Talking about a legend today, one of the 15 best players of all time, the best d-man of the 00s, 7 times Norris Trophy winner, the best shutdown d-man of all time, captain of the Detroit Red Wings for 6 seasons and member of the Triple Gold Club, NICK LIDSTROM.

Woah boy, how to summarize his career in just a few lines?

Drafted in the 3rd round (still can't believe that was a thing) of the 1989 NHL Entry Draft, his NHL career started in the 91-92 season, and he IMMEDIATELY became an elite 2 way d-man. His defensive play was second to none, his offense was elite throughout basically 99% of his career, he was an amazing leader and player, respected by his peers all throughout the league.

His best season came in the 05-06 season, when he put up 80 pts while still putting up ridiculous work and energy in his defensive game.

When Stevie Y retired in 2006 the RW had a natural successor for the «C», Nick Lidstrom. he took over that role, won a cup as captain while mentoring the player who would replace him as captain, Henrik Zetterberg.

Even during his final season, the 11-12 one, he was still the RW' best d-man at the late age of 41. His departure left a hole that couldn't be filled by anyone.

His career ended with 264 goals, 878 assists, 1142 pts in 1564 NHL games.

He is widely considered as being the 2nd best d-man of all time, only being someone named Bobby Orr. Don't know if you've heard of him.

As a pretty young adult, I wished I would've seen him play more...

RW fans, did I adequately described his career and what he meant to your team?

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That GWG in the 3rd period against Finland in the 2006 olympics though... what a lovely way to seal an Olympic gold medal win.

He was the best, Unfortunately never got to see him up home in Detroit as i was already living in Central Florida. So unless Detroit was playing either in Tampa or down in Sunrise against the Panthers i didn't get to see him much. I had season tickets to Tampa at one time and i sat directly behind the visitors bench. And i had my Lidstrom jersey on and was sitting directly behind Nick and he smiled that was pretty cool.

If a Red Wings fan can confirm the story of him being drafted so late is because they tried to hide him away and made sure of it by actually firing scouts that leaked his info.....

Nick had a wicked wrister, And a lot of Goalies back in the day were having troubles with his shots. That's why he got a lot of assets as his teammates would usually score on the rebounds.

I don't know about 2nd best of all time, but he certainly was incredible and an all time great.

I would say that is pretty much spot on. Lidstrom slipped because he wasn't very physical and which a lot of scouts interpreted as him being soft. The offensive side of his game didn't blossom until he was in the NHL.

Team Sweden international play 1994 Gold Medal Game Peter Forsberg's shootout goal that move is still called The Forsberg.

Thanks

Lidstrom was an all-timer. He was all about the little things - here's some of my favorites that he was really good at, with some hyperbole sprinkled in because we're talking about a GOAT:

He was never out of position. Never chasing the play. Always in the right spot. It's why he never had to use much physicality, and because of that, he could play 30+ minutes per night easily even when he was getting old.

He could swat pucks out of the air on attempted dump-ins so easily. Teams would think they're gonna get it deep and change and he'd catch the puck off the boards and float a pass to center ice for a counter-attack.

He knew exactly where to lean on a guy to disrupt a shot. Not sure if all of it would be legal any more but his timing on little stick jabs or stick checks was always perfect.

I hated him so much growing up in STL. Just a testament to how good he was. I agree with your sentiment, he is 2nd only to Number 4 in my book.

Lidstrom>orr. Orr wasn’t very good defensively. It he is the best offensive dman of all time and changed the game In That aspect.

I don't think that's true for Lidstrom, but I think it occurred during that same draft with another player (either Federov or Bure). Rockstrom was the guy that founded Lidstrom, and he remained with the org for years afterwards (and was succeeded by Hakan Andersson, who founded Datsyuk and Zetterberg, along with a few others).

Also imagine the rest of the Lidstrom draft:

Mike Sillinger
Bob Boughner
Lidstrom
Fedorov
Dallas Drake
Vlad Konstantinov

2 HOFers, a guy that could have been in the argument without the limo accident, and 2 additional 1000 game guys (Drake and Sillinger). Maybe the best haul of all time.

And they passed on Bure due to bad info from the NHL (they took McCosh instead).

Listen Spittin Chiclets and they have a few guys on who tell stories of hating to play against him because they could never get it deep on him, Crosby talks about how he hated playing against him because of it. One of his former teammates also tells a story on there about playing against him in a drill in practise and Babcock screaming at him to get the puck deep and he just yells back at him 'PUT ME AGAINST SOMEONE OTHER THEN NICK THEN!' Recommend a listen

I was very young when Orr retired (and most of his career was played before I was born), but I think it would be very hard to directly compare Orr and Lidstrom, due to the eras they played in.

Orr gets a wrap that his D game wasn't very good, but in that era, very few players were very good at playing D, as he played at the beginning of the high scoring era, which ended in the early 90s.

Lidstrom gets a knock on his offensive game (somewhat), as he didn't score like Coffey, or early Bourque, but the beginning of the Lidstrom era was the Left Wing Lock era, clutch and grab, low scoring games. By the time they start bringing back some of the offensive game (after the 2005 lock out), he was a little older (but still very good).

In my mind, you can only compare players against the players they played against. Orr was the best dman of his era, and Lidstrom was the best dman of his era. And it's not particularly close for either player, and both would be in the argument that they are the best players to play in their eras period.