Reply To: Game Intelligence / Decision Training

Brunt on Lidstrom: Great decision-maker

Stephen Brunt, Sportsnet, May 31 2012

Some of us will always worship at the church of Bobby Orr.

It is in part a generational thing — the greatest athletes in our most impressionable years are the ones that grow even greater in memory — and it is in part a reflection of the undeniable truth that Orr played defence like no one before him and no one since. He was a one-off genius, a revolutionary who single-handedly redefined the possibilities of his position, even while hobbled by the knee injuries that abbreviated his career.

A more objective analysis might include the fact that Orr’s scoring statistics were inflated, as were those of others who played in the era, by the 1967 expansion and the subsequent watering down of the National Hockey League talent pool, followed by the further dilution precipitated by the birth of the World Hockey Association.

But in any case, numbers only partially tell the tale. If there were someone still alive who had seen the great and innovative Eddie Shore in action, they’d no doubt tell you the same thing: you had to be there to understand just how good he really was.

Nicklas Lidstrom, who announced his retirement Thursday after 20 seasons in the NHL, all with the Detroit Red Wings, wasn’t that kind of player at all. For the most part, he coloured inside the lines. On Detroit teams that stressed collective success over individual flair, he was the embodiment of the organizational philosophy.

A relatively unheralded third-round pick — that’s the Detroit Way, as well — he wasn’t jaw-droppingly fast, like a Paul Coffey, he didn’t have Al MacInnis’s slapshot, or Scott Stevens’ intimidating physical presence. In a greatest-defencemen-of-all-time skills competition, it’s hard to say what Lidstrom might have won — unless it included a hockey IQ test.

That’s the core of it right there: Lidstrom did everything right. Blessed with the necessary physical talent, blessed with good health (and committed to his own conditioning), the success of Lidstrom’s career-for-the-ages was rooted mostly between his ears. Given his longevity, you can argue that he made more good hockey decisions, while playing at the highest level of the game on a team that was always competitive, than any other player in history — with the possible exception of Wayne Gretzky.

Maybe that’s not the same thing as being the greatest defenceman in history. Again, we’ve all got our preferences.

But what else do his numbers add up to? Twenty years, seven Norris trophies (and you can argue he deserved more), the last of those at age 41, an unbroken string of playoff appearances with one franchise that encompassed his entire long and remarkably consistent Red Wings tenure, and only 40 games missed due to injury.

Maybe it would have played out differently if he had landed somewhere else — you can make that case with nearly any star in any sport. But there’s no arguing with the fact that playing through an era in which the style of game shifted dramatically several times, in which players were bigger and stronger and fitter than in the nostalgic past, in which the coaching was better, and the talent, drawn from a global base, was better than back in the Good Old Days, Lidstrom was at the top of his game, and at the top of the game, for two full decades.

Every minute of every game of Lidstrom’s career is preserved for all to see, unlike those stars of the pre-television era, unlike even Orr, most of whose great moments with the Boston Bruins were simply erased.

But 30 years hence, those multiple generations of hockey lovers who came of age between 1991 and now, and who saw Lidstrom at his long, sustained peak, will be saying the same thing to impressionable youths who don’t quite get it.

Sure, you can see him on a screen, you can see the games, see the Stanley Cups, see the way he operated. But to really understand how great Nicklas Lidstrom was, you really had to be there.