Big Red Machine

Dear fans of the Tampa Bay Lightning,

Today you have received a gift.

His name is Stephen Gregory Yzerman.  He comes with 3 Stanley Cups as a player, 1 more as an executive, 692 career goals, 1063 career assists, an Olympic gold medal as a player and another as the GM of Team Canada.  He has a Selke, Pearson, Masterton, and Conn Smythe trophy.  He is a Hall of Famer.

He’s Stevie Y, and for the past 27 years he’s been ours.  He is The Captain and the definition of a leader.  He built Hockeytown.  He took the Dead Things on his shoulders and raised them up to the hockey club they are today.  In return we raised his #19 to the rafters forever.

We love Stevie, and he’s belonged to Red Wings Nation and to Detroit and to Michigan for the last 27 years.  We’ve been spoiled to have him all to ourselves so for long.  And now we’re trying to learn how to share.

We understand that you’ve had a rough past few seasons.  You won the Cup in 2004, but where have you gone since then?  You’ve had a circus act of an ownership, had Barry Melrose behind your bench, and finished towards the bottom of your conference again.  You need someone who is unwavering and who will lead you.  Stevie can do that.  He will do that for you.  He gave his heart to Detroit, and we have no doubt that he will give what he has left to you.  Please be gentle with it.

We’re willing to share, but you have to promise us something.  Promise you’ll be patient.  Promise you’ll understand that he’s inheriting a mess of contracts and salaries.  Promise you won’t get angry with him over the mistakes of others.  Promise you won’t expect him to turn the Lightning around tomorrow.  Promise that you’ll believe he’s doing his best.

We want him to succeed, and to further cement his legacy.  If it takes 27 years in Tampa to build a perennial contender, so be it.  We love him and only want to see him excel, even if that means he’s no longer in Detroit.

After 27 years we are carefully handing him over to you, for now.

Take care of him for us.

Sincerely,

Fans of the Detroit Red Wings

–EDIT 8:52PM MT–

I’ve had some more time to absorb today’s news that Steve Yzerman is the new GM of the Tampa Bay Lightning.  I was stunned this morning when I woke up to find the announcement on Twitter.  Stunned, but honestly, not overly surprised.  I think that we all knew this day was coming sooner or later.

I watched his press conference this afternoon, and listened to him trip over his words while trying to describe his dreams and vision for this hockey club in Florida.  And I couldn’t decide how I felt about the whole situation.  It just seemed surreal.

Then I watched the interview he did shortly afterwards with Rick Peckham.  In the background you can see the marquee scrolling part of the phrase “Lightning Welcome Steve Yzerman.”  That’s when it completely sunk in.  Stevie’s not just ours any more.  We’ve already shared him with Canada, but this is completely different.  This is… weird.  There’s no other way to put it.  It’s really, really weird.

There was a question floating around the twittersphere earlier today, which was how do Red Wings fans feel about this news?  And I hope there isn’t anyone who is angry or mad with his decision to leave the Wings.  It doesn’t mean that he’s not still a Wing for life.  It doesn’t mean that he’s not still a hero and a legend and an icon in the city of Detroit.

I talked about this with Matt just a short bit ago, and as much as I’d love to see him come back to Detroit some day soon, I don’t want it to be because he failed in Tampa.  I don’t want to see impatient fans in a nontraditional market drive him out because their team hasn’t improved enough fast enough.  If it takes 27 years in Florida, so be it.

I wrote earlier today that it’s kind of like being happy for the person you’re in love with, who’s decided to be with someone else.  Because you love them, you want the best for them.  And that’s exactly how I feel about this situation.  Above all else, I want Steve Yzerman to succeed and thrive as GM of the Tampa Bay Lightning.  I want him to win, and I want him to prove that he can run an NHL club without the failsafe of Detroit’s front office behind him.  I want him to prove that he can manage a team that isn’t built from a fantasy roster of options.

I want people to be able to say that he was the ultimate player, Captain, and GM.

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It’s official.  After much speculation and a lot of “yes he will” and “no he won’t” talk, the announcement has been made.

Steve Yzerman is going to be the new General Manager of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Being in Mountain Time, I woke up to this news first thing this morning, and for a moment I kind of wanted to cry a little.  I know, in the short term it’s better for Detroit to keep Ken Holland, the best GM in sports.  I know that Yzerman wants to run an NHL team.  I know he’s capable of turning around a mess like Tampa.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t be sad about it.  He’s been a Red Wing for 27 years (almost to the day, according to TPL).  He’s a hero and a legend in Detroit.  He is hands down all time my favorite player.  I cannot even imagine seeing him wear the logo of another NHL team.  I know the Lightning will present him with a jersey at the press conference this afternoon.  I know he won’t put it on, but just the image alone is seriously unsettling:

That’s just… wrong.

On the flip side, I’m happy for him.  It’s kind of like still being (or trying to be) happy for the person you’re in love with even though they’ve decided to be with someone who isn’t you.  Because you love them, and you want the best for them.  He’s made it no secret that he wants to run his own club and that he knows he’d possibly have to leave Detroit in order to do that.

And so I wish him the best of luck.  This may be his first ever NHL GM job, but look what he did with the Canadian Olympic team.  Some of his player selections were questioned at the time–no Mike Green, no Dion Phaneuf.  But he won Gold with that team.  I’ll defer back to Petrella who put it well:

It may not be quick, and they’re still embroiled in a messy ownership debacle, courtesy of Saw guy and hardly-was NHLer. But, rest assured, like he always did on terrible Red Wings teams, Steve Yzerman will find a way to make the most of it.

I don’t have an Eastern team that I really root for, but I might have to adopt the Lightning for now.

First things first, huge congratulations to Team USA for playing strong, tough, and with heart, and for never giving up. A great performance by the Americans to win the Silver medal. We’re proud of you all.

Secondly, congrats to Team Canada, specifically Steve Yzerman and Mike Babcock. (Can someone clarify for me whether coaches and executives get actual medals? Apparently they do not in the Summer Olympics, because then they’d have to give all coaches, like for figure skating, medals as well). I’m happy for Stevie Y, and it really did make me happy to see his jump up and cheer when Canada scored.

On that note though, did it REALLY have tp be Crosby? Of all the players… It’s probably my fault, too, because milliseconds before, I said to my brother: “If Crosby scores the GWG for Canada I’ll throw myself out the window.” And then he scored. Sigh. He was a virtual non-factor all tournament until now, and the media is all praising him as being a “leader” of Team Canada. What a joke.

Anyway, again, congrats to Finland, USA, and Canada (both mens and womens, which oddly turned out identical in terms of medal results) for their wins. And especially to Rafalski and Filppula, and Yzerman and Babcock.

Red Wings hockey starts again tomorrow, in Colorado. I’ll be at the game! Hopefully Rafalski can bring back his awesome play, and the rest of the team will get their heads into the season and ready to make a push.

Let’s go Red Wings.

I went to Warren 77, Avery’s bar in NYC, this past Friday (with some of my favorite Twitter people).  I had heard about the picture that he had hanging in the bathroom, so of course I had to see it immediately.

And well… see for yourself:

Yes, that’s Brendan Shanahan as Batman and Steve Yzerman as Robin.

(apologies for the glare from the flash–I took it on my Blackberry and there was no way around it.)

They say why bother trying to rephrase something when someone’s already said it better, or best.  So here are links to some of the superlative blog posts and articles I’ve read the past few days about our beloved #19, The Captain, the incomparable Steve Yzerman.

(In no particular order, other than how I have the tabs opened in my browser.  Please let me know if there are any I’ve missed.)

Gregg Kuppa, The Detroit News: The Captain: Steve Yzerman Heads to the Hall of Fame

The Chief, A2Y: Detroit’s Gift to Hockey: 19 to the Masses

Kris, Snipe Snipe, Dangle Dangle: It’s Time to Celebrate Stevie

Pierre LeBrun, ESPN: Yzerman Was “Fierce Competitor”

Lastly, Christy Hammond from Winging it in Motown reposts part of an older piece on what makes Yzerman her favorite player.

Well that sucked.

Goals were as follows:
Detroit: Dan Cleary (Rafalski, Lidstrom)
Toronto: Wayne Primeau (Orr, Finger); Phil Kessel (White, Blake); Jeff Finger (Stempniak, Stajan); John Mitchell (pp; Kessel, Beauchemin); Alexei Ponikarovsky (Grabovski, White)

Trying a new format here for my game recap, and it’s going to be my plus/minuses of the game.  Yes, it’s a blatant riff off the +/- stat.  And the hope is that there will be more pluses than minuses.  Unlike tonight.  Ahem.

