Yes.
I've never understood this narrative that Sakic / Yzerman / whoever was this defensive stud. I mean, what is this based on, exactly?
There's this narrative that as long as a high-scoring forward sticks around long enough, the better they are defensively. And if their team wins a Cup when they're a veteran, they're automatically considered a two-way forward stud now! (Never mind they're doing exactly the same thing they were doing twelve years earlier.) You either retire early as a scorer or play long enough to see yourself become a 'defensive forward' (whatever that is).
Yzerman said once that he didn't consider himself any better defensively when he was a veteran than when he was young; there was just a media narrative that grew up around him. (Again, it helps if your team suddenly wins when you're getting a bit old.)
I don't consider Forsberg a defensive whiz either, by the way, but I do think pound-for-pound he was a bit better than Sakic when each was at their peak. And Forsberg was certainly more physical, more likely to drag pucks out of the corner, and also more the type to carry the puck out of his own end to start a rush. Those kinds of things do help with five-on-five numbers.
But basically this 'defensive forward' stuff is a bunch of nonsense.