Some athletes are just born with it.

Their speed, reflexes and stamina are simply on another, mutant level. Their vision and grey matter allow them to see scenarios unfolding that it takes instant replay and a telestrator for others to break down. We admire the gifted for their aptitude. We loathe the gifted because it just comes so damn easy to them.

But not everyone with privileged prowess excels in professional sports. There are equalizers: Work ethic, conditioning, adaptability, intelligence. You anticipate deficiencies in the gifted. Nobody’s perfect.

That is, until you compete against someone like Scott Niedermayer and realize that, yeah, sometimes they are.

Ken Daneyko, one of his defensive partners with the New Jersey Devils, had the realization early in Niedermayer’s career in the NHL. The Devils had lost a few consecutive games. Morale was down, and the coach’s ire was up.

“Coach had implemented a no-puck practice, a skate-until-drop practice. That’s what we had for an hour solid,” recalled Daneyko.

“I came back to the dressing room looking like I had been in the shower. Just dying.”

In walked Scott Niedermayer, having endured the same grueling workout. Daneyko, winded and aching, watched Niedermayer remove his practice jersey, and then his shoulder pads, expecting to see similar evidence of physical exhaustion.

“He had, like, a little raindrop of sweat. That’s it,” recalled Daneyko.

“You just kind of shake you head.”

Former Devils coach Larry Robinson said Niedermayer's conditioning was legendary.

“He was the Eveready battery. Never ran out of energy,” he said.

“I just wish I had his legs for one game. What a player I’d be!” said Daneyko.

“One of the greatest skaters that ever played the game. It was just effortless for him.”

But it wasn’t all effortless.

• • •

It’s easy to believe in the charmed life of Scott Niedermayer, who will enter the Hockey Hall of Fame on Monday along with Chris Chelios, Brendan Shanahan, Fred Shero and Geraldine Heaney.

He’s the only player in history to have won the Stanley Cup (four times: 1995, 2000, 2003 with the Devils and then 2007 with the Anaheim Ducks); the Winter Olympic gold medal (2002 and 2010 with Canada); the IIHF world championship (2004); the World Cup of Hockey (2004); and the World Junior title with Canada in 1991. Add in the 2004 Norris Trophy and the 2007 Conn Smythe, and there isn’t much Niedermayer hasn’t won. He was a dynamic two-way defenseman, and a subtly strong leader.

But he didn’t possess those traits when he broke into the league as an 18 year old in 1991, and wouldn’t for several years after that.

“He wasn’t one of Jacques Lemaire’s favorites at the start, because he was taking a lot of chances offensively, and Lemaire was the type that wanted his defensemen to play more defense and just be a puck-carrier,” recalled Robinson, the San Jose Sharks associate coach who coached Niedermayer with the Devils for over a decade.

“So that was my job, to make him more of a two-way defenseman.”

Niedermayer was drafted third overall in 1991 by the Devils – they acquired the pick from the Toronto Maple Leafs for Tom Kurvers, whose biggest accomplishments in the NHL were winning a Cup with Montreal in 1986 and being traded for Scott Niedermayer – after a junior career with the Kamloops Blazers of the WHL. He put up remarkable numbers for a defenseman: 82 points in 57 games during the 1990-91 campaign.

But like so many other elite offensive defenseman, he used his blazing speed to cover up for defensive deficiencies.

That’s what Scott Stevens saw when he met Niedermayer: a remarkable young talent that lacked defensive technique. “It’s not something that came naturally to him, but he worked at it,” said Stevens, Hockey Hall of Fame Class of 2007.

“It’s all a learning process. He became a much better all-around defenseman under Jacques.”

And under Robinson, Hockey Hall of Fame Class of 1995 and one of the best defensemen in NHL history.

“I don’t like to change somebody’s style of play. I more or less worked on him on the finer points of stick position and body position,” he said.

“But he was a coach’s dream because he was a great skater. Probably one of the best pure skaters I’ve ever seen. You just had to teach him when to pick his spots.”

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