Steve Yzerman

Hockey Player

• Born: May 9, 1965
• Place of Birth: Cranbrook, British Columbia, Canada

SPORT: Ice hockey

Early Life

Stephen Gregory "Steve" Yzerman was the third child of five born to Ron Yzerman, an employee of the Canadian government’s health and welfare department. He was born in Cranbrook, a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on May 9, 1965. He was nine years old when his family moved across the country to Nepean, a suburb of Ottawa, in the province of Ontario, Canada. When Ron Yzerman was offered a chance to coach a hockey team, he agreed on the condition that the league waive its age requirement to let Steve play a year early; thus, his son got a head start on most other players.

Yzerman's childhood idols included Gordie Howe, Mike Bossy, and Bryan Trottier. He chose to wear number nineteen because that was Trottier’s number for the New York Islanders. At the age of eleven, he began five years of playing for the Central Junior A Hockey League Nepean Raiders. At sixteen, he went into major juniors, playing for the Peterborough Petes of the Ontario Hockey League.

The Road to Excellence

By 1983, the Detroit Red Wings had missed the playoffs in eleven of the past thirteen seasons. Yzerman was relatively small, and his numbers with the Petes were not outstanding—twenty-one goals and forty-three assists for sixty-four points in his inaugural season, and forty-two goals and forty-nine assists for ninety-one points in his second year. However, the Red Wings liked something about him and made him the franchise’s first pick, fourth overall, in the player draft. A few months after his eighteenth birthday, he went directly to the NHL without spending any time in the professional minor leagues.

The Red Wings hoped Yzerman could help the team return to its winning ways, and he did. In his first game, he scored a goal and had an assist against the Winnipeg Jets. Only three weeks later, he scored his first game-winning goal against the Buffalo Sabres with only twenty-two seconds remaining in overtime. That season, he became the youngest player to appear in the NHL all-star game. By season’s end, he had played in all eighty games, scored thirty-nine goals, and tallied forty-eight assists for eighty-seven points. He was runner-up for the Calder Trophy, awarded to the league’s best rookie. As if a full NHL season were not enough, Yzerman also won a bronze medal while playing in the 1983 World Junior Hockey Championships and helped lead his team to the 1984 Canada Cup Championship.

The Emerging Champion

At the end of 1986, Yzerman was named captain of the Red Wings, and coach Jacques Demers had nicknamed him "Stevie Wonder." At the age of twenty-one, the playmaking and shooting center forward was the youngest captain in the NHL. Eventually, he set an NHL record for longevity as a captain.

By the 1987–88 season, Yzerman had become the prolific scorer the Red Wings had thought he would be. By February, he was past the 100-point mark and among the league leaders in scoring. However, in the same game in which he scored his fiftieth goal of the season, he suffered a serious knee injury. He missed the remainder of the season but returned to the ice in time for the playoffs, leading the Red Wings to the conference finals against the Edmonton Oilers.

Yzerman's fifty goals, fifty-two assists, and 102 points in the 1987–88 season began a high-scoring run that placed him among the NHL’s elite. He tallied 50 or more goals for four consecutive years, had an eight-year run with at least fifty assists, and totaled more than 100 points in six consecutive seasons. His accomplishments on the ice were rewarded with appearances on the NHL all-star team in six consecutive years between 1988 and 1993.

Continuing the Story

Yzerman's scoring numbers declined in the 1993–1994 season because of changes in the way the game was played in the NHL and changes in the Red Wings organization in particular. In 1993, Scotty Bowman came to coach the Red Wings and encouraged Yzerman's transition toward defensive hockey. Yzerman had enjoyed six consecutive 45-goal, 100-point seasons, with a high of 65 goals and 155 points in 1988–89, but the new coach’s system meant even forwards had to have a hand in the defense. Therefore, Yzerman's goal totals plummeted. He continued as team leader, though, changing his style to match Bowman’s system and to bring his team up in the standings. The new system soon began to pay dividends.

In February 1997, Yzerman played in his one-thousandth regular-season game. He had scored more than 1,300 career points by that time. A few months later, at the age of thirty-two, he won his first Stanley Cup title. The Red Wings beat the St. Louis Blues in six games, swept the Anaheim Ducks in four games, and took the Colorado Avalanche in six games. In the finals against the Philadelphia Flyers, the Red Wings swept the series to win the team’s first Stanley Cup since 1955.

The next season, 1997–98, had its ups and downs for Yzerman. He was on the Olympic team but returned from the Games without a medal. His NHL scoring totals were down, he was not in the all-star game, and he was left out of The Hockey News top fifty. The year ended well, though, as the Red Wings swept the Washington Capitals to win consecutive Stanley Cups.

In 2002, the Red Wings won a third Stanley Cup during Yzerman's tenure. That same year, he helped the Canadian team win the men’s ice hockey gold medal at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. In 2003, his twentieth season, Yzerman received the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy for his perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to ice hockey, though he played a reduced number of games. In 2006, the year he received the Lester Patrick Trophy for contributions to ice hockey, he scored his final goal, number 692, and announced his retirement at the end of the season. When he hung up his skates, Steve ranked sixth all-time in assists, second in points and goals, and third in games played in NHL history. The following year, he was named vice president of the Red Wings. In 2008, the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup again, and Yzerman became the general manager of Team Canada.

Yzerman continued to accrue honors after his playing career. In 2008, he was inducted into the Michigan, Ottawa, and Canadian Sports Halls of Fame. In 2009, he was inducted into the National Hockey Hall of Fame. He was hired in 2010 to be the general manager of the Tampa Bay Lightning, assembling a team that would play in the 2015 Stanley Cup Finals. After the season, he was given the NHL General Manager of the Year Award. He was also the manager for the Canadian national hockey team that competed in the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics. In September 2018, Yzerman announced he would step down as general manager for the Lightning, though he would continue as a team adviser for the 2018–19 season. The decision led many sportswriters to speculate whether Yzerman would return to the Red Wings organization in some capacity. As predicted, Yzerman returned to the Red Wings in April 2019 as the executive vice president and general manager.

Impact

On the ice, Steve Yzerman was known for having great balance and quick feet. Off the ice, his modesty, kindness to his fans, and caring toward those less fortunate stood out. In renaming the Nepean Sportsplex the Steve Yzerman Arena, his hometown cited not only his "stellar achievements as a professional hockey player," but also his active support of charitable causes.

Among the diminishing number of players who have spent their entire career with a single NHL team, Yzerman set league records for serving the most years as captain, scoring the most goals, and scoring the most points. In 1988, he won the Conn Smythe Trophy as most valuable player of the playoffs. In 1989, his fellow NHL players voted to honor him with the Lester B. Pearson Award as the league’s outstanding player.

Bibliography

Allen, Kevin, and Art Regner. Red Wings Nation: The Oral History of the Detroit Red Wings. Triumph, 2015.

Gave, Keith. Vlad the Impaler and More Epic Tales from Detroit’s ’97 Stanley Cup Conquest. Teufelsberg Productions, 2021.

"Steve Yzerman Bio." Griffins Hockey, griffinshockey.com/staff/steve-yzerman. Accessed 20 June 2024.

The Captain: Steve Yzerman—Twenty-Two Seasons, Three Cups, One Team. Detroit Free Press, 2006.

Cotsonika, Nicholas J. Red Wings Essential: Everything You Need to Know to Be a Real Fan! Triumph, 2006.

Hunter, Doug. Yzerman: The Making of a Champion. Triumph, 2004.

Lazarus, Shelley. Hockeytown Hero: The Steve Yzerman Story—An Authorized Biography. Proctor, 2001.