It's not because I am stupid, or blindly loyal. I mean, I may be slow and I may be overly loyal but I'm not stupid AND blind. The guy has earned our faith in him. Not only that, he is widely considered by people who are not stupid and who have no reason to be loyal to Yzerman as one of, if not THE, best GMs in hockey.

I'm not sure when this was written, but it was toward the end of Yzerman's tenure in Tampa.

Today, when Yzerman decides the worth of something, the issue is more or less settled. Agents will tell you he’s fair and somewhat malleable in negotiations, but also staunchly faithful to the economic blueprint he has in mind for a championship team...

...“Mario had it. Stevie had it,” says Errey, who won a pair of Cups beside Mario Lemieux with the Pittsburgh Penguins. “You don’t necessarily have to say a lot, you take in a lot of things. There’s a lot of learning and assessing that goes on with people like that. You can tell people who are brilliant, smart hockey people who just get it. He just gets it.”

Ryan Dixon, Sportsnet

Read that article, even if you've seen it before. It's probably been a while, and it will remind you "why" Yzerman deserves our complete faith and every single benefit of any doubt you may have. The guy is brilliant and he's going to bring this team back to where baby Jesus intended it to be.