Hockey Hall of Famer Peter Forsberg won two Stanley Cups with the Colorado Avalanche, but in this story from THN's Archive, it was clearer his body couldn't keep up for a full season.
For the first decade of his NHL career, Peter Forsberg was a dynamic force, a Stanley Cup champion and an all-around terrific competitor. However, the intense physical style of game he played eventually caught up to him – and by the time this story from THN’s exclusive archive was published, and he’d moved on from the Colorado Avalanche to serve as a cornerstone component of the Philadelphia Flyers, Forsberg was hardly in peak condition.
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In the cover story from our Feb. 27, 2007 edition – Vol. 60, Issue 23 – THN senior writer Ken Campbell and the magazine asked the question, “Does The Fire Still Burn?” in regard to Forsberg. And while it was clear his spirit remained fiery, the reality was his body no longer could propel him to the level it had operated on since he broke into hockey’s top league in 1994.
In one respect, the state of the NHL by the time Forsberg signed as a UFA with the Flyers was beneficial to his game. The crackdown on obstruction made it easier for an intense competitor like him, but in his first season with Philadelphia in 2005-06, he appeared in only 60 games, and the following year, he made 40 appearances with the Flyers before being traded to Nashville. But Forsberg’s demanding approach of himself gave him the willpower to keep trying.
“If everything works, I still have a lot to give,” Forsberg told Campbell in the story. “That’s how I feel, but maybe I’m just fooling myself, too.”
“This last stretch where it looks like he has things figured out with his skates, he has been a dominant player,” then-Flyers GM Paul Holmgren said of Forsberg. “Right now, he feels better healthwise, than probably since we’ve had him. He feels good about himself. He feels good about his game, personally, and I think he likes the direction our team is going. He has been a new man here for the past three weeks to a month.”
Forsberg’s health problems included groin injuries, but most prominent was his ongoing ankle and foot injuries. The phrase “extra large ankles” may not have been used much, if at all, in hockey history, but it became a huge problem for the Swedish star.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Holmgren said. “I don’t know what it is. He’s got really extra large ankles. That’s just the way he was born, more than anything. He still goes through skates like nothin’, but you can sort of put up with that when he plays the way he’s been playing lately.”
In the end, it wasn’t so much Forsberg was fooling himself at that point – it was that the miles already on his odometer proved too difficult an obstacle to overcome. He played only 17 games for the Predators, and in the 2007-08 campaign, after returning to the Avs as a UFA, he played just nine games, then didn't appear in the NHL until his final two NHL matches in 2010-11. By the time he arrived in Philadelphia, Forsberg just couldn’t perform to the level he’d played at in his prime. And he hinted at the end of his playing days in Campbell’s story.
“It all goes back to how the foot feels,” Forsberg said. “If it feels good, I would like to play. If it doesn’t feel good…it’s been such a struggle this year, so I don’t even know.”
FOR PETE'S SAKE
By Ken Campbell
Vol. 60, Issue 23, Feb. 27, 2007
Peter Forsberg was watching a television monitor at the Philadelphia Flyers practice facility and he simply could not believe his good fortune. It was just prior to last season and the NHL had come out with its instruction video outlining the crackdown on obstruction and stick fouls.
As soon as somebody hit the stop button and turned on the house lights, Forsberg’s new employer, Flyers chairman Ed Snider, turned to his superstar and asked, “So, Peter, what do you think?”
Forsberg’s face lit up like, well, a guy who had endured years of abuse from no-talent plugs and had just seen an instruction video outlining the crackdown on obstruction and stick fouls.
“It’s gonna be great for me,” Forsberg said.
The cruel irony is the new NHL hasn’t been great for Forsberg. It hasn’t even been good. In fact, this season, it’s been downright dreadful. The one player who should have benefited most from the new NHL is so battered and bruised from the old one he has no idea how long his body will last, how long it will be before another injury sidetracks him.
That’s not to say Forsberg isn’t still one of the best players in the world when he’s healthy enough to play. That much was evident as the days ticked down to the trade deadline and Forsberg, looking as though he might finally have his ongoing skate problems solved, was looking every bit the superstar and attracting interest from all sorts of teams taking a run at the Stanley Cup.
“I think if everything works, I still have a lot to give,” Forsberg said. “That’s how I feel, but maybe I’m just fooling myself, too.”
As terrible as the Flyers have been with Forsberg in the lineup this season, they’re essentially the Kansas City Scouts circa 1975 without him. Forsberg played in 40 of the Flyers’ first 56 games; the team hadn’t won a single one in which he hadn’t played. Without Forsberg, the Flyers were 0-13-3 and had been outscored 68-35. With him, they were a much more respectable 15-20-5 and had been outscored 140-109.
Through mid-February, Forsberg was on quite a nice clip for a guy playing on the 30th-best team in the NHL. He had played 13 straight games without getting the flu or having a concussion or suffering back spasms or pulling his groin or injuring his wrist or having his ankles and feet hurt so badly he couldn’t skate or falling into a manhole or getting hit by space junk. Prior to that, he hadn’t gone more than seven games without getting hurt this season. And in those 13 games he had four goals and 17 points and was a plus or even player in 12 of them.
“This last stretch where it looks like he has things figured out with his skates, he has been a dominant player,” said Flyers GM Paul Holmgren, probably with his eyes, arms, fingers, toes and legs crossed. “Right now, he feels better healthwise, than probably since we’ve had him. He feels good about himself. He feels good about his game, personally, and I think he likes the direction our team is going. He has been a new man here for the past three weeks to a month.”
