Subject: Olympic Chit Chat

All I'm saying is that I could see a player like Colton Orr not being able to sharpen Yzerman's skates. But any player of Modano's caliber has nothing to be ashamed about. Let's face it, it does matter on what team you play. We can never know what would have happened if Yzerman was in Dallas and Modano was in Detroit. That's all I'm saying.

Ah, fair enough ... it's an expression though. I got my stats wrong as well ... it was 692 goals and forgot it was 4 cups won

You do need to remember that when Ken Hitchcock took over as Dallas coach all those years back one of the biggest changes he made was teaching Mike Modano how to play a defensive game. Mike went from being a highly potent sniper to a puck handling playmaking 2-way sniper. If he'd spent his career in an offensive team (like Yzerman's RedWings for example), his numbers would be a LOT higher. That's the downside to playing on a team build around defense.

Only now, under Crawford are we seeing a much more offensively minded Stars team.

as far as I know Yzerman only won 3 cups as a player (97,98,02)

I do agree that Yzerman is easily the better player than Modano, he has achieved more but both are Hall of Fame material. Modano is one of the greatest American players ever and so he should certainly have our respect and he has mine. Lets not compare him to Yzerman. Lets just evaluate his achievements individually. I think all of us would be thrilled if we had half the success that Modano has had in hockey

I could not agree more!

I think he's referring to the 4th Cup he won as part of the Red Wings management.

Yzerman's Red Wings were horrible for the first half of his career, those were the years that he put up the gaudy numbers and carried his team.

Once he got a supporting cast (Cicarelli, Fedorov, Larionov, Konstantinov) they started to flourish. On top of that a young Nick Lidstrom got tutored by some of the greatest hockey minds of all time (Bowman, Larianov etc) I don't think that there will be a perfect storm like that again in hockey with the salary caps and other set ups - the 90's-00's Wings will (if the current NHL stays) be the last dynasty of hockey.

Scotty Bowman didn't turn Yzerman and Fedorov into two-way players?

Not at the expense of their offensive ability, no.

Oh, ...

I thought Stevie scoring

50 65 62 51 45 58
goals between 1988-93 before Scotty's tenure, to

*33 **20 22 24 29 35 from 1993 when Bowman took over would constitute a drop.

*projected for 80 games due to injury (he had 24 in 58)
**projected for 80 games due to the lockout (he had 12 in 47)

Modano reached 50 goals once, and never posted more than 40 after that and he never scored 100 points.

I don't see a big statistical drop in his production from 1995-2002 while Hitch was in.

The Hitchcock days in Dallas were in the time when defensive-clog-it-up play was the norm in the league. One of the things that drove Hitch out of Dallas was transitioning to younger players who played a more offensive game. The Stars kept drafting players for that more offensive game, but also kept trying to play a hybrid defensive game. Crawford gets an offensively capable team to fit his style. should be interesting next season after everyone adjusts.

also, Modano was cast in the Gretsky-style of center--nothing physical. I think even Mikey's offensive capability grew leaps and bounds when Hitchcock turned him free of that. But, yes, his numbers suffered badly from being turned so defensive in his playing style.

It's also a difference in mentality of that defense. Under Hitch it was defense defense defense all the time, no matter what your skill set or offensive chances you can take, if it's a risk it's bad. Hull left because he got tired of it, Filatov left him in Columbus, etc.

it wasn't necessarily Modano's production that suffered. it was his potential production that suffered. he never got the development he needed as a goal scorer. personally, i think instead he got it in playmaking. I believe Hitch forced Modano into a mold jsut as much as they guys before him did, and forced him to fit into their mold. Bowman, on the other hand, let his players (eg Yzerman) paly with their strengths and built around that.

I agree that Scotty had a hand in his development but so did the vets around him - not to mention he was STEVE FREAKIN YZERMAN. Which in and of itself makes him amazing.

I also think a big reason his offensive output went down was that he didn't need to score as much - when you're the only show in town and youre a young hoss you can run those long shifts and people are doing their best to feed you the puck - not to mention it was the contact free gretzky gets a free pass to the net era.

Lots of variables involved but I think that Yzerman had a setup to win around him and Modano had a setup for his owners to make money around him.

Just to get back on the Olympic stuff -- I still can't believe Chris Drury is on Team USA over guys like Mike Modano. And not just because I'm a Devils fan and thus hate the Rangers haha. After all, I like Ryan Callahan.

What I'd like to know is just which Team USA Defenseman got the spot that could've gone to Mike Green. As a Devils fan it pains me to say this, but with Paul Martin out on injury so long... I would rather see Green take Martin's place as the team's Offensive Defenseman.

And he still might, if Martin takes too long to recover. He's already been out weeks longer than he should have.