Yzerman achieves icon status with Pete’s and Red Wings in Hall of Fame career

By Will MacLaren

Steve Yzerman ranks no. 8 on the CHL’s Top 50 Players of the Last 50 Years

The stories of CHL superstars charging through their respective league as unquestionable alpha dogs en route to NHL stardom are churned out on a yearly basis. Rare are the players who meld into the overall makeup of their junior team before launching careers only the very best of the best can aspire to. The latter defines Steve Yzerman’s journey from OHL stalw to an all timer in the pros.

Playing for the Peterborough Petes in the 1970’s and 80’s usually meant two things; a team-first mentality and, by turn, a winning team. Under legendary Head Coach Dick Todd, Yzerman thrived in that environment, posting over a point-per-game as a rookie and an impressive 42-goal campaign in his NHL Draft year. Also included within that stint was a bronze medal performance with Team Canada at the 1983 World Junior Hockey Championship. Though the Petes fell short of a title in those years, Yzerman and his teammates nonetheless enjoyed 82 regular season triumphs over those two campaigns.

At the 1983 NHL Entry Draft, the Detroit Red Wings, in a more than decade-long funk, held the fourth overall selection. If there’s such a thing as a sleeper pick at that lofty position, the Wings found it, all thanks to the Petes’ methods of development. Detroit GM Jim Devellano was overjoyed that harder-to-scout Yzerman was hiding in plain sight when his turn to the podium came.

“I’m convinced that if Steve Yzerman played for a team other than the Petes and was double shifted, killed penalties and played on every power play, he would have shown that he deserved to be picked No. 1 overall in the draft,” Devellano explained during Yzerman’s first year in Detroit. “We picked No. 4… I thank God for Dick Todd.”

In his early NHL days, Yzerman made up for lost ice time, launching the Wings offensive attack with reckless abandon. Five 50-goal and six 100-point campaigns made “Stevie Y” a household name but not a champion. It would be another legend, Head Coach Scotty Bowman, who transformed Yzerman back to the reliable two-way presence he was in the ‘O’. While the points didn’t rack up as quickly, the Stanley Cups did. Yzerman would lift the silver mug above his head in 1997, 1998 and 2002 as Wings captain, a post he held for 19 years. Upon his retirement in 2006, his career regular season totals stood at 692 goals and 1,755 points. Those numbers currently stand tenth and eighth in NHL history, respectively. He also earned a gold medal with Team Canada at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Today, Yzerman, who entered the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2009, is winding down his seventh season as Red Wings GM. It’s been another long climb to respectability in Detroit but if anyone in the organization can relate, it’s the man in charge today, who remains an icon in hockey circles everywhere.