At the 1991 NHL Entry Draft, the New Jersey Devils selected defenseman Scott Niedermayer with the third overall pick. This pick would help transform the franchise’s trajectory. A staple on the Devils blueline for 13 seasons, Niedermayer morphed into an elite talent both in the NHL and on the international stage with Canada. He is often recognized not only for being one of the Devils best defensemen ever, but league-wide as well. He was regarded for being an excellent player at both ends of the ice and had an unmatched ease when it came to carrying the puck up the ice. He won all three Devils Stanley Cups and, in 2004, won the Norris Trophy as the league’s best defenseman.
Among his many accolades was winning the Norris Trophy in 2004 as the league’s top defenseman; Niedermayer’s name appears on a host of Devils Top-10 records, including games played (8th all-time, 892 games), assists (2nd, 364), points (6th, 476) and game-winning goals (T-10, 26).
On Dec. 16, 2011, New Jersey retired Niedermayer’s No. 27 and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2013. In 2017, Niedermayer was named as one of the the NHL’s 100 Greatest Players in history.
“At first I was jealous because of how well he could skate,” Stevens remembers of his first encounter with Niedermayer. “He’s like effortless. I had never seen a defenseman that could skate so well and move around so well. It was fun to watch him play. It was amazing how we were so different. I would sweat a lot and would change my shifts between periods, and at the end of the game, Neids would never need to change his sweater or anything. He’d have the tiniest bit of sweat. I’m like ‘How can you skate like that and play so many minutes and you don’t sweat?'”
