A milestone debut for Hamrlik
MONTREAL - The Canadiens will open their 98th season (91st in the NHL) on Wednesday October 3, 2007, in Raleigh, North Carolina against the Hurricanes. For defenseman Roman Hamrlik, his first game in a Canadiens uniform will be his 1,000th regular season game in the NHL. The milestone will come 14 seasons after Hamrlik’s first NHL game back on October 7, 1992 with the Tampa Bay Lightning. He joins a group of 218 players to have reached the coveted mark.
Hamrlik becomes the seventh player in team history to play his 1,000th game in a Canadiens jersey, following in the footsteps of Henri Richard, Claude Provost, Frank Mahovlich, Larry Robinson, Bob Gainey and Stéphane Quintal. He is also the fourth Czech-born player to reach the milestone after countrymen Jaromir Jagr, Bobby Holik and Petr Svoboda.
With a little help from his friends Bryan Smolinski and Alex Kovalev, Roman Hamrlik will make history as for the first time in NHL history, three players from the same team will reach the 1,000th NHL game milestone in the same month. Smolinski and Kovalev have played in 992 and 991 games, respectively, and are on track to each play their 1,000th game in October. In this record breaking month, two more NHLers are set to reach the milestone as Owen Nolan (Calgary, 991 games) and Mike Sillinger (NY Islanders, 990 games) are just a few games shy of the mark.