Patrick Marleau has been around the NHL for a long, long, time. Drafted in June of 1997 with the 2nd overall pick (behind former longtime teammate Joe Thornton), Marleau was actually officially affiliated to the San Jose Sharks just a few months before former Toronto Maple Leafs’ teammate Auston Matthews was born.
Not only has he been in the league for a long time, he just doesn’t miss games either. Marleau hasn’t missed a game since the 2008-09 season, leading to the second longest active ironman streak (and 4th longest all-time) in the league at 891 consecutive games. Only Keith Yandle, at 904, has a longer active streak.
Recently, Marleau passed Mark Messier for 2nd most career games played, and only needs seven more to catch Gordie Howe’s all-time mark of 1,767 games.
As you can imagine, the longevity has led to some pretty impressive benchmarks. Following Saturday’s 3-2 win over the Los Angeles Kings, Marleau set another one.
71 WINS in the regular season against ONE team. That’s nearly a full season’s worth of wins against the poor Kings.
The 71st officially past greats Al McInnis and Ray Bourque for most ever, and with two more games against the Kings in the next week Marleau has a chance to widen that margin.
…Unless, of course, he somehow misses a game for the first time in more than a decade.
(H/T Darin Stephens, San Jose Sharks Stats)
