Pour ceux qui s'inquiétaient de l'état de santé d'Henrik Zetterberg, il a pratiqué hier et aujourd'hui et son retour est prévu pour demain contre les Blues... à moins qu'il ne se réveille avec un inconfort demain matin. À lire dans le Detroit Free Press (dans la deuxième portion de l'article). Zetterberg retrouverait Franzen et Samuelsson, qui prendrait la place d'Hudler, muté au troisième trio.
Pour ceux qui affectionnent Zetterberg, je vous suggère de lire, sous la photo, un des bons articles publiés à son sujet en janvier dernier, que j'avais conservé dans mes filières.
Zetterberg, que l'on aperçoit ici en compagnie de sa copine Emma Andersson lors de la parade de la Coupe Stanley, demeure un joueur sous-estimé. Au moins, parions qu'il est plus connu aujourd'hui aux États-Unis après la plus récente conquête de la Coupe Stanley des Wings...
Can Hockeytown be Z-Troit? Wings' Henrik Zetterberg is a star in Sweden but not in U.S.
Story originally published January 21, 2008
Last year, the hosts of a popular home-makeover television show arrived at Henrik Zetterberg's house in Bloomfield Hills to begin remodeling his kitchen. As cameras showed viewers the inside, hosts talked with Zetterberg and his girlfriend, singer/model Emma Andersson, about the project.
It was MTV "Cribs" meets IKEA. And almost no one saw it, at least not in the United States. The show, called "Room Service," aired in Sweden, where Zetterberg grew up, and where he has become one of the most celebrated athletes.
His ascension in hockey-mad Sweden isn't surprising -- the Red Wings' young forward is one of the best players in the world. What's hard to figure is his relative anonymity here, in what used to be one of the best hockey markets in the United States.
The Wings just became the first team in NHL history to win 30 games in the first half of the season. There are many reasons for this, including, most notably, the sublime presence of another unheralded Wing, Nicklas Lidstrom, arguably the most dominant defenseman in the history of hockey.
Yet Zetterberg's torrid and willful start to the season -- he led the league in scoring before back spasms benched him around Christmas -- is as responsible as much as anything else. Despite his 5-foot-11-inch, 195-pound frame, Zetterberg is a relentless, defensive-minded point machine, plays with the sort of grit perfectly suited to Detroit's blue-collar ethos and began this season by forcing himself into the MVP conversation.
Then why isn't he taking this town by storm?
That's a question the Red Wings' brass asks itself often. Earlier this fall, the topic came up over lunch, said Wings general manager Ken Holland.
"It was me, Scotty Bowman, Steve Yzerman and Mike Babcock. Someone mentioned that people feel because he is European, it is not the same," Holland said.
In other words, there are those who suggest Detroit is so provincial it won't take to a non-North American player. Holland said that's rubbish. He points to Russian Sergei Fedorov. He said the reasons are more complicated and subtle.
At that same lunch, Yzerman reminded everyone that he was a lousy interview when he arrived in Detroit. He was uncomfortable and unsure of himself.
"Stevie grew into that," Holland said, "people fell in love with him because he played hard every night and because they won."
The former captain also played through a booming economy in a time when hockey had little competition in the area. Yet before Yzerman arrived, the Wings played in front of pitiful crowds far more sparse than now. Hockeytown revisionists often forget that. They weave a narrative that skips over the '70s, as if Yzerman and the Russian Five followed Gordie Howe and Terry Sawchuk, and that this town always has been sipping from the Cup.
Back in the Dead Wings era, the Wings were just bad. At the moment, they are quite good -- entering Saturday night's game at San Jose, they were 34-10-4, giving them the best record in the NHL -- which makes it tough to explain the waning interest and empty seats.
"Some nights it's a little discouraging," said Kris Draper, who has played here since 1993.
Draper played with Yzerman and Fedorov when they were in their primes, just as the team began its Stanley Cup runs in the mid-90s.
"And Hank is right there," he said. "He does it at both ends of the rink."
