The Hockey News has released its archive to all THN subscribers: 76 years of history, stories, and features.

Subscribe now to view the full THN Archives here

Also, go to thn.com/free to subscribe.

As he crosses the Maple Leaf blueline on a forechecking foray, Steve Yzerman takes a split-second peak over his left shoulder, just to be safe. Sure enough, Igor Larionov is hanging back with the defensemen in leftwing lock formation, a line of three red shirts spread across center ice. Yzerman refocuses, digs in and takes up the pursuit.

It’s hardly jaw-dropping stuff, though Yzerman creates plenty of that this February night in Toronto as well. He stops abruptly, corrals a bouncing puck and sends in his other linemate, Martin Lapointe, for a back-door chance. He carries the puck into the Leafs’ zone, goes wide and then pulls up, Gretzky-like, as an ice sheet of possibilities opens up before him.

In his 18th NHL season, Steve Yzerman has still got it. He has been on a point-a-game pace since returning from knee surgery Dec. 2 (11 goals, 33 points in 33 games) and it has been during the past two months, as Yzerman has rounded into form, that the Red Wings have re-established themselves as a force. Yzerman leads Wing forwards in ice time, averaging 22:33 per game. And despite missing two months, he is already second in blocked shots with 33; only Kirk Maltby, with 36, has more.

“He’s as strong now as I’ve seen him,” says Detroit’s Larry Murphy. “He’s at the top of his game.”

It is those unteachable, uncanny offensive moves that have made Yzerman the sixth-highest NHL scorer of all-time (1,595 points and counting) and they are what will make him a shoo-in Hall of Famer three years after his retirement. But remember the shoulder glance? For the Wings and for Yzerman, that is what counts now. It represents the commitment that has put two Stanley Cup rings on the 35-year-old captain’s fingers and made winners of all who follow his lead.

“You don’t lead by pointing and telling people some place to go,” American author Ken Kesey once said. “You lead by going to that place and making a case.”

Yzerman was an NHL star at 18, captain at 21,155-point scorer and players’ MVP at 24. All it meant was that in 1995, his place was centering a line with Bob Errey and Darren McCarty There was a case to be made—the case for defense — and he made it. But oh, the sacrifice. Think Pavarotti on stage with John Denver and Archie Bunker and you’re halfway there. Errey was a journeyman (and former Yzerman teammate in junior with Peterborough) who had scored more than 20 goals once in 11 pro seasons. McCarty’s hands were primarily used for fighting. The guy between them, meanwhile, had averaged 51 goals the past seven seasons and his coach was telling him to make sure he didn’t get scored on.

Yzerman and coach Scotty Bowman talked several times prior to that season, which was preceded by three years of playoff flameouts. Bowman explained how Jacques Lemaire in Montreal was an example of a great offensive player who learned to become an excellent defensive player. The Wings were about to undergo a philosophical shift from a high- - scoring, high-risk team dangerous at both ends to one that was simply dangerous. Who better than Yzerman to lead the way?

He scored 12 goals in that (lockout-shortened) year and didn’t utter a negative word.

“We won so much,” Yzerman says. “All along I’m saying I just want to win, I want to play on a winning team and now I’m finally getting that opportunity. For me to come out and say I’m not happy with this, I don’t accept this, it would go against everything that I had been saying all along. So I just kind of played along.

“The attention I got was, ‘Wow, you’ve really become a good defensive player,’” he laughs. “And I was like, ‘Well, just because my numbers have dropped doesn’t mean I’ve become a better defensive player.’”

“In my age, at my stage of my career, there was a lot of things to learn from Stevie…He’s just a unique player. It’s a gift.

Truth is, they were playing follow the leader in Detroit long before then. Yzerman isn’t a rah-rah, outgoing type. His humor can be biting and sarcastic, to the point where his good friend and junior teammate Darren Pang, now an ESPN broadcaster, says he’s not surprised if people who, don’t know him might take it the wrong way.

“He just doesn’t open up to open up,” Pang says. “This is the same guy that wouldn’t tell anybody he spent four hours at the children’s hospital…or plays with fractured ribs and half his teammates don’t even know it.”

But anyone can take one look at his work ethic and the respect is instant. “Every time he was working in the gym, not only me, but I think most of my teammates, go there and work out, too,” says Sergei Fedorov. “I always watched him, how he worked and how he acted.”

Larionov was a 34-year-old decorated international hockey star when he came to the Wings in 1995.

“In my age, my stage of my career, there was a lot of things to learn from Stevie,” Larionov says. “His hard work, attitude, approach to the game and professionalism. He’s just a unique player in every way. It’s a gift.”

Says Colorado star Joe Sakic, “His mental preparation is one of the best I’ve ever seen.”

Bowman says Yzerman’s habits have rubbed off a lot on Lapointe, who’s having the best season of his career. He has had also an impact on Chris Osgood. When Osgood was struggling early this season, Yzerman pointed out each time he plays at the Olympics or World Cup or Canada Cup, the one thing he notices about the goalies is they practice like there’s no tomorrow. Osgood got the message.

Three years ago, when Fedorov was estranged from the team after signing an offer sheet with Carolina, it was Yzerman who kept telling everyone they needed Fedorov back. When they ran into each other at the Nagano Olympics, Yzerman told Fedorov the same thing.

“For me it was a huge meaning because that’s the guy who knows hockey, who has been playing with me for such a long time,” Fedorov says. “He knows probably everything about me.”

Fortunately, because of the play of Fedorov and others, the Wings don’t need everything Yzerman has to give any more. There were games early in his career when he would slump in the dressing room after the third period, drained and worn out from the workload. “And that would be in November and December and January,” he says.

Though the 2000-01 edition of the Wings is unquestionably old, they do have depth. Penalty-killing duties are spread out over eight players, power play over 12. There are a few more Stanley Cup runs to make. Burnout, if it hits Yzerman at all, is a few years away.

He has two years left on his contract and wants to finish strongly. Perhaps he’ll play another year after that. But soon after, it will be up to the Wings’ executive suite for Yzerman’s new learning curve. Even today, he frequently asks GM Ken Holland about prospects and the entry draft and the business side of operations.

It’s consistent with his unrelenting personality, Pang says. He doesn’t go into anything without finding out whatever he can about it first, “whether it’s a bottle or red wine from Italy or a new way to do plyometrics or a putting stroke.”

Said Yzerman: “I don’t expect to retire and walk in and say, ‘I’m ready, I’m taking over,’ or anything like that because we have good people here and people who have put in time.” But a GM post is one that intrigues him.

No doubt he’ll succeed there too, Holland says. “If he wants to be a general manager he’s going to be a general manager. And he’s going to be a general manager for the Detroit Red Wings.”

It’s not every day a GM admits he may one day cede his job to his captain. But there has been a gradual evolution to the way things work in Detroit. Superstar scorer to all-around leader to executive legend - even Holland knows how the story is supposed to play out. ■