Hossa on cusp of impressive milestone
By Mike Spellman
mspellman@dailyherald.com
The one player not on the ice at the Blackhawks practice Wednesday at Johnny's IceHouse was Marian Hossa, who was given a routine maintenance day off by coach Joel Quenneville.
The one player who everyone will be watching closely when he hits the ice Thursday night at the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa will be Big Hoss as he tries to reach the vaunted 1,000-point mark - he's just 2 away - in the same city where he began his remarkable NHL career.
"It's funny how those things play themselves out and everything comes full circle," Patrick Sharp said. "He has a chance to do it against the team that drafted him and he had a lot of his success in his career there, and I know he gets excited to go back to Canada, especially Ottawa.
"But Hoss being Hoss, I don't think he's going to play any different. He plays the same way every night."
And it's that consistency throughout a career that began in Ottawa in the 1997-98 season, followed by brief stops in Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Detroit and now in his sixth season with the Hawks, that has him on the cusp of joining Jaromir Jagr, Joe Thornton and Jarome Iginla as the only active players to reach the 1,000-point mark.
"I remember him in Ottawa; remember him as this big guy and how he protected the puck and you couldn't get it away from him," Quenneville said of Hossa, who spent seven seasons with the Sens. "It wasn't so much his production, but that he had the puck a lot.
"And for a big guy he could move. Still can."
Hossa, who admitted he was more into offense as a young player, has morphed his game to the point where he is also considered one of the best defensive forwards in the game with an absolutely inane knack for being in the right place at the right time.
"Yeah, he's been the same player for a number of years and that's a huge compliment," Sharp said. "He's been an elite player for a long time, and you lose track of how many goals he has over a career, how many points.
"But when you hear 1,000 points, that's pretty special. Hopefully we can get him that soon."
Hossa has struggled out of the gate offensively this season with just 3 points in eight games, but the good news is that he has taken it to the Senators throughout his career with 25 points in 18 games.
And if he can notch just a couple more points Thursday night he will have reached the magic 1,000-point mark in 1,100 games and become just the 177th player in NHL history to accomplish that feat.
"A lot of history, a lot of good history for him," Quenneville said of Hossa's return to Ottawa. "I don't know if he'd say it, but I think he would love to do it there."
mspellman@dailyherald.com
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