Before he was the general manager of the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Detroit red wings, Steve Yzerman was one of the greatest players to ever play the game. The Hall of Famer won 3 Stanley Cups in Detroit (his second was against Washington in 1998) and was voted as one of the greatest 100 players to play in the NHL. But in the mid 90s, there was a rumor that Detroit was looking to move on from Stevie Y, and one of the possible destinations was the Washington Capitals.
David Poile had built the Capitals into a perennial playoff team in the mid ‘80s, but the one thing they were missing to be true Stanley Cup contender was a no. 1 center. Gretzky, Lemieux, Messier, and Denis Savard were the centers on Stanley Cup winning teams. The Caps had good players, but not a superstar. Of course, those players don’t grow on trees and just fall into your lap, so the idea that Yzerman was available got Capitals fans buzzing.
The Capitals had to trade their star defenseman and captain Kevin Hatcher. Some idiot fans started taunting Hatcher at every home game to the point that he wanted out of DC. A rumor began to circulate that the Caps were talking to Detroit about a deal for Steve Yzerman. Stevie Y in Washington? At that point in the mid-nineties, Yzerman had scored 100 points in six straight seasons and proven he was one of the best players in the NHL. But the Red Wings hadn’t advanced deep into the Stanley Cup playoffs at that point and questions started about whether Yzerman had what it took to win the Cup. Washington would have gladly accepted him with open arms.
What if the Capitals had traded Kevin Hatcher for Steve Yzerman in January of 1995?
With Hatcher one of the best blueliners in the league at that time and the Caps needing to trade him as the turkey calls grew louder, it seemed possible that a deal could get done. Both captains could have used a change of scenery and since Hatcher was from Detroit, the rumor seemed like it had legs. If the Caps had pulled the trigger on that deal, it would have changed the trajectories of two franchises.
The Red Wings would not have been better with Hatcher and would not have won three Cups like they did with Yzerman in reality, but the Capitals would have been a different team. Yzerman probably would have used the trade as motivation, determined to prove the Red Wings wrong for giving up on him about how it would have pissed him off. Like he did in Detroit despite the questions about his ability to lead a team to the Cup, Yzerman would have raised the level of the players around him and the Capitals would have won multiple Cups during the 90’s and early 2000’s.
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