgery of a 200-foot game and occasional humiliation. Famously, Bowman put Sergei Fedorov, only a couple of years removed from the Hart Trophy, on the blueline for a stretch of games—not because of a shortage of personnel but as a slap-down. That’s how Bowman had won in Montreal, suffering no pushback, demanding praise-free sacrifice.
Because Yzerman bought in, no one could opt out. That said, if you weren’t in Yzerman’s favour, you were well-advised to rent rather than buy in Detroit. That’s what he wanted for Tampa Bay.
. . .
Yzerman went all in to win this season. He had done enough right for Tampa Bay to take a run at the Stanley Cup again this spring, but enough wrong that if Stamkos had carried the Cup on a lap of the rink, it might still have been the last time he’d ever wear a Lightning sweater. But now, through a couple of unforeseeable bad breaks, Yzerman has busted out. His team will need a miracle every other night for two months to play for the Cup. And if winning can’t fix everything, neither will such a disappointing, desultory end.
We've heard a lot of the same stuff about Chicago's dressing room being a joyless hellhole, being a Bowman franchise. They've won the Cup three times, though.
EDIT: Pavel Datsyuk is leaving the NHL after this year. Big loss for hockey.
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Molly Lambert wrote:
The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.
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This is why the NHL fought so hard to keep Phoenix in the league, they needed a team so broke as to assume everyone's dead cap space without paying anything. They're already doing this for Pronger!
