Red Wings Need the "Real" Henrik Zetterberg Come Playoff Time

A quick glance at the numbers ought to tell you a little bit about the superstar hockey player. The superstar player should have numbers that cause eyes to pop, spit takes to be made.

They all had such numbers.

Orr, LaFleur, Gretzky, Lemieux, Yzerman.

At any point in any given season, the stat lines on those players were in the stratosphere, compared to their mere mortal colleagues. They were “you gotta be kidding me” numbers.

And by the end of the campaign, it was an easy task to discern the greats from the very goods. The greats had goal totals in the 40s and 50s—sometimes more. The point totals were well into triple digits.

There were the superstar players and then there was everyone else.

Henrik Zetterberg, I’m convinced, must be sandbagging it. He’s a hockey hustler. Paul Newman on skates. We’ll call him Njurunda Fats.

Njurunda is the town in Sweden where “Z” was born, 30 years ago and some change.

Zetterberg is in the prime of his career, but you wouldn’t know it. He must be pacing himself.

Zetterberg has more talent in his left pinky than a majority of the players in the NHL possess in their entire bodies. When he’s at his finest, Hank Zetterberg is a tornado on skates. He can be as untouchable as Elliott Ness, as deft as Baryshnikov, as productive as a worker ant.

When the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup in 2008, Zetterberg was the best player on a team full of stars. He pumped in 43 goals, added 49 assists, and started in the All-Star Game. Z began the season by scoring a point in his first 16 games, a new Red Wings record.

In the playoffs, Z cranked it up another notch, which the superstars do when you think they couldn’t possibly. In 22 games, Zetterberg blistered the opposition for 27 points. He scored the Cup-winning goal in Game 6 of the Finals. His penalty killing during a Pittsburgh Penguins 5-on-3 in the Finals is stuff of legend.

The Red Wings won the Cup, and Z won the Conn Smythe Award for being the MVP of the playoffs.

And this was after seasons in which he scored 39 and 33 goals. Zetterberg was on pace to be the greatest Red Wing in the post-Yzerman Era.

He had the eye-popping numbers and an eye-popping life. The summer after winning the Cup, Z got engaged to Emma Andersson, a Swedish model and TV host.

Iggy Pop used to sing, “I wish life could be...Swedish magazines.”

Hank Zetterberg lived that life.

Zetterberg is a huge talent—maybe among the top five most skilled, blessed-by-God players the Red Wings have ever employed.

So why do I look at him nowadays and scratch my head?

Zetterberg followed up his magnificent 2007-08 season with 32 goals in ’08-09—not bad—and then dipped to 23 goals last season (not good).

Currently, with six games left to play, Zetterberg has 24 goals and 53 assists. Those are good numbers. But they’re not as good as what Hank Zetterberg is capable of producing.

Zetterberg has so much skill, so much strength, so much hockey IQ, that he should routinely be scoring 40 goals a season and threatening 100 points, especially playing on a team as peppered with talent as the Red Wings.

The past couple of seasons, Zetterberg has done this thing where he disappears for stretches of time, and I’m talking games, not minutes. The final horn would sound and you’d have to double-check with the official scoresheet to confirm that Zetterberg suited up that night. Sometimes, this happened several games in a row.

This was a travesty. It was like attending a performance of the Rat Pack and wondering how you missed Sinatra’s number.

But then Zetterberg reappears from his time MIA, and once again he becomes a man among little tykes on the ice. He takes possession of the puck and keeps it for a week. Without the puck, Zetterberg doesn’t act as if there’s a force field preventing him from entering his own zone, like so many of the goal scorers do in the NHL.

Such is Zetterberg’s greatness that he’s maybe the team’s best defensive forward, perhaps 1A to Pavel Datsyuk’s 1.

Ahh, Datsyuk—Z’s frequent linemate.

Coach Mike Babcock doesn’t know what to do with those two half the time. When the mood strikes him, Babcock puts them together, creating a pairing so lethal that the third player on the line is like the Fifth Beatle.

Other times, Babcock breaks them up, figuring that each is so good that he can create a second lethal line, like splitting an amoeba.

Zetterberg and Datsyuk are two different players, though.

Where Datsyuk is a magician with the puck, relying on sleight of hand rather than brute strength to keep possession, Zetterberg is more bull in the china shop. If they were an NFL backfield, Datsyuk would be the tailback, Zetterberg the fullback. And each would rush for over 1,000 yards.

When Datsyuk went down with an injury earlier in the season, Zetterberg put the Red Wings on his back—at first. Then he faded away again, mysteriously.

The true superstars don’t fade away, they don’t vanish, they don’t have you scurrying to the scoresheet to verify presence. Hank Zetterberg has all the talent in the world. He ought to be a true superstar in a league that he owns if he plays up to his potential.

