Stevens was excellent defensively, but Lidstrom and Bourque were both better in that regard in traditional sense, transitioning, stick checking and blocking shots. Even when Stevens was focused solely on defense.
Stevens career had 2 different era's. The first half was a more traditional two way defenseman, slightly below the top dogs of his time. Still highly physical. Still very good defensively and offensively. Superstar everyone would want on their team.
The second half of his career is more niche to his physical qualities and a shrewd coach built his team around it and around the capabilities of one of the greatest goalies of all time.
Stevens strength was his physicality. You always marked when Scott Stevens was on the ice. If you didn't, you would regret it. This was a man who made a second half career of bearing down on your blindside. He would be suspended regularly by today's rules, but my god it was something special back when it was legal. If Stevens was in the defensive zone heading towards you as you received the puck, your thought process was different than if another defenseman was coming at you. Your immediate reflex was "get rid of this puck like a hot potato and GTFO of the way". His approaching presence incited panic passes and made you knee jerk react in a way that scrambled your muscle memory and reaction times. instead of sailing the puck to a teammate, you were almost shooting it at him. If it was another defenseman on the devils bearing down on you, you didn't brain scramble quite like you did for Stevens.
You might try to get by another defenseman on the ice crossing center ice, but if you saw Stevens in your way to the offensive zone, you dumped the puck and skated wide. Which played right into Brodeur's strength as possibly one of the best puck playing goalies of all time.
They played the trap and always had 4 men back. It played directly into Stevens strengths in the dead puck clutch and grab era. When you could clutch and grab without drawing a penalty unless someone fell over while you had mitts on them, you could steer them without tugging hard enough to make them fall. Someone on the ice would always latch on and steer you right into that freight train if you did not dump the puck or they would create a funnel which looked like you could possibly squeeze through, but usually had Stevens bulldogging into at top speed to catch you. Everyone knew it. Everyone was afraid of it. It changed the way every forward would play vs Jersey A team was able to build their style around Stevens and Brodeur in that era.
It is hard to even quantify the kind of impact Stevens had. A lot of people on this site try to downplay physicality and say "it doesn't matter as much as skill, and thug can throw a hit", but Stevens was something special. To a player on the ice with Stevens coming your way It was like being a drunk guy who took a wrong turn carrying $2000 through the roughest area of town in Chicago at 2AM and seeing 5 guys marking you, the leader with a Machete out stalking straight towards you like Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th.
The cops can't stop Jason. Your friends can't stop Jason. We shot him 6 times and he got back up and now looks mad. For some reason he is looking and coming right at you. Oh yeah, you have the puck. GET RID OF THE PUCK AND HIDE, ITS A HOMING BEACON.
A lot of Coaches and teammates even understood if you wimped out and panic tossed the puck back then when it came to Stevens.
