The 1,000-Game Club Had Its Biggest Year. Getting In Is No Easier.

A record 17 players reached 1,000 games in 2025-26

Hall got hurt on Oct. 13, 2026, a few months after a record season. More players joined the 1,000-game club in 2025-26 than in any season before. That looks like proof that careers are getting longer. For most players they aren’t. A player’s chance of getting in is about what it was for the men born in the 1960s. The league just has more teams now, and plays more games than it did then, so more players get there.

Through the 2025-26 season, 425 players had played 1,000 NHL regular-season games: 421 skaters and 4 goalies (Martin Brodeur, Marc-Andre Fleury, Roberto Luongo and Patrick Roy). Cole’s game on Oct. 23, 2026, made him the 426th, but the counts in this story stop at the end of 2025-26. Gordie Howe was the first, in 1961-62. Most came much later: 348 of the 425 debuted in 1979-80 or later. In 2025-26, 17 more joined. No season had added more. The old high was 16, in 2023-24.

Seguin’s night came on Oct. 30, 2025, against Tampa Bay. The Stars counted him as the 410th player to get there, with 203 games for Boston and 797 for Dallas. “We’re proud to have Tyler play his 1,000th game with the Dallas Stars,” said Jim Nill, the Dallas general manager. Six of that season’s 17 newcomers broke into the league in the same season Seguin did, 2010-11: Seguin, Marcus Johansson, Adam Henrique, Jeff Petry, Nino Niederreiter and Jared Spurgeon.

The first three tiles count the club, and all three are at or near records. The last tile counts a player’s odds. For the 1980s-born, so far, it sits a little below the mark set by the 1960s-born.

Every count here is NHL regular-season games. Playoffs don’t count, and neither do games in the World Hockey Association (WHA), the rival league that ran from 1972 to 1979. Seasons haven’t always been 82 games long. The NHL played 22 in 1917-18 and 18 the next winter. A lockout cut 2012-13 to 48, and the pandemic cut 2020-21 to 56. So we keep a second count, adjusted games, that treats every season as if it had 82. A player who got into all 48 games of the 2012-13 lockout season gets credit for 82. So does a man who played all 70 games of 1960-61. Cole finished 2025-26 with 990 actual games and 1,037 adjusted ones.

The club grew and shrank with the size of the league

If longer careers were behind the record, the club would have grown a little every year. It didn’t. It rose and fell with the number of teams, and 2025-26 came in a league of 32.

Howe was alone in 1961-62. In the club’s first six seasons, one to seven members played each year, all in a six-team league. Expansion lifted that to 18 in 1970-71. Then the club thinned out. From 1975-76 to 1991-92 there were never more than nine members in a season. In 1981-82 there were three: Garry Unger, Carol Vadnais and Dave Keon. The league had 21 teams that winter. By 2002-03 it had 30, and 53 members played.

The line climbs each time the league adds teams. It sags through the WHA years, when many players spent seasons in the rival league. Then it climbs again through the 1990s, as the NHL grew to 30 teams.

Since 2018-19 the count has risen from 27 to 53. That fits the league’s recent aging, covered in The NHL Is Getting Older Again: more games now go to players in their 30s, and those are the players who pile up 1,000. Line up 2025-26’s newcomers by age, and the one in the middle was born in 1991; the group includes Roman Josi, Tyler Seguin, Mika Zibanejad and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.

Count adjusted games instead, and 69 members played in 2025-26, a record. The extra 16 are players like Hall and Cole. They ended 2025-26 still short of 1,000 actual games, but past 1,000 once the short seasons are scaled up to 82. Most of the 16 lost games to the short 2012-13, 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons.

Since the 1960s-born, about seven or eight in 100 players get there

A bigger league explains a bigger club. It doesn’t tell a rookie his odds. Out of every 100 men who play even one NHL game, how many get to 1,000?

A share doesn’t grow just because the league does. In 1960-61, six teams played 70 games. In 2025-26, 32 teams played 82. The bigger league has more players who reach 1,000, but it also has more who never get close, so the share can stay put while the club grows. The counts here use actual games over each player’s whole career, by the decade he was born in. About 4 in 100 players born in the 1940s and 1950s reached 1,000 games. For those born in the 1960s, Mark Messier’s and Ray Bourque’s generation, that doubled, to 8.3 in 100. Every decade since has landed at about seven or eight in 100, counting the 1980s-born so far.

There is one big step, from the 1950s-born to the 1960s-born. From the 1960s-born on, the bars stand at about the same height.

