San Jose Sharks defenseman Brad Stuart will face his former Detroit Red Wings teammates on Thursday night.(Photo: Kelley L Cox, USA TODAY Sports)
LOS ANGELES — One of the first people Brad Stuart helard from was Nicklas Lidstrom.
Stuart had just delivered a highlight-reel hit on Gabriel Landeskog, and after the January game between Stuart’s San Jose Sharks and Landeskog’s Colorado Avalanche, Stuart checked his phone. There was the text: “Great hit. Watching here in Sweden. All the best this year,” Stuart said Wednesday. “It was nice to get that.”
Stuart made a lot of good friends during four years in Detroit, endeared himself to a lot of his teammates. Thursday night, Stuart will see the Detroit Red Wings in person for the first time since leaving the team last summer.
“It’ll be a little weird,” he said, “but I’m looking forward to it. It should be fun. I definitely have a lot of positive experiences from my time in Detroit. I’ve faced former teams before, so it’s nothing new, but with Detroit, it is a little bit different.”
The Red Wings traded for Stuart in the spring of 2008, and a few months later, he helped them win a Stanley Cup. He re-upped for four seasons, and while the Red Wings would have loved to extend the relationship, they traded Stuart’s rights to San Jose last June. Stuart had made it known to management that he wasn’t going to re-sign with Detroit because of his family situation. His wife and family had stayed in San Jose the past three years of his deal because of his step-daughter, and the long distance had taken enough of a toll. Stuart started his career with the Sharks.
Shortly after Stuart had signed a deal with the Sharks last summer, the NHL went into lockout mode. Suddenly, there was a lot of family time. His sons, Jake, 6, and Logan, 4, got suspicious.
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“They asked me probably in September or October, why is it taking so long, when does hockey start,” Stuart said. “It was hard to explain, but they slowly grasped the situation. Me switching teams, they fully got that. It was just what was taking so long, they wanted to go to some games.”
Now they’re some of his toughest critics, wondering why their dad has no goals in 18 games. Never mind the three assists or the plus-seven.
“They ask why I never score,” Stuart said, laughing. “I try to explain to them I’m a defenseman. But they love to watch — they love to go to games, and when they watch on TV, they get upset when they have to go to bed and can’t finish the game. They love everything about it.”
Stuart said he’s “found my role with the team, and it’s worked well. And on the personal side of things, it’s been awesome being home as much as I can. Spending a lot more time with the family, that’s been great.”
Stuart developed a reputation in Detroit for bone-rattling hits, like the one on Landeskog. So what happens Thursday night, say, if Stuart has Pavel Datsyuk lined up at center ice? Stuart laughed.
“There’s a strong possibility he wouldn’t put himself in that position,” he said.
Then Stuart said something Datsyuk would appreciate because it’s exactly what Datsyuk has said himself before: “You have no friends on the ice. It’s game on.”
