Detroit Red Wings captain Steve Yzerman signed a one year contract worth $1.5 to $2 million yesterday. And as the pen hit the table, Hockeytown let out a collective sigh of relief. This was more than just signing a good player in the new era of the NHL. This was more than just shoring up a team decimated by a payroll sliced in half by the salary cap. Derian Hatcher, from the shores of the Detroit River, signed with Philadelphia. Curtis Joseph, who came to Detroit for the chance to win a Stanley Cup, is gone. And the most prominent is Darren McCarty. McCarty grew up over the river in Windsor, has spent his entire 11 year career playing for his childhood team, and is now in Calgary. This signing was a bridge for the Red Wings from the spend free to fill wants era to the spend thrifty to fill needs era.Steve Yzerman has played as a Red Wing since 1983, and has been captain since 1986. He survived trade talks in the early nineties with Brian Murray, and again in the mid nineties with Scotty Bowman. He has survived countless knee problems, triggered by sliding into a goal post knee first against Buffalo in 1989. Under Bowman, Yzerman transformed his game from a 300 shots, 50 goals per season offensive style to a 200 shots, 30 goals per season style with an emphasis on the defensive end of the ice. Yzerman gave up putting gaudy numbers in the player column for the gaudy numbers put up in the standings and playoffs by the team. After first round, seven game exits at the hands of Toronto and San Jose in 1993 and 1994, the new and improved Yzerman led the Red Wings to their first finals appearance in almost 30 years in 1995. And when the captain raised the cup in Detroit for the first time in 42 years in 1997, all the behind the scenes talk stopped. Yzerman was a Red Wing for life.
This signing represents all that is good in the NHL and in sports today. There was no holdout, no negotiating through the media, no bad quotes taken out of context between the two parties. Red Wings management simply stated what the franchise could afford under the new collective bargaining agreement. Steve Yzerman simply stated that he needed some time to think about the offer, but that the unrestricted free agent would not sign with another team. If he signed, it would be as an employee of Mike Illitch, reporting to Mike Babcock. Most of Hockeytown realized that Yzerman would sign, that he had to sign. To end a career being helped off the ice on the wrong end of a playoff upset just is not right. There had to be something left. The news yesterday just made it a little easier to look forward to the beginning of the modern NHL in Detroit.
As the NHL season fires up, Yzerman will begin his 22nd campaign exactly 22 years removed from his first goal versus Winnipeg, October 5, 1983. Red Wings fans will have at least half of a brand new team playing in front of them. Half a team of new players playing in the same jersey that has been displayed proudly for nearly 80 years, through 10 Stanley Cups, through the years of the “Dead Things,” and through free car giveaways to get people into the barn. But should anyone have any doubts what is to play hockey in Detroit, they only have to look at their captain. He’s been here a while.