The oldest players did better than their game totals suggest. Nobody born before 1920 reached 1,000 actual games, because seasons ran 50 games or fewer until 1946-47. On adjusted games, 17 players born in the 1900s made it. Alex Delvecchio, Johnny Bucyk and Tim Horton were born in the 1930s and played through the Original Six years. Of their generation, 7.9 in 100 reached 1,000 actual games, about the same share as the 1970s-born. On adjusted games it was 10.1 in 100, more than any decade since. The 1910s-born dip to 1.8 in 100 on adjusted games. The Second World War came when they were in their 20s and early 30s. It may have ended some of those careers. Our numbers can’t say how many.

The odds also depend on who you start counting from. Expansion and the WHA years brought in many players who stayed only briefly, and each of them pulls a decade’s share down. So start instead with the players who lasted 100 games. About 1 in 7 of them got to 1,000 in the 1930s (15.0%), 1960s (15.0%) and 1970s (14.6%) birth decades, and 13.2% of the 1980s-born so far.

Some of the wobble between decades is luck, and there is a simple way to see how much. Split each decade into players born in odd years and even years. The two halves of one decade had the same eras, the same schedules and the same leagues. In the 1950s they still differ by about 2 points (5.3% and 2.8%). From the 1960s to the 1980s the halves stay close: 7.8% and 8.8%, 7.6% and 8.4%, 7.7% and 6.5% so far. Those halves differ mostly by luck. So a gap of a point or two between decades could be luck too. The doubling from the 1950s-born to the 1960s-born is too big for that.

Half of every debut group since 1967 was gone before two full seasons of games

If the odds of reaching 1,000 haven’t moved, maybe the ordinary career got longer. Hall’s own rookie class says it didn’t.

Start with the season Hall, Seguin and Cole broke in. In 2010-11, 148 players made their NHL debut. By the end of 2025-26, 12 of them had 1,000 games, about 8 in 100. Seven played one game. Another 62 stopped short of 100. Line all 148 up from fewest games to most, and the two men in the middle of the line are Dana Tyrell and Matt Frattin, at 135 games each. Both were gone from the NHL after 2014-15. Each man’s total is less than two full 82-game seasons.

One rookie class could be a fluke, so the chart below follows every rookie since 1942, several seasons of debuts at a time. Everyone who broke in from 1979-80 to 1991-92 is one debut group, and Nicklas Lidstrom, a rookie in 1991-92, is in it. Everyone from 1992-93 to 2003-04 is the next. Each line shows what share of its group was still playing at each career length. Players still active count only up to the games they’ve played so far.

Most of the drop comes early: 42 to 50 in every 100 players in each group were gone before 100 adjusted games. The lines cross the halfway mark close together. At the right-hand end, 1,000 games, compare three lines. The 1979-91 rookies finish near 10 in 100 and the 1992-2004 rookies near 7. The dashed 2005-14 line sits highest, near 14, but its far end is a guess, explained in the box below.

About 43% of the players who debuted in 1979-91 never reached 100 adjusted games. Take the three debut groups from 1967 to 2004, whose careers are over or all but over. In each one, half the players were gone by somewhere between 132 and 162 adjusted games. The 1942-66 group was shorter still (half gone by 105), with many brief call-ups: 27.8% of its players had fewer than 10 games. Count seasons instead, with any season in which a player got into even one game counting as one. The middle career has run 4 to 6 seasons for every debut group since 1967.

The longest careers rise and fall with the era

Ordinary careers stayed short. If hockey is keeping players longer, it should show at the top. Lidstrom broke in with Detroit in 1991-92 and played 1,564 games, every one for the Red Wings.

Most of his fellow rookies were long gone before that. Picture all 1,629 players who broke in from 1979-80 to 1991-92 standing in a line, shortest career to longest. The man nine-tenths of the way down that line lasted 993 adjusted games. Only one in ten of the group went longer, and Lidstrom went far longer. Do the same for each debut group. For the Original Six debuts of 1942-66, the man at the nine-tenths mark lasted 932. For the expansion and WHA era of 1967-78 he lasted 771, clearly the shortest. For 1992-2004 he lasted 898. The first rookies of all, from 1917-41, played seasons of 48 games or fewer. Scaled up to 82-game seasons, their man at the nine-tenths mark lasted 825, between the expansion era and the Original Six.

Watch the tallest bar in each group, the man nine-tenths of the way down the line. It rises and falls with the league: long for the Original Six and the 1980s rookies, short for expansion and the WHA years, with no steady climb. The short bars, the middle players, barely move from era to era.

