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It should come as no surprise that even Nicklas Lidstrom’s attempts at humor are understated. For 19 seasons now, he has probably never brought a single person out of his or her seat, save for the four times the Detroit Red Wings have won the Stanley Cup since he joined them in 1991. His greatness is not measured in flashy end-to-end rushes, bone crushing hits or spectacular plays. It is measured in a consistent excellence that no player in the history of the league has achieved. It is measured in durability, respect and an attention to detail that is mind-boggling. Almost nothing about his game has changed since he joined the Red Wings and it could be argued that no player, ever, has played as well as Lidstrom is playing right now this late in his life.
Lidstrom turns 41 in April. There are players who have played far longer than Lidstrom has and there are others who have been better. But no player has combined excellence and longevity, save perhaps Gordie Howe, who scored 103 points and was third in NHL scoring when he was Lidstrom’s age.
“There are two things I don’t remember Nick Lidstrom ever doing,” said Hall of Fame coach Scotty Bowman, who guided the Wings for nine of Lidstrom’s 19 seasons. “I don’t remember him ever falling to the ice and I don’t remember him ever getting caught and leaving his partner with a 2-on-1.”
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You’d have to think Bowman is gilding the lily just a wee bit, but you get the idea. Lidstrom isn’t the perfect NHL player, but he’s about as close as you’re going to get, on and off the ice.
Actually, Lidstrom is becoming a lot of things these days. First, he has locked down the role vacated by Joe Sakic as the most respected player in the NHL. Secondly, he has worked his way into Gordie Howe-Steve Yzerman territory when it comes to the all-time greatest Red Wings and, particularly if he wins his seventh Norris Trophy this season, has entered the debate, along with Bobby Orr and Doug Harvey, as the game’s greatest ever defenseman. Really.
A seventh Norris this season would tie him with Harvey and put him one behind Orr. It would also make him the only player in league history to win a major individual award in a season in which he was 40 years old for the entire campaign. (Jacques Plante shared the Vezina with Glenn Hall in 1969, but turned 40 mid-season.) If he finishes first or second in Norris voting this season, he’ll join Ray Bourque as the only player to accomplish that feat 10 times. Being what Red Wings coach Mike Babcock calls “a genetic freak,” has allowed Lidstrom to be far more durable than Orr ever was. And even though he plays much the same way Harvey did, he has never had the self-destructive tendencies that shortened Harvey’s NHL career and his life.
“How many years did Orr play?” Babcock said. “You know what I’m saying to you? There gets to be a point where Mario, his best season was almost as good as Wayne’s best season. But the difference is, Wayne did it forever. To me, there’s something to that.”
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But perhaps the most impressive aspect of Lidstrom’s career is that he has been consistently among the top defensemen in the league regardless of the style of play.
He was great when the style was wide open during the early 1990s. He was even better during the dead-puck era and has won half of his Norris Trophies since the lockout, when restrictions on obstruction created the new NHL and made the game faster than it has ever been.
Lidstrom has played about 450 games in the “new” NHL and has probably handled the puck in his own end about 5,000 times. He has received two minor penalties in all that time for shooting the puck over the glass. He does hook a lot more now, averaging 7.5 hooking penalties per season now compared to 2.3 before the lockout. He averages 2.5 tripping penalties a season now, 2.2 holding penalties and 2.2 interference penalties a season, all of which are close to double what he did before the lockout.
Lidstrom used to play 30 minutes a game and now he’s down to about 23. But those 23 minutes he plays are often the most important of the game. When the Red Wings are faced with a 5-on-3 against, Lidstrom is out there. He runs the power play and the penalty kill, consistently goes up against the opponents’ top lines, is on the ice when the Red Wings are either protecting a one-goal lead or looking for the tying goal late in the game and logs more ice time than anyone on the roster.
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“He’s an effortless skater,” said Detroit GM Ken Holland. “He’s always going to have that hockey sense and that patience with the puck. He’ll have that when he’s 65. But what he can do at age 40 that other people can’t do is skate. You have all these kids coming into the league and it’s probably faster than it has ever been and the pace of the game doesn’t affect him at all, not one bit.”
It has been said of Lidstrom that he’s usually thinking six or seven plays ahead of the rest of the players on the ice. Red Wing players sometimes make a game in practice of trying to get the puck over Lidstrom’s stick and he simply bats them down and smiles. Bowman remarked that in the new NHL, guys who play the point on the power play have more time and space with the puck than any other player on the ice because forwards now back off from the point and collapse down to block shots instead of applying pressure. That’s what Bowman thinks has made Lidstrom so successful, particularly on the power play, in the post-lockout NHL.
“When I started to coach, the wingers covered the points and when Bobby Orr was playing in Boston, we always tried to put a guy there,” Bowman said. “I’m not sure that wouldn’t be a good strategy the way Lidstrom handles the point. I’m not sure I wouldn’t take a guy and try to eliminate him. He’s that good.”