Check that—he should be playing in his own league.

Yet he’s not doing that right now, and he hasn’t for at least two seasons. He is, without question, a very good player most of the time. But he has the ability and skill to be great all of the time.

The playoffs are almost here and if the Red Wings are going to go as far as the folks around town think they can, they need the superstar Zetterberg to be there, night after night. Not the very good Zetterberg, sometimes.

Or maybe he is hustling us, and the Red Wings, with Zetterberg leading the way, will run the table.

That would be Swede.

For Datsyuk, Crime Really Does Pay

I don’t know what kind of a guy Frank J. Selke was, but he must have been some kind of awful.

The National Hockey League has a thing about naming awards and trophies after people, not accomplishments.

Baseball, basketball and football all have Most Valuable Player Awards. The NHL has the Hart Trophy, to show you.

There’s not a piece of hardware that the NHL gives out that isn’t named after a person, which means you need a cheat sheet to keep track of who means what.

Pavel Datsyuk of the Red Wings is the world’s best thief on skates. He wears a visor on his helmet, but he ought to wear a mask. If he did on the streets what he does in NHL rinks, he’d have a rap sheet that would make Kwame Kilpatrick blush.

The NHL names its award for the best defensive forward after Frank J. Selke, which means it’s honoring Selke, the longtime Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens executive of the '30s, '40s and '50s, by rewarding on-ice crime.

What’s next? The Al Capone Award for most creative tax evasion?

Datsyuk, this week in Las Vegas, just captured his third straight Selke Trophy.

This means that Datsyuk, for three years running, has been recognized by the league as being the best in pilfering the puck from the other guys. His face shouldn’t be in a program, it should be on post office walls across North America.

This description of the superstar Datsyuk may seem to be an oversimplification, but the NHL tracks takeaways, a politically correct word that means the same as stealing. Try being mugged and filing a police report that says the perpetrator committed a “takeaway.”

In the category of puck stealing, Datsyuk is consistently near the top, if not leading the thieves. He was at it again this season, finishing second in the whole NHL among forwards. That, combined with his other criminal activity, earned him Selke No. 3.

Datsyuk does all this while also being among the very best offensive forces in the league. He giveth AND he taketh away.

"This trophy is special for me,'' Datsyuk said in a phone interview. "I'm happy to represent the Red Wings. I hope it's not my last one.''

Talk about brazen; he hopes to strike again!

There’s an art to the grab, of course. Datsyuk doesn’t just smash a window and make off with the puck. He’s too refined for that.

First, you have to accept that Datsyuk with a hockey stick against his brethren isn’t a fair fight.

It’s like Michelangelo squaring off against Tom Sawyer in a battle of paint brushes.

Datsyuk uses his stick like the surgeons at Beaumont use their fingers.

It starts with what he does offensively. Datsyuk could stickhandle the puck on a bed of nails. He doesn’t ever lose the puck, he just gets tired of playing with it.

All he needs is a slab of ice the size of a welcome mat and you could spend the entire afternoon trying to touch the puck and all you’d get is an ice cold stick.

Datsyuk could stickhandle in a phone booth and never touch glass.

He uses that same aplomb when it comes to his petty crimes when he doesn’t possess the puck.

Datsyuk takes the puck away in stealth fashion. He doesn’t mug the other guy. He doesn’t drape himself all over his opponent and strong arm away the vulcanized disc of rubber.

It’s a “now you have it, now you don’t” kind of a thing.

He usually comes from behind you. Most of the good crimes start that way, I know. But even if you know he’s behind you, it doesn’t do you any good. In fact, Datsyuk could give you a call and set up an appointment and tell you that he’s going to relieve you of the puck and it wouldn’t mean jack squat.

A common method is for Datsyuk to glide up behind you and neatly use his stick to lift yours off the ice surface, mid-stickhandle. In a flash, he has the puck and is skating away with it. He does it so fast you’d swear he was playing with giant chopsticks, not a hockey stick.

Another modus operandi involves Datsyuk pretending like he doesn’t know you have the puck, allowing you to skate by him, presumably unnoticed. But then a flick of his stick later, he’s poke checked you, you’re sans the puck and he’s with it and you can’t wait to see what the security cameras show.

And he does it all with a wide-eyed, innocent expression on his face that suggests a lovable scamp.

Datsyuk never changes his expression; he always looks like a puppy who got caught piddling on the living room carpet.

But hey, do you want irony? You wanna hear the kicker?

Get this—Datsyuk just missed winning his fifth straight Lady Byng Trophy.

Translated: that’s the award the NHL gives out for sportsmanship and—I can barely stifle a grin as I type this—for gentlemanly conduct.

Only in the NHL can they honor a guy for stealing and being a nice guy, all at the same time.

But it’s true; Datsyuk really IS a perfect gentleman when he absconds with the puck.