Hall of Famers show the same rise for the 1980s rookies. Counting players inducted through the class of 2025, the middle Hall of Famer among the 1979-91 debuts played 1,266 games. Among the Original Six debuts, the middle one played 1,040. Treat that as a rough check. Voters lean toward long careers to begin with, and the Hall has yet to rule on many of the long careers that began after 1992.

Single rookie classes swing a lot. Among the finished classes since 1967, the share that reached 1,000 runs from about 1% to 19%. The deepest was 1984-85: 20 of 106. Hall’s class, at about 8 in 100, sits in the middle of that range.

The 2005-14 debut group may become the deepest yet. Of its 1,505 players, 94 (6.2%) already have 1,000 actual games, close to the finished 1992-2004 group (6.6%). Another 75 are still playing with 800 to 999. If none of them make it, the group stays at 6.2%. If all 75 get there and nobody else does, the group finishes at 11.2%, above the 1979-91 group (9.2%). It could go higher, because 65 more active players from the group have fewer than 800 games. That makes 193 still playing: the 53 already past 1,000, the 75 at 800 to 999 and the 65 further back. The dashed line in the survival chart gives every one of them a chance to keep going, so it ends higher, at an estimated 13.8% on adjusted games (12.9% on actual games). On older debut groups that estimate ran one or two points high, so read it as a high guess.

Only four 1,000-game players from the 1979-91 rookies stayed with one team

The growth that filled the club also changed how its members got there. A league with more teams has more places to send a player, and the men who broke in during the 1980s rarely reached 1,000 in one sweater. Lidstrom spent all 1,564 games in Detroit. Cole reached 1,000 with his tenth team.

Of all 425 members, 49 played every game for one franchise. A team that moved counts as one franchise, so Joe Sakic (Quebec, then Colorado) and Shane Doan (Winnipeg, then Arizona) are one-team players. When the Coyotes’ players moved to Utah in 2024, the league called Utah a new franchise. We count it as the same team. Count each city as its own team instead, and Sakic and Doan drop out of the one-team group. No other retired member changes.

The lowest bar belongs to the rookies of 1979-91. From that debut group, 150 players reached 1,000 games, and four did it with one team: Nicklas Lidstrom, Steve Yzerman, Joe Sakic and Ken Daneyko. For the Original Six debuts it was about one in five, and for the expansion era nearly one in four. The 1992-2004 group is back to about one in ten (the Sedin twins, Patrice Bergeron, Shane Doan).

At the other end sits Mike Sillinger: 1,049 games for twelve teams, the most of any member. Ashton played for nine. By his 1,000th game, Cole had played for ten. In a Chicago Sun-Times story published the day before that game, he described his job: “It is objectively a tough job when somebody puts a bouncing puck into a corner and they’re coming to hunt you.” The groups behind these bars are small. The data can’t say why anyone moved, either: a trade, a free-agent signing and an expansion draft all leave the same mark, a new team on a player’s line.

A bigger league built a bigger club

So the 17 newcomers of 2025-26 tell you more about the size of the league than about how long players last.

• More teams and an 82-game schedule built the record. They put 1,000 games within reach of more players. A player’s own odds, counted over whole careers, have been about seven or eight in 100 for every birth decade since the 1960s.
• Careers aren’t getting longer for most players. Half of every debut group since 1967 was gone by 132 to 162 adjusted games.
• The longest careers rise and fall with the era. They were long for the Original Six and the 1980s rookies, and short for expansion and the WHA years.
• Players born in 1975-84, whose primes spanned the 2004-05 lockout, fell short. Those born in 1985-89 came back to the level of the 1960s-born: a little ahead on adjusted games, level on actual games, a gap that could be luck.
• The 2005-14 rookies may still finish as the deepest debut group yet, depending on how many of their 75 players at 800 to 999 games get there.

What this can’t tell us. The data doesn’t say why any career ended: injury, a contract, or a move to Europe or the KHL. A player who left for another league counts as retired from the NHL, as Markov does. The lockout link is timing only, because the salary cap came at the same moment. WHA games aren’t here, so players born roughly 1940-59 are counted short. The 1990s-born can’t be scored yet. Two groups of about 150 players, like the 1985-89 and 1960-64 regulars, can differ by luck alone. The one-team shares can too, and so can a single rookie class like Hall’s.

Back to the 2010 draft: six first-rounders made it, and Hall was at 997 when he got hurt on Oct. 13

Go back to June 2010, when Hall and Seguin went first and second. That first round had 30 picks. By the end of 2025-26, six of them had 1,000 games, Seguin among them. Seven had fewer than 200. Mark Visentin, a goalie taken 27th, played one NHL game, for Phoenix in 2013-14.

Markov never got his 10 games. In December 2017 he told Le Journal de Montréal he hