Detroit Red Wings from the vault: Defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom

The Detroit Red Wings handed over the reins to Nicklas Lidstrom as captain after Steve Yzerman departed, take a look at the twenty-year career of the former captain.

When looking back on the Detroit Red Wings and their defense core, it is hard to overlook the incredible career of Nicklas Lidstrom. A career that spanned twenty years, Lidstrom was one of the most prolific defensemen to play the game.

Lidstrom would spend twenty years playing in the winged wheel uniform, spending his last six years as the captain of the squad. Lidstrom was quite the decorated player when he retired, well worthy of a Hall of Fame nomination in which he earned.

Throughout his career, Lidstrom would be named an all-star twelve times, winning four Stanley Cup championships, and seven Norris trophies. His seven Norris trophy wins were enough to be tied for second for most ever, tied with Doug Harvey and one short of Bobby Orr of the Boston Bruins.

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On top of this, the Red Wings defender took home the Conn Smythe award for his performance in 2001-02 playoffs for the team.

He would log a total of 1564 games over his career with 264 goals and 878 assists for 1142 total career points.

The poised defender would also only log 514 total penalty minutes throughout his career. Growing up watching Lidstrom, it was easy to see his exceptional ability to find ways to create scoring chances.

Lidstrom often would take shots, not on the net, specifically for the bounce off the boards to create scoring chances in front for players like Tomas Holmstrom. Watching Lidstrom play was one of the most remarkable things; it was genuinely amazing watching him be one step ahead of the play.

His ability to be able to anticipate plays before they happened made watching Lidstrom a real treat during his time in the National Hockey League (NHL). The NHL Network even aired a documentary as a part of the NHL 36 series that showed how special Lidstrom was.

Going through his daily routine, he was easily one of the most disciplined Red Wings players, and it showed on the ice. There are very few times where Lidstrom was making mistakes, and that stems from his perfectionist attitude and discipline on and off the ice that made him who he was.

The documentary was just a testament to all of the years of Lidstrom’s career, where he was hands-down, the captain of the blueline. Since Lidstrom’s departure, Niklas Kronwall had to step up into his role, and as awesome as Kronner was, he is no Lidstrom, not even close.

Now, in 2019-20, I can honestly say it sucks not seeing Nicklas Lidstrom taking the ice for the Detroit Red Wings, and with old games/playoff runs being aired on NHL Network, its hard not to go down memory lane.