Scott Niedermayer Inducted into Hockey Hall of Fame

 
I'll be perfectly honest, if Scott Niedermayer and his brother Rob hadn't decided to team up in Anaheim, he would just be another faceless defenseman to me.  Someone that I knew was good, but rarely if ever got to see play.  Plus he was in Jersey.  If he had been a Ranger, people that don't know hockey would know his name.  But he wasn't merely just good, he was probably the smoothest defenseman to ever play the game.  He was faster than forwards and wingers, anticipated better than anyone else in the game, and skated with so much ease that it often made other players jealous.

Scott Niedermayer is the reason the Ducks won the 2007 Stanley Cup.  He was the modern day equivalent of a player-coach out on the ice.  I still believe he is the reason that Corey Perry & Ryan Getzlaf decided to stick around in Anaheim.  I know our defense is leaps and bounds improved with him as the current coach of the defense.  He is the first Hall of Fame Inductee that I consider to be a Duck, although I know Devils fans disagree with that.  Paul Kariya, whom I had a shrine to as a child, unfortunately did not get into the HOF on his first ballot this year.  I blame Scott Stevens for shortening his career, who Niedermayer ironically credited with "teaching him to be a pro."  It just goes to show that Niedermayer was all class in not picking up Stevens' malicious, head-hunting style.  Kariya will get in next ballot, and Teemu is a first-ballot shoe-in.  It's been a fun twenty years.