Lidstrom calls it quits

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/06/2012 (5093 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DETROIT — Nicklas Lidstrom is so used to being great that the star defenceman refused to settle for just being good.

Lidstrom retired after 20 quietly spectacular seasons with the Detroit Red Wings, leaving a legacy of greatness on and off the ice along with perhaps another US$6 million he could have made with a third straight one-year contract.

The four-time Stanley Cup champion and seven-time Norris Trophy winner fought back tears as he made the announcement Thursday. He said he knew it was time to end one of the best careers in NHL history when he started to work out recently.

“My drive and motivation are not where they to need to be to play at this level,” Lidstrom said.

The 42-year-old Swede set an NHL record by playing 1,564 games with a single team. He had put retirement on hold in each of the previous two years by signing one-year contracts.

“I’ve been dreading this day since I became manager in 1997,” Red Wings GM Ken Holland said.

When Lidstrom told him last week that he was retiring, Holland said he could have the weekend, weeks or even months to think about it more in the hopes that he would change his mind. Holland now has $20-plus million in salary cap space to attempt to sign a standout defenceman, perhaps Nashville’s Ryan Suter if the Predators can’t re-sign him before July.

San Jose Sharks general manager Doug Wilson, though, said what everyone in the Motor City is thinking.

“You don’t replace players like that,” Wilson said.

No, you don’t.

Even when Lidstrom didn’t have one of his best years, such as last season, he was still the storied franchise’s best player on the blue-line and one of the better defencemen in the league.

Lidstrom had 34 points and a plus-21 rating that ranked among the league leaders, and for his career wound up with 264 goals and 1,142 points. After being incredibly durable for 19 seasons, he missed a career-high 11 games last season with a bruised right ankle and was out for another game with the flu.

“That didn’t sway me one way or another,” Lidstrom said. “A couple weeks after the season is over, you start working out. Once I started doing that, I didn’t have the push I need, and I can’t cheat myself.”

He plans to move his family to Sweden and hopes to have an off-ice role with the Red Wings.

“Retiring today allows me to walk away with pride, rather than have the game walk away from me,” said Lidstrom, whose oldest of four sons went to Sweden two years ago to attend school and play hockey.

Lidstrom’s wife, Annika, left the door open for her husband to keep playing even though that in effect would often make her a single parent for another season.

“She even said, ‘If you want to play another year, we can make this work,”‘ he recalled in one of many emotional moments at Joe Louis Arena.

Lidstrom was named the NHL’s best defenceman last year for a seventh time since 2001, matching Doug Harvey’s total and trailing Bobby Orr’s league record by one. When Lidstrom won his final Norris Trophy last summer, he was a finalist for the 11th time in 13 seasons.

Los Angeles Kings coach Darryl Sutter called Lidstrom “an awesome player” who was a difficult opponent.

“He was a frustrating guy to coach against because you could never get to Nicklas Lidstrom. Couldn’t get to him. Didn’t matter how you forechecked, what you set up, what you did. He was one of the few guys ever that could control a game from the defensive standpoint,” said Sutter.

— The Associated Press