The best hockey player Chicago has produced had his 41st birthday Saturday. But for Chris Chelios there was nothing to celebrate because he and his Detroit Red Wings teammates lost their game in Calgary.
“When we win, I love it,” said Chelios, explaining what compels him to continue playing.
“When we lose, I don’t love it.”
The former Mt. Carmel High School star, who moved to San Diego in his mid-teens, loved last season when the Red Wings were the best team in hockey during the regular season and went on to win the Stanley Cup. This season the love story has had its ups and downs.
With the season approaching the All-Star break, the Red Wings are struggling to hold off St. Louis for first place in the Central Division.
Injuries have been a factor. Captain Steve Yzerman has yet to play after off-season surgery on his right knee. Defenseman Jiri Fischer is on the disabled list after having knee surgery to reconstruct his left anterior cruciate ligament. Luc Robitaille, the highest-scoring left wing in NHL history, is in the worst slump of his 16-year career.
Nevertheless, Chelios believes the Red Wings have what it takes to be his third Stanley Cup-winning team.
“This is the most skilled team I’ve ever been on, that’s for sure,” said the veteran of 19 NHL seasons who was on the Montreal Canadiens’ championship team in 1989 and played for the Blackhawks when they lost to Pittsburgh in the 1992 finals. “It looks like the old Edmonton days, with all those great players.”
Indeed, Detroit’s roster is a dazzling collector’s item. Chelios, three-time recipient of the Norris Trophy awarded annually to the NHL’s best defenseman, is on a VIP list that also includes Nicklas Lidstrom, winner of the Norris Trophy the last two years; Brett Hull, sixth-highest goal scorer in NHL history; wingers Robitaille and Brendan Shanahan; brilliant Russian center Sergei Fedorov, and goaltender Curtis Joseph.
The Red Wings’ $68,005,506 payroll is the second highest in the NHL behind the New York Rangers’ $69,177,085. Chelios has one year remaining on a contract that pays him $5,919,506 annually, making him the fifth-highest-salaried player on the team behind Lidstrom, Yzerman, Joseph and Shanahan.
The native Chicagoan is coming off a superlative season. He had six goals and 33 assists–his best assist total since he had 39 in 1997-98, his last year in Chicago–his plus/minus rating of plus-40 was the best in the NHL and he was the runner-up in the Norris Trophy voting.
This year Chelios’ numbers aren’t as gaudy: two goals and 14 assists and a plus-7.
However, new coach Dave Lewis, promoted from associate coach to replace the retired Scotty Bowman, believes Chelios’ contributions go far beyond the statistics.
“Chris is a remarkable athlete,” Lewis said, “a very, very competitive and a very, very intelligent player. He wastes no energy when he plays.
“He’s a Hall of Famer, that’s what he is.”
Lewis knows a Hall of Fame defenseman when he sees one. When he played with the New York Islanders’ dynasty, one of his teammates was Hall of Fame defenseman Denis Potvin.
“Denis Potvin had his own style, Nicklas Lidstrom has his own style and Chris has his own style,” Lewis said.
“Nobody plays like Chris Chelios. When you’re at the draft and hear people talk and they say `This kid is a Chris Chelios type of defenseman’ that’s a real honor–to have a style of game named for you.”
Looking back on his career, Chelios vividly remembers the 1991-92 season, when the Hawks were four victories from winning their first Stanley Cup since 1961. Pittsburgh swept the championship series in four games.
“We didn’t play badly; we just didn’t play as well as we had been,” Chelios said. “Game 1 we blew the big lead. Game 2 we lost late in the game on a great goal by Mario [Lemieux]. Game 3 was 1-0, and Game 4 was just a blowout.”
Actually, Game 4 was a blowout only for the Hawks’ No. 1 goaltender, Ed Belfour. After Pittsburgh went ahead 2-1 at 6 minutes 33 seconds of the first period, coach Mike Keenan yanked him and backup Dominik Hasek went on to suffer the 6-5 loss.
It came as no surprise to Chelios when Hasek subsequently became one of the NHL’s all-time great goaltenders, concluding his career in brilliant style by helping Detroit win last year’s Stanley Cup.
“My quote (when Hasek was with the Hawks) was that he was the best goalie in the world,” Chelios said. “I said it, and Eddie Belfour didn’t like it too much, but I had played against Dom in the Canada Cup and seen him in the world championships, and I knew it was true. Eddie was one of the best, but Dom was the best.
“When he first came over from Czechoslovakia, he wasn’t accustomed to the style of play and the traffic. But [after being traded to Buffalo in the summer of 1992] he got used to it quickly. He ended up being one of the greatest goalies of all time.”
And Chelios, likewise, will be remembered as one of the greatest defensemen of all time.
But he’s not ready to call it a career.
