Okay, now I need hot Stevie Y pics, also, bc I am so, so dumb, were he and Federov friends? (I just googled to see if they were roughly same age-5 years apart). Okay, in my google also stumbled on nhl individual records, and- most blocked shots in one season, apparently 14-15 flames was not a great season, idk.
Yes, they’re very good friends! I know I find it hard to keep track of which historical players are which sometimes, because Hockey Stat Bros toss names and numbers around in isolation, which seems silly in a sport that has such great pairings and relationships. So some context:
The Red Wings were really bad in the ‘70s. They drafted Steve Yzerman in 1983, despite not really wanting him. He was kinda small, and they wanted what someone else got first, which I believe is the Red Wings’ motto. They planned to send him down to the AHL to see if he’d grow any more, but he was a workout freak before Rod the Bod and after training camp they were too scared not to let him into the league. He turned out to be very good, the first 18 year-old rookie All Star, and they made him captain.
Stevie Y, his puffy hair, and his very buff neck
Sergei Federov* is often described as “one of the Russian Five,” the full set of two Russian defenseman and three forwards that the Red Wings were able to ice together in the late ‘90s. But the Red Wings actually acquired him years before the full five came together.
He debuted on the CSKA Moscow “Red Army” team at 16. The nickname is not metaphorical, CSKA stands for Central Sports Club of the Army, and the players are legally Russian soldiers. (Russian players today still have military duty, which is...selectively enforced, but unlike Malkin’s story, in the ‘80s players might be shot for desertion.)
But in 1989, one of Sergei’s young friends and four of the Red Army’s most veteran players defected to the US after a series of trials and tribulations and declarations of love in the rain**. That made Detroit willing to take the risk of drafting Sergei and one of his teammates that summer.
Problem was Sergei had no idea what a Red Wing was or where to find one. He did know what a Steve Yzerman was, from international tournaments. He was five years younger, and a big fan. The Red Wings recruited journalist Keith Gave (who later wrote the book about it) to slip him a secret letter, which Gave hid in a handy booklet explaining the team. Sergei responded, and the Red Wings sent him another pamphlet which contained more deets on Stevie and a Corvette catalogue.
We don’t know that this picture was in there, but we don’t know it wasn’t either
Sergei was like, ‘sweet, but I would like to wait until I finish my service next year because of the shooting thing,’ and then the Army decided to extend his service, because armies can do that.
At that point someone hunted Stevie down in the gym to check if this all was worth it, and he looked up from his exercise bike to tell them, “Oh yeah, he’s better than me,” so they kept at it.
In July of 1990 Sergei’s team came to the US for a tournament. He insisted on playing the tournament, and then ran out and hopped in a Red Wing official’s car to drive off. He was alone as a Russian in America and would be for a few more years. He spent that summer at the pool, working out, making ‘90s health food, and wheedling the Red Wings to let him into the rink to work out more.
When the season finally started, he made sure the equipment manager, Mark Brennan, reserved a certain jersey: #91. Yzerman wore #19. Brennan says, “He told me he wanted ‘to be like Stevie.’”
Yzerman, who was infamously bad at taking compliments, responded to that by calling Sergei casual and chill things like, “Best skater I’ve ever seen,”
“In my opinion, he's the best player in the League. He is different than Wayne and Mario,”
and “Sergei is a game-breaker for us anytime he's on the ice ... He's the most talented player I've ever seen."
By the end they played 13 seasons and won 3 Stanley Cups together.
*the NHL has a bad habit of turning Cyrillic letters into Roman letters that kinda look similar. It’s more correctly spelled as Fyodorov
**Larionov and Fetisov and all this would take a novel of their own
