Players who played forever but didn't hit the 1000 NHL games mark?

[The Pale King]

The mention of Joe Cirella by Strawberry Fields in another thread got me thinking about longtime players who for whatever reason, be it injuries or bouncing between around in the minors, didn't hit the 1000 games threshold. I'm looking for guys who when you see their years active, you'd assume they hit the mark but they came up shy. I know there's tons of examples of players like this but I thought it might be an interesting way to see some names that don't pop up all that often on here.

Cirella, for example, "only" played in 828 games, despite playing between 81-96. Another way to look at the thread would be "players with a surprisingly low GP". Have at 'er.

Click to read more...

 

[MadLuke]

Mario Lemieux has 915 regular season game between october 1984 and december 2005, career spread over 21 year's and 2 month.

That an average 43 games a year.

Richard has 978 games quite a lot for someone playing in 50 games season then 70 games season but not that much for someone playing almost 18 year's outside that context.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

two canucks draft picks, michel petit and jj daigneault

 

[The Great Mighty Poo]

Does the IHL's Wayne Gretzky Jock Callander count? Turned pro in 1982 played until 1999/2000 had a grand total of 109 NHL games,last played in the NHL in 1992 with the expansion Tampa Bay Lightning.

 

[seventieslord]

Mario Lemieux has 915 regular season game between october 1984 and december 2005, career spread over 21 year's and 2 month.

That an average 43 games a year.

Richard has 978 games quite a lot for someone playing in 50 games season then 70 games season but not that much for someone playing almost 18 year's outside that context.

first name I thought of.

I'm sure if we ran some stat reports on hockey-reference over long 15-year periods and just looked for whoever was active at both the start and end of that period, we could find some with abnormally low GP totals. In many of those cases they would be a guy with a lot of time spent in the minors. i think Lemieux is pretty unique in his "games per season" number in that there were no minor league games along the way.

For whatever reason, I thought of Doug Houda, whose final NHL season was 18 years after his first, and he played just 561 games, or 31.2 per season during that span. But he also played 488 games in the WHL, AHL and IHL in that span, so he actually played 1049 games in 18 seasons, significantly more than Mario.

I wonder who the next best example is, who did this in a more "pure" way, like Mario.

 

[Brodeur]

First two off the top of my head were John Madden and Brian Rafalski, although I suppose you might not assume it based on their years active but more that they played until their late 30s. Both were older rookies (26) when they had their official NHL rookie seasons in 1999-00. Rafalski retired in 2011 with 833 GP and Madden retired in 2012 with 898.

A couple more cases looking at my favorite roster (2000 Devils):

Alexander Mogilny fell just short (990 GP) after being demoted to the AHL during his final season. He made his debut with Buffalo in October 1989 and played his final NHL game on New Year's Eve 2005.

Randy McKay had a nice career (932 GP) for a grinder. Debuted for Detroit in February 1989 and finished with his hometown Canadiens in April 2003. Another guy who didn't become a lineup fixture until he was 25.

Brendan Morrison (934 GP) also fell just short. Probably didn't help early on that the Devils didn't have room for him on the roster so he spent a year in the AHL when he'd be an NHL player for most other clubs in 1997-98. He made his NHL debut December 1997 and finished with Chicago in April 2012.

Jay Pandolfo (899 GP) seemed like he was on track to hit 1,000 but had injury issues in the final years of his career. NHL debut November 1996 and finished with Boston in April 2013.

Willie Mitchell (907 GP) made a cameo as a Devils callup in March 2000 and played his last NHL game in January 2016 with Florida.

 

[GammaAway]

If you'd asked me, I would have been sure Tim Connolly played more than his 11 seasons (1999-2012), I felt like he stuck around for a while...apparently not, but in his 11 seasons, he played a total of 697 games for an average of 63/season. Removing his first 4 seasons where he averaged 81 games, the 7 remaining seasons saw him play an average of 53 games, with no games in the minor.

Also have to consider that he didn't play in 2003-2004 due to concussion issues and 2004-2005 was the lockout, so using the same method as for Lemieux of 12 years and 7 months, you get 55 games/year, or 43.35/year. Nowhere near as good however

 

[Brodeur]

Just because this thread is more fun than doing work..........

- Tommy Albelin (952 GP): Debuted for Quebec in October 1987 and finished with New Jersey April 2006.
- Viktor Kozlov (897 GP): Debuted for San Jose in February 1995 and finished with Washington April 2009.
- Paul Martin (870 GP): Debuted for New Jersey in October 2003 and finished with San Jose April 2018.

And then one for a non-Devil: Philippe Boucher (748 GP) - Debuted for Buffalo in October 1992 and finished with Pittsburgh in April 2009. Protracted development curve with Boucher after he was traded to LA.

 

[HHHH]

I have an interesting on with a player who didn't play a ton of games in the NHL, but had a long professional career with relatively few games spread across 15 seasons...Bob Halkidis.

He turned professional at the end of the 1984-85 season, and then played a total of 746 games before he retired at the end of the 2000-01 season, with an average of 49.3 games per season. He also played for 23 different teams during his career and logged 256 games in the NHL.

Clearly I have too much time on my hands...

 

[vikash1987]

Igor Larionov comes to mind. He finished his NHL career with 921 regular season games, having played from 1989 to 2004. (This is, of course, ignoring his playing days in the Soviet Union, which went back to the late '70s.)

 

[LeafsNation75]

Brenden Morrow started playing for the Stars in the 1999-00 season and finished with the the Lightning in the 2014-15 season, retiring after playing 991 games. So if it wasn't for the 2004-05 lockout he would have played over 1000 games.

