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Iron Man Marleau Makes it 500
Goals
Has it really been almost 20 years since he
came to San Jose?
On January 23, Patrick Marleau entered the game
having scored 493 goals in his career. Just 10 days later, he now has 500. Wow.
He made quick work of that, tallying four goals in one period alone against the
Avs on the 23d , followed by a game-winner one night later in Winnipeg and a
goal against Chicago on January 31. He then scored number 500 on February 2 in
Vancouver.
It would have been nice to see him score it at home but
I'll take it, with Marleau scoring #500 in the same building where Evgeni
Nabokov became the only Sharks goalie to ever score a goal, in 2002. According
to the stats shown on TV, Marleau tallied number 500 in his 1463rd game (all
with the Sharks), becoming the 17th player to score them all with one team and
the 45th player overall in league history to reach this milestone.
I
remember when the Sharks drafted Marleau second overall when he was still just
17 years old in 1997. He's now 37 years old and has literally spent most of his
life as a Shark. He rarely misses a game and would have played even more games
over his career if not for the league shutting down for a season-and-a-half due
to lockouts in 2004-05 and 2012-13.
The elephant in the room, though, is that Marleau is
unsigned for next season. Do the Sharks bring both him and Joe Thornton
(drafted just ahead of Marleau in 1997) back next season and risk erosion of
skills as they push closer to age 40? Sentimentality says absolutely. Business
sense might say something else. I'm glad I'm not paid to make these decisions.
Of course, we'd love to see these two guys both win a Stanley Cup in
San Jose before it's over and they both hopefully get inducted into the Hockey
Hall of Fame. Scoring number 500 at least gets Marleau into the Hall of Fame
conversation.
. . .Penalty Shots. .So I'm approaching the Whole Foods
store right near SAP Center last Saturday wondering if there might be a Shark
lurking inside. As I'm finishing this thought, who comes walking out of the
place but Tomas Hertl, who scored the winning goal in the next game... Quite a
hefty price increase on my tickets for the Sharks next season.
I guess
this is what we get when the team almost wins the championship - prices will go
up. . .Sharks TV broadcaster Randy Hahn just said he expects Marleau to be the
first Shark to have his number retired. So do the Sharks retire number 12,
which he wears now, or his original number 14?...Is it me or does it seem like
the first puckhandler on Sharks power players is almost always goaltender
Martin Jones, since the Sharks lose the faceoff and the puck gets sent down the
ice?
Contact Paul at at
paulkrill@letsgosharks.com
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