Quote:
Originally Posted by Lanny_McDonald
You don't know what you're talking about. Yzerman's game changed the minute Scotty Bowman was hired to coach the Wings, because Bowman sat him down and told him about all the great players he had coached, all the championships he had won, and the commitment all of those great players made to playing two way hockey. He challenged Yzerman to change his game and become a complete player so that team could win championships. Up until that point it was all-Yzerman-all-the-time in Detroit and all about Yzerman's scoring exploits. It was not a natural evolution of the game, it was a coach coming in and enforcing his will on a player and making him become a complete player. Yzerman initially resisted, but gave in and becae one of the best two way players in the game. Without that moment and the evolution that Scotty Bowman encouraged in Yzerman, that team would never have gone on to championships and Yzerman never would have been the executive we see today.
https://www.hhof.com/htmlSpotlight/s...ep200904.shtml
Yzerman's "moment" came at age 28. Eichel will turn 25 before the next season is a month old. Yzerman played in a league where you were just hitting your prime years at age 30. Eichel plays in a young man's league where you're washed up at 30. Eichel needs to get his #### together or he's going to go down with Dennis Maruk as a guy who wasted his talent and never won anything. |
I know the story. What I challenge is that Yzerman changing his game is why Detroit suddenly became good, and was able to break through and win cups.
Yzerman could have changed his game, but without the supporting cast it would have been irrelevant.
Did it help? Sure. But that whole thing gets way too much credit for Detroit's success.
Personally I think adding a second elite center that was a Selke winner himself in Fedorov, a perennial Norris candidate in Lidstrom, Shanahan, the rest of the russian 5, and better goaltending from Vernon and Osgood is what won Detroit the cup.
With that supporting cast they probably still win if Yzerman is a 140 point offensive minded Center too.
And a players best offensive years were always their mid-twenties. Gretzky, Lemieux, Yzerman, Sakic all had their best offensive season before turning 26.
And as I said Eichel had great defensive metrics this year (but I know you will ignore that because its a stat that is irrelevant because you said so).