Abel to Yzerman

Abel to Yzerman

Accolades For Henrik Zetterberg

09/15/2018 at 8:09am EDT

from Bob Wojnowski of the Detroit News,

He stayed as long as he could, and would’ve liked to stay even longer. But Henrik Zetterberg knew for a while this day was coming, and when the Red Wings opened training camp Friday, he did something rare for him. He finally stopped pushing.

His degenerative back condition started aching again in January, so he couldn’t practice anymore. But even as the Wings struggled through a rough rebuild, Zetterberg pushed on, playing all 82 games — remarkably, all 82 games the past three seasons — as reality beckoned with every wince.

When Steve Yzerman retired, we said there’d never be another leader like him. When Nicklas Lidstrom retired, we said there’d never be another leader like him. We say it again now, as Zetterberg, 37, retires, the last in a line, the end of yet another era.

“I got to know my body pretty well the last couple years, and I know when it’s bad,” Zetterberg told reporters in Traverse City. “And I don’t have that many more solutions to do with my back. So it’s time.”

continued

from Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press,

It’s a credit to Zetterberg’s tremendous drive that he has forged the career he had. He was an afterthought when he was NHL draft-eligible, a guy who chief European scout Hakan Andersson jokes the Wings took, “when all the real good players had gone.”

Zetterberg, who turns 38 on Oct. 9, leaves an NHL career that spans 1,082 games and is 40 points shy of 1,000 points. He scored 337 goals, recorded 623 assists and only 401 penalty minutes. In 137 playoff games, he had 57 goals and 63 assists.

All this from the 210th pick in the 1999 draft.

“He was a late birthday, so he wasn’t drafted with the other 1980-born players,” Andersson said. “But I started snooping around a little bit. I started to feel that there was something about him.

“We were a little bit lucky because a few years earlier, we’d drafted Anders Eriksson, a big defenseman, and his brother was on the same team as Zetterberg. So I started talking to him and he said that Henrik is a smart little player. He’s weak still, but he’s hard to catch with the puck. He makes good plays. So that got you interested a little bit more.”

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