Pavel, the Friendly Bandit.

Datsyuk, when reached for comment after his latest Selke Trophy, started singing like a canary. He was quick to implicate accomplices of the past.

"(Steve) Yzerman, (Sergei) Fedorov, (Igor) Larionov, I learned every day in practice from those guys,'' Datsyuk said. "I'm happy to disappoint a guy and make him not score on us. I want to score a lot, but I'm happy if they don't score on us.''

Pavel Datsyuk’s been “disappointing” guys in the NHL for eight years now. So that’s what he calls it, huh?

Again, try that at the local police precinct.

“Some guy, he committed a takeaway of my wallet! He REALLY disappointed me!”

Why are we parsing words? Datsyuk’s getting away!

Never mind—he’s already gone.

Red Wings Need To Put '09 Playoffs Aside And Re-Sign Hossa

The high-profile, very talented forward was schizophrenic.

In the regular season, he was all about scoring goals, generating assists, and making his opponents look silly on the ice.

In the playoffs, he struggled mightily. The grip on the stick got tighter. The net shrunk. Or maybe the goalies got bigger. Something.

He's a playoff choker, they said. And we have no use for those types in Detroit, a city that has turned into the 21st century version of Montreal: where only the Stanley Cup is acceptable.

It wouldn't hurt our feelings, the masses said, if you cashiered the playoff choking forward.

Thank goodness the Red Wings hung onto Pavel Datsyuk.

Datsyuk, a league MVP candidate this season--and who just won the Selke Award and Lady Byng Trophy for the second straight year--wasn't a playoff performer earlier in this decade. He disappeared, virtually, in first round losses to Anaheim (2003) and Edmonton (2006) and wasn't much of a factor in a second round exit at the hands of Calgary (2004).

Now, it can be said that the Red Wings might have had enough to get by the Pittsburgh Penguins and win a second consecutive Stanley Cup, if only Pavel Datsyuk was healthy in the Finals.

The Red Wings resisted the urge to trade Datsyuk, back when it might not have been very unpopular to do so, and in their recent long playoff runs (2007-09), they've been rewarded for their patience.

Those of you who thought I was describing Marian Hossa in my opening paragraphs, you're excused. Because the situation now, with Hossa, is similar as it was with Datsyuk several years ago.

But this time, there's more urgency. Hossa, the supremely talented forward who came to Detroit to win a Stanley Cup, and do so right now, is a free agent. This is not news to anyone not sleeping beneath a rock.

So the decision isn't whether to keep him or trade him, as it was with Datsyuk, once upon a time. The decision is whether to sign him or let him walk away, no compensation gotten in return.

Hossa could have made this a slam dunk for the Red Wings. He could have netted a ton of playoff goals, more commensurate with his regular season production of 40. He could have been a Conn Smythe Award candidate. He could have put the team on his back and lugged them through a couple of rounds.

He didn't do any of that.




So it's not a slam dunk decision whether to sign Hossa to a long-term contract, at age 30. It's more like a pull-up jumper at the foul line. Still high percentage, but not as much.

It says here that the Red Wings ought to look beyond Hossa's relatively disappointing playoff and sign him to several years in Detroit.

I have a hunch they'll be glad they did.

A guy doesn't score goals at the rate Hossa has (339 in 775 career games) and then totally forgets how to get them in the post-season.

Marian Hossa was not, by any stretch, one of the Red Wings' better players this playoff. Not even close. But his reputation still caused other teams to pay attention to him, because you never know when he might go off.

There were flashes.

A couple goals in Anaheim, in Game Four, when a Red Wings loss would have put them down 3-1 in the series. Two more in Chicago in Game Four in the conference final, including a short-handed dagger.

But that was pretty much it.

So the decision to reward him with a long-term commitment--and Hossa, for his part, would like to remain in Detroit--wouldn't at all be based on Playoffs 2009. It would be for what Hossa has the potential to do, and for the desire to not have him do those things wearing another uniform--perhaps even doing it against the Red Wings some spring.

Then what would everyone say?

"We should never have let Hossa go!"

That's how it works for the sports fan; their vision is perpetually 20/20, for they always look at things in hindsight.

So do ink-stained wretches and bottom-feeding bloggers, as a matter of fact. I ought to know, because I'm both.

The Red Wings, my hunch is, will sign Hossa to a long-term agreement. Even if it means not being able to keep other forwards, due to the salary cap.

Because those forwards who would be let go (Jiri Hudler, Mikael Samuelsson, for example) cannot do what Marian Hossa has the potential to do. Period.

The 2009 playoffs were disappointing for Hossa individually, and heartbreaking, at the end, for the Red Wings as a team.

But the Red Wings are not better without him than they are with him.

That's pretty much what it should boil down to, right?