It's hard to fathom that in a sports-mad town an athlete performing at a superstar level could be doing it in a vacuum, but that is almost what is happening.
"People in Detroit are used to you winning every night," said Babcock, in his third season as Wings coach. "They don't realize what they have here (in Zetterberg)."
Zetterberg, at the moment, doesn't mind the anonymity. In fact, he looks forward to returning to Michigan after summers in Sweden. He blends in here.
"I don't know if I'm that guy that likes attention," he said.
An early start
Zetterberg tried on his first pair of skates at age 2. They were double-bladed.
"I didn't do much," he recalled. "I just (stood) on the ice."
Two years later, he began skating with a local club. Two years after that, he joined his first team. Except for a six-week stint cleaning lanes at a bowling alley when he was 17, that's all he has done since -- skate.
He was a small, wiry player with deceptive speed and uninhibited along the boards. Besides, he always seemed to have the puck, which is what caught the attention of Jim Nill, the Wings' assistant general manager.
"He was a skinny little kid when Nill saw him," Holland said. "He liked his instincts."
The Wings drafted him in the seventh round in 1999. They had no idea if he would make it to the NHL. They also had no way to gauge his will.
"That's where he's like Stevie," Holland said. "It's the will. Few people have it."
That drive is what makes Zetterberg so difficult to move off the puck and pin against the boards.
"If you grow up small and have no muscles, you learn somehow," he said.
Zetterberg joined the Wings in 2003, the year after the last Stanley Cup. He slipped into the background easily, even though he played well. After all, there were Hall of Famers walking around the locker room.
The next season, a goalie controversy dominated the news. And the next season was the lockout. He returned after the year away and lit up the league with 85 points. Fans were slow to return.
Last year, he picked up his play even more, and for roughly a 20-game stretch, played as well as anyone in the game.
"From about Game 40 to Game 60," said Babcock, "he was the best. No question about it."
Then he got hurt. He returned for the playoffs and had 14 points, despite recovering from a balky back. And then, this October, as the Lions were making a run, as Michigan tried to recover from Appalachian State, Zetterberg took off, often before a half-empty arena.
"I've been telling people all year they don't know what they are missing," said Wings radio announcer Ken Kal. "It's amazing. Every night when you look the stat sheet, he is there. He always has a couple of points. You don't notice it sometimes because he is not flashy."
After missing five games in December with back spasms, Zetterberg lost the lead in scoring -- he is currently sixth, only 10 points behind Ilya Kovalchuk before Saturday's games. By comparison, the Pistons' leading scorer, Richard Hamilton, is 38th in the NBA in that category.
Still, Zetterberg knows the biggest difference between him and someone like Hamilton is a ring. He might be better at hockey than Hamilton is at basketball, but Hamilton has won a championship.
"You have to win to become a star," he said, "and I haven't won yet."
Anonymity in the U.S.
Zetterberg sat down for this story inside a lounge at Joe Louis Arena. It was lunchtime, and the team had just finished practice. Over the course of the interview, several players walked by his table. No one could resist mocking him, making faces, taking verbal shots at him. They weren't used to seeing him talk for more than a few minutes at his locker.
"Not with the North American media anyway," he said.
In Sweden, he is often the subject of profiles. His famous girlfriend only adds to the spotlight.
"Sometimes you just want to hide," he said.
But here he walks around the Somerset Collection freely. He eats at local restaurants in peace. The most intrusive cameras in his life are the ones sent from his home country to watch his kitchen get turned into a high-end IKEA showcase.
Life on the ice is what thrills him here -- a nightly ride against the best players in the world.
"The speed, the fast decisions," he said.
Those things are what brought him to North America.
He grew up watching Wayne Gretzky. He knew little of Yzerman. Now he is being compared to him. Not in the way he plays, but in the way he competes.
"I think people thought going into last year's playoffs that we were a nice little team that has some skill, but not big enough, not tough enough to win," Holland said. "But internally, we think this is an evolution."
No player in Hockeytown epitomizes that more than the scrawny, seventh-round pick from Sweden.