Plus it's funny that in his rookie season he loses in the 2000 Stanley Cup Final with the Stars. In his final season he loses in the 2015 Stanley Cup Final with the Lightning.

 

[Nick Hansen]

Dean McAmmond played in the NHL between 93/94 and 09/10. Long career, pretty good player but struggled a lot with injuries, including concussions at times. 996 games, 448 pts.

 

[BadgerBruce]

Former NHL Ironman record holder, Andy Hebenton, played 630 consecutive games, 9 consecutive 70-game seasons.

And that’s every NHL game he ever played.

 

[tabness]

Pat LaFontaine is the guy I think of after Mario. Notable superstar for a long time but didn’t play many games because of injuries.

If we’re counting all professional play many Soviets would obviously qualify. I think Kent Nilsson is a non Soviet example of a guy who played a very long career (last NHL play in 1994-1995) but few games, well under a 1000 games even if you include the WHA. Just didn’t want to play in the NHL, especially after the Hextall slash.

Robert Lang started his NHL career in 1992-1993 and ended in 2009-2010 but just missed 1000 games. He was generally always in the lineup but it just took him a while to be recognized and get a regular roster spot.

 

[Peter Tosh]

Chris Terreri 86/87-00/01 - 406 gp, 2 cups. Backing up Brodeur for half of a career doesn’t lead to playing many games

 

[MadLuke]

John Leclair gave is demission mid season because he felt he was hurting is legacy has an old shadow of himself at 37 and in is peak was often playing 82 game in a season contrasting with Lindros that was never doing so.

Yet missed 1000 regular season games with 967, becoming a real regular relatively late at 23, two lock-out, only 16 games in 2000-2001.

Datsyuk is maybe not that special that he didn't reach 1,000 games because he is not one of those that started young in the league, but still, for a player that elite that was usually playing over 75 games a season during is prime, both him and Zetterberg exit of the league feel a bit anti-climatique, because of the franchise downturn but also considering Datsyuk is still playing in the KHL, could have done more in the nhl.

 

[BenchBrawl]

Andrei Markov played 990 RS games with Montreal, spread between 00-01 and 16-17.

 

[ted2019]

Dave Brown played 14 years and played 729 games

 

[The Panther]

To my surprise, Charlie Huddy (1980-81 to 1996) only barely makes it with 1017 games played! Here's a guy with 5 Stanley Cup rings, and 183 playoff games (!), yet he only just made it to 1000. (Denis Potvin is another dynasty guy who made it, but with little room to spare -- in his case, 60 games. Another D-man who only barely made it was Rob Ramage.)

Another ex-Oiler who hasn't made it (yet) is Sam Gagner. It seems like he's been around forever (actually only since 2007), but he still needs about two full seasons of games to make it to 1000, so he might never do it.

Anyway, players who never made it to 1000:
-- Stan Smyl (durable enough, but slightly short career)
-- Thomas Steen (seemed to me like he played forever, but actually from '81 to '95 -- stopped at 950 games)
-- Tomas Sandstrom had a long career ('84 to '99) but came up short
-- Esa Tikkanen (played only 12 more games than Pat Lafontaine... that seems wrong)

 

[NYR94]

Ron Greschner played 16 seasons but only 982 regular season games.

 

[shadow1]

Wendel Clark played (15) seasons but only appeared in 793 career games (1986-2000).

He only appeared in 80+ games (80) once, in his second season (1986-1987).

 

[hypereconomist]

Tommy Albelin: 952 games over 18 seasons. Averaged 53 games per season
Dennis Seidenberg: 859 games over 15 seasons. Averaged 54 games per season
Jeff Norton: 799 games over 15 seasons. Averaged 54 games per season
Jassen Cullimore: 812 games over 15 seasons. Averaged 56 games per season
Martin Havlat: 790 games over 15 seasons. Averaged 57 games per person
Ethan Moreau: 928 games over 16 seasons. Averaged 58 games per season
Jay Pandolfo: 899 games over 15 seasons. Averaged 59 games per season
Martin Rucinsky: 961 games over 16 seasons. Averaged 59 games per season

Unsurprisingly they're all players that were oft-injured. To reduce the skew, the averaged games per season does not include partial lock-out seasons

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Martin Rucinsky: 961 games over 16 seasons. Averaged 59 games per season

i’m super surprised rucinsky didn’t make it to 1,000

 

[The Pale King]

For whatever reason, I thought of Doug Houda, whose final NHL season was 18 years after his first, and he played just 561 games, or 31.2 per season during that span. But he also played 488 games in the WHL, AHL and IHL in that span, so he actually played 1049 games in 18 seasons, significantly more than Mario.

Oh I think I know the reason. Me too, man. Me too. I didn't want to mention Dougie in my OP 'cause I don't want to be too predictable around these parts but yeah, great choice. Lots of good names thrown about so far.

I'll throw in Bill Houlder. 846 games between '87-03. Guy didn't stick full-time until his draft plus 8 season with the expansion Ducks (where he exploded for 40 points) but he was pretty damn solid after that. I feel like his final seasons in Nashville are under appreciated. Well over 20 mins a night over three seasons while only missing one game, provided some much needed stability for a franchise that would soon base their identity around stellar defensive play.

 

[seventieslord]

Tony Hrkac's last season was his 16th, or would have been, if he didn't spend full seasons in the minors in the middle of his career. He played 758 games over that time, just 47 per season if you include the goose eggs.

Of course, he actually played a ton of hockey, 1121 games in those 16 seasons, to be exact. And then, once he was no longer an NHL player, 145 more. And.... Who knew he came back to the AHL after three years off, and played 25 more games at the ages of 42 and 43? I didn't, until just now!