Patrick Marleau tied Gordie Howe’s mark of 1,767 NHL video games performed when the visiting San Jose Sharks confronted the Minnesota Wild on Saturday evening.
Marleau hopped over the boards for his first shift 40 seconds into the sport and completed with 19 shifts and 14:16 time on the ice within the Sharks’ 5-2 loss.
On Monday evening, well being allowing, Marleau will set a league file on the Vegas Golden Knights.
It is going to add to a prolonged record of accomplishments, in fact, for the 41-year-old Marleau, who had 566 objectives headed into Saturday evening’s recreation, to go together with 1,196 factors, three All-Star appearances and two Olympic gold medals for Canada (in 2010 and 2014).
“Simply at first is loving the sport, and I simply love being on the market and taking part in,” Marleau stated Thursday as he approached Howe’s file. “Clearly, each child’s dream is to hoist that Stanley Cup, so I have been chasing all of it this time, and that aim hasn’t modified for me, since you already know what the Stanley Cup’s about.”
Certainly, the Stanley Cup has eluded Marleau, who made it to the Closing as soon as, in 2016, in a profession with many playoff disappointments.
However it’s his supreme skating talent and dependability that has allowed him to play 896 consecutive video games since final lacking a contest, when he was 29, that shall be his legacy. He has performed by means of the flu and varied different bumps and bruises, and he even chartered a airplane to affix his teammates in Nashville for a recreation in 2009 after the beginning of certainly one of his sons.
“I need to be regarded upon once I’m gone that I gave it my all,” he stated. “Loved the sport, cherished the sport, cherished being across the staff, cherished profitable video games. These are the most important issues.”
Marleau made his debut on Oct. 1, 1997, at age 18 years and 16 days, which is the youngest for any participant within the NHL since Lee Wharton debuted at 17 years, 81 days in 1945 for the Rangers.
Marleau scored 13 objectives as a rookie after which had his first of 15 20-goal seasons the next season as he rapidly established himself as a prime participant.
“He was an easy skater from day one,” stated Sharks govt Mike Ricci, who spent seven years as Marleau’s teammate. “That is perhaps a factor he was blessed with. Being a pure skater and being in tip-top situation and dealing laborious off ice and on the ice, these are the outcomes you get. There are plenty of easy gamers on the market who cannot play this lengthy.
“I bear in mind we used to joke round and I’d inform him he may play till he was 60. Clearly, I used to be exaggerating a bit, however possibly I wasn’t exaggerating as a lot as I assumed.”
Whereas Marleau will not play till he’s 60, he is not prepared to hold it up after this season, both. It is a comparable mindset to that of Howe, who retired at 52 after posting 41 factors in his closing season for Hartford. Howe additionally performed an extra 419 video games within the WHA, which do not depend towards his NHL file.
Whereas gamers equivalent to Jaromir Jagr, Mark Messier and Chris Chelios approached Howe’s mark, nobody has been in a position to attain a file many thought was unbreakable when Howe retired.
“Data are made to be damaged,” stated Howe’s son Mark, a scout for Detroit who performed 1,355 video games mixed within the NHL and WHA. “This one right here, I assumed can be a extremely, actually powerful one to interrupt, however Patrick is lastly going to do it.”
Mark Howe joked that the oatmeal from Saskatchewan may need been what fueled each his father and Marleau by means of all these video games. However there’s something else that Marleau and Gordie Howe have in frequent.
“You may’t do it until you like what you are doing,” Mark Howe stated. “In case you love going to the rink day-after-day and have enjoyable at it, it is an amazing job to have. As soon as it turns into work, then you definately’re completed. It is fairly clear he loves what he is doing.”
Howe stated his father would have been pleased with Marleau if he had been nonetheless alive and that the household would have somebody available for the record-setting recreation if not for the pandemic.
Marleau has generated that form of respect all through the league, as evidenced by the well-wishes he has obtained in current days from stars equivalent to Anze Kopitar, Ryan Miller and Ryan Getzlaf, in addition to from former coaches and teammates equivalent to Todd McLellan and Marco Sturm after his closing video games of the season in opposition to their groups.
“For these guys to do all that, it is humbling,” Marleau stated. “You’ve got performed in opposition to them plenty of video games, plenty of hard-fought battles. There’s mutual respect there. For them to take the time to return over and shake my hand and congratulate me on what can presumably occur right here within the subsequent few days, I do not take that evenly. That clearly means lots to me.”
The Related Press contributed to this report.