This thread just shows how few people really consistently watched Marleau, maybe until he was a 38 year old in Toronto.
He did play with "intensity" except his brand of intensity was more in the mold of the intensity shown by Marc-Edouard Vlasic. He has always been a very positionally-sound player who used his strength for positioning and using his body to block out more than throwing big hits. He's also one of the best skaters of his generation, and isn't small. He absorbed plenty of hits over his career, and due to his strength, great skating, and luck, he has been able to maintain his health. For those who take Jeremy Roenick's assessment of Marleau into account, there's a fun story behind that, and I suggest you look it up.
I think what he's doing is as impressive as many of the scoring records, but just in a different way. If it was so easy, then more people would do it. I can be impressed by one guy's skill, and by one guy's drive, determination, and commitment. Yes, he isn't the best player in the world while doing so, but Marleau has had to be healthy, good, and lucky for this all to turn out the way it did. This is just his entire career, in a nutshell, though. All of the good things he has done over his career were not flashy or impressive enough for some, but anyone who watched him day in, and day out, realizes how impressive of a player he actually was.
He was top 10 in goals in the 2000s, and top 20 in the 2010s. This while being a very good defensive player. He will never be Ovechkin, and his record pursuit will never be the same type of thing as Ovechkin's pursuit, but some people in here are speaking out of a place of sheer ignorance about him and how he played. The world would be a much better place if people didn't feel the need to pretend they were experts on everything.