Pluses
+ Good for Cleary for getting his 100th career goal.  Now that he’s gotten over that milestone hump, here’s to hoping that he can start producing a bit more offensively.
+ There was a nice smattering of Red Wings fans at the ACC, and occasionally got the “Let’s Go Red Wings” chant going.  Unfortunately it was quickly washed out by “Go Leafs Go”
+ The Leafs did a very cool job at the beginning, showing first a montage of past Hall of Fame inductees, and then having several of them introduced.  They lined up to greet the 2009 inductees.  Stevie Y got a huge ovation.  As did Scotty Bowman.
+ I’m putting this under pluses just because I thought it was a cool stat, but apparently the Red Wings and Leafs are 274-274 in career games (ignoring ties which is 93).  So they were touting tonight’s game as the tiebreaker.  (Apparently the tie occurred at the Red Wings opener in the 08-09 season, when they lost their banner raising game to the Leafs)
+ Lidstrom had a very nice hit at one point, driving Ponikarovsky off to the side boards.  You don’t see it very often, so you appreciate it when you do.
+ Well, this is a plus for me, but I had a surprisingly good vantage point from my seat.

Minuses
– I saw a girl wearing a white RBK Edge style Red Wings jersey, with number 7 and Lindsay on the back… and if that wasn’t bad enough, she turned around and there was no logo on the front!  It was totally blank.  No Winged Wheel.  Talk about a jersey foul… I wanted to get a picture to send to Puck Daddy, but didn’t get a chance.
– Speaking of Cleary, he’s -7 on the season so far.
– The defense sucked.  I saw way too much of Lebda (16:35, 1:02 PP) and Ericsson (20:03, 3:58 PK).  Even worse, they were usually paired together.  I had a feeling that Babcock thought that the Leafs’ anemic offense was a good opportunity to give them more ice time.  Too bad that backfired.  Though it wasn’t entirely their fault alone–everyone was a little lackadaisical.
– Along those lines, I felt like they took the Leafs too lightly.  Or they simply didn’t care because it’s an Eastern/Western conference game.  Who knows, but it was unacceptable.
– Honestly, I thought Howard should have, and was going to start tonight’s game.  Along what I personally think is the reasoning for giving Lebda and Ericsson so much ice time, I would have thought it a good chance for Howard to play.
– Jason Williams has a freaking broken leg.  He was bringing the puck into the zone and slide into the end boards with a Leaf player.  It didn’t really make a huge bang on impact, and I was honestly surprised to see him hurt.  I was also very relieved to see it wasn’t Rafalski–it happened on my end, and I could only see the 2 and what was either an 8 or a 9.  This sucks regardless, but I agree with Matt that it would have been much, much worse had it been Raf.
– There was simply not enough established pressure.  Too much cycling and pretty passing on the power play.  The Red Wings outshot the Leafs, but that doesn’t matter when they get outplayed completely like they did tonight.
– Ozzie sucked.  Let’s be honest with ourselves, this was not a good game for him.

Random thoughts on Toronto,  the ACC, and Maple Leafs fans:

• Toronto fans clearly try to make up for the fact that their team sucks by making brash and ridiculous statements, such as “Detroit Sucks” chants.  I mean… let’s get real, here.  We may have gotten demolished (more on that travesty of a game below), but at least we’ve won more than 3 games so far this season.  It’s obviously a case of grandstanding, and it’s unfortunate that tonight they happened to be right.
• They were selling Red Wings jerseys at the team store.  Just one rack towards the front, but still.  Trying to cash in on Hall of Fame weekend, and the Red Wings’ popularity.
• A funny, awkward moment was on the Kiss Cam–they showed a guy and girl, who looked like they could have been a cute couple.  The guy just shakes his head and yells that it’s his sister.  Oops.
• Leafs fans were leaving with about 6:30 left to go in the game.  When winning is such a rare occasion, you’d think they’d want to stick around and celebrate such a monumental occurrence.
• Kudos to the fans for giving the Royal Canadian Army vet of Afghanistan, who was honored and invited by Luke Schenn’s “Luke’s Troops” program, a rousing and lengthy standing ovation.

More can be found on my Twitter.  I’ll also be posting pictures from my weekend up here in a short bit.

Steve Yzerman was on TSN’s “Off the Record” with Michael Landsberg the other day.  He appeared in two segments, Up Front, and Next Question, to talk mostly Olympics.

The OTR twitter account asked fans to tweet their questions to use in Next Question:

@heylandsberg: I need your help – we’re doing Next Question today with Steve Yzerman – what should we ask him? tweet me your ideas…

A few Steve Yzerman related things of note:

Firstly, HBC unveiled the Canadian Olympic clothing line inspired by the Vancouver games.  A dutiful Canadian Olympian, Yzerman participated in the presentation, wearing some of the pieces.  You can view the photo gallery here.

The Captain was also on CBC’s The Hour with George Stromboulopolous yesterday.  I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet, but I presume he discusses the Canadian hockey team.  You can watch it here.