played in his 1,500th career game<\/a> on Saturday as the Washington Capitals faced the Ottawa Senators at Capital One Arena.<\/p>\nThe 40-year-old is the 24th player in NHL history to reach that milestone and just the eighth to do so with the same club.<\/p>\n
Most games with a single franchise in NHL history<\/p>\n
Player
\nFranchise
\nGames<\/p>\n
Gordie Howe
\nDetroit Red Wings
\n1,687<\/p>\n
Patrick Marleau
\nSan Jose Sharks
\n1,607<\/p>\n
Niklas Lidstrom
\nDetroit Red Wings
\n1,564<\/p>\n
Alex Delvecchio
\nDetroit Red Wings
\n1,550<\/p>\n
Shane Doan
\nWinnipeg Jets\/Arizona Coyotes
\n1,540<\/p>\n
Ray Bourque
\nBoston Bruins
\n1,518<\/p>\n
Steve Yzerman
\nDetroit Red Wings
\n1,514<\/p>\n
Alex Ovechkin
\nWashington Capitals
\n1,500<\/p>\n
Five of the seven players Ovechkin joined on that list are still alive today. They each recorded video messages congratulating him which the team posted on social media ahead of puck drop.<\/p>\n
The video also played on the jumbotron inside Capital One Arena during a break in the action.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what each legend of the game had to say:<\/p>\n
Ray Bourque<\/p>\n
\u201cHey Ovi, feels like yesterday [was] the year you got drafted. I want to congratulate you on 1,500 games with one team. You\u2019re only one of eight players to accomplish this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steve Yzerman<\/p>\n
\u201c[It\u2019s] a tremendous accomplishment. You\u2019ve had an incredible career to date.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patrick Marleau<\/p>\n
\u201cCongratulations, Ovi on reaching another milestone in your illustrious career. 1,500 games with one club, what a truly amazing accomplishment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Niklas Lidstrom<\/p>\n
\u201cCongratulations on reaching 1,500 games. What a great milestone. And you\u2019re still keeping strong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shane Doan<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be loyal to one organization and to stick with Washington in the way that you have is absolutely unbelievable. Well, your career and everything you\u2019ve done is just another notch in your storybook career.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\ud83d\udcf8: Alan Dobbins\/RMNB Alex Ovechkin played in his 1,500th career game on Saturday as the Washington Capitals faced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-241022","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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