So what’s a 30th-place team to do? Does it keep Forsberg and sign him to an extension, hoping he can stay healthy enough to lead the franchise back to respectability? Or does it deal him for draft picks and prospects and embark on their long journey back to the NHL’s elite without a star player in a market that is very fickle?
It’s a question that will continue to be asked right up to the Feb. 27 trade deadline. But the one that really needs to be answered is what does Forsberg have left to give, either to the Flyers or to a team looking to him to help it win a Stanley Cup?
“That’s the million-dollar question,” said Toronto captain and good friend Mats Sundin.
Actually, it’s the $1.26-million question. If someone acquires Forsberg on deadline day, that’s how much they’ll have to absorb of his $5.75-million salary this season, something that is far easier said than done when the majority of contenders are right up against the salary cap.
And not included in that would be a huge increase in equipment costs. Even though Forsberg and Peter Hedstrom, his Swedish podiatrist, appear to have found an orthotic system that doesn’t leave him in agony, Forsberg estimates he has gone through about 30 pairs of skates this season. If Forsberg can make a pair last three games, that’s progress.
But should the Flyers decide to deal Forsberg, there will be no shortage of interested teams. According to the NHL rumor mill, Holmgren can easily get a top young player and at least one first round pick in exchange for Forsberg. The Nashville Predators, who appear to be the frontrunners, might have to give up Alexander Radulov and two first round picks for him.
“That’s too much, as far as I’m concerned, for a player who gets hurt as much as he does,” said one GM, whose team would likely be in a position to make a pitch for Forsberg. “We’re not in it right now at that kind of price.”
Over the course of his career through mid-February, Forsberg had missed 244 of a possible 924 games, almost three full seasons. Surgery to remove his spleen and on his ankles and shoulder caused him to miss all of the 2001-02 season. And he has missed a total of 63 games with groin injuries; had three concussions for a total of 11 missed games; has missed 28 games with shoulder surgery; 17 with a bruised thigh; 19 with hip pointers; eight with strained ribs; four with a bad foot; three each with the flu and an elbow injury; two with an ankle injury; and, one each because of back spasms, a bruised leg and wrist and knee injuries.
So let’s start with the premise that, in a best-case scenario, Forsberg can be healthy for 60 games a season for the next three seasons. With his vision, passing skills and physical prowess, that would make him a great player to have on any team.
“In my book, he’s the best second-effort player I’ve ever played with,” said Sundin, who has played with Forsberg on Swedish national and Olympic teams.
“It’s almost like the more people who are chasing him and hitting him, the better he plays. You see it all the time. Some guy is hacking him and he has his visor down and his hair is in his face and his mouthguard is hanging out and then he makes this incredible pass. You wonder how he does it.”
Of course, Forsberg could always start picking his spots. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time a star player began playing on the perimeter a little more in the twilight of his career. But the chances of Forsberg pulling back on his physical play are about the same as the Flyers’ chances of winning the Cup this season.
“When a guy like Forsberg backs off, then you don’t get the player you want,” said Columbus coach Ken Hitchcock, who coached Forsberg in Philadelphia last season and earlier this season. “That’s the package you get with him. He’s the best player in the world for a reason. He’s not just a world-class player, but he’s a world-class competitor.”
One that has been prone to breaking down, largely because of feet and ankles that have betrayed him. Although his foot problems date back to 1996, his second season in the league, they began to really bother him in 2001, after he had his spleen removed in the playoffs and had surgery on both ankles and a shoulder. Because of the surgeries, his right foot is crooked and until recently, nothing had been able to support his high arch, which left him with constant foot, groin and back problems.
“I’ve never seen it before…He would break down a pair of skates in two games,” Hitchcock said. “His foot would be rolling around so much in there that after two games, his skates would be like cardboard.”
This past summer, Forsberg once again had surgery on the foot and since then, he and Hedstrom have been on a tireless search for the best orthotic plate for the boot of the skate. For his part, Forsberg can’t even remember exactly when his foot problems began.
“But I went through surgery this summer to straighten out the foot and the surgery went great,” Forsberg said. “Everybody who looked at the foot afterwards said it was very successful, one of the best they had ever seen. But it was a complicated surgery and maybe it took longer than we thought it would to get it straightened out.”
It’s nothing for Forsberg to put on a new pair of skates for a morning skate, then wear them that night only to repeat the same process a couple of games later.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Holmgren said. “I don’t know what it is. He’s got really extra large ankles. That’s just the way he was born, more than anything. He still goes through skates like nothin’, but you can sort of put up with that when he plays the way he’s been playing lately.”
Forsberg’s teammates are lobbying hard to keep him in Philadelphia, while the out-of-town calls are sure to intensify as the deadline gets closer. For Forsberg, though, nothing will proceed until he has a better idea about his foot. He has already made $56 million during his career, owns about half of his hometown of Ornskoldsvik in northern Sweden and has a number of business interests. His company was key in getting the financing for a new 7,600-seat rink in Ornskoldsvik and he and Hedstrom have a deal to distribute Crocs shoes.
Which is more than just a little ironic, considering that his feet have given him so much trouble.“It all goes back to how the foot feels,” Forsberg said. “If it feels good, I would like to play. If it doesn’t feel good…it’s been such a struggle this year, so I don’t even know.”
The Hockey News Archive is a vault of 2,640 issues and more than 156,000 articles exclusively for subscribers, chronicling the complete history of The Hockey News from 1947 until today. Visit the archives at THN.com/archive and subscribe today at subscribe.thehockeynews.com