A new hockey season always brings hope; a sense of anticipation that anything is possible. While we as fans sit and wonder whether our hockey heroes are going to deliver us to euphoria at some point in June, we can’t disregard the 7 months of regular season action that, while may seem meaningless, deliver some historic moments.
With that in mind, we thought it would be fun to look at some of the key milestones some of the Wings are gunning for this year. Truth be told, there are not many of them, but these are stats that players hold dear, and as we saw with Dan Cleary and Johan Franzen in their pursuit of their 100th, the players can put a lot of pressure on themselves to reach a milestone within their reach, but once they do, relief sets in and they can get back to just playing their game.
There won’t be a Wing milestone met this year as big or historic as Chris Osgood getting to 400 wins, but some Wings will have some celebrating to do if all goes well. Follow the jump as we take a look at what some of the “clubs” certain Wing players are trying to join.
For research purposes, all player stats were derived from Hockey Reference, which is an amazing site if you ever need to look up some stats. The following is a list of Wing players within reasonable distance of a milestone.
Goals
Todd Bertuzzi – 11 goals from 300
Tomas Holmstrom – 18 goals from 250
Henrik Zetterberg – 20 goals from 250
Pavel Datsyuk – 29 goals from 250
Points
Pavel Datsyuk – 49 points from 700
Henrik Zetterberg – 45 points from 600
Brad Stuart – 16 points from 300
Games Played
Nicklas Lidstrom – 6 GP from 1500
Tomas Holmstrom – 48 GP from 1000
Dan Cleary – 54 GP from 800
Brad Stuart – 5 GP from 800
Pavel Datsyuk – 38 GP from 700
Henrik Zetterberg – 14 GP from 600
Johan Franzen – 5 GP from 400
Valtteri Filppula – 39 GP from 400
Niklas Kronwall – 15 GP from 400
Wins
Jimmy Howard – 25 wins from 100
Ty Conklin – 9 wins from 100
As one can see, there are a lot of players who are working towards some significant number. However, the one I’m really pulling for is Tomas Holmstrom in his bid to become only the 6th player in Red Wing history to play 1000 games in the Winged Wheel. It’s a testament to how truly strong and tough he is, because very few people in any sport would be able to withstand the kind of abuse that he takes on a nightly basis and last for 500 games, let alone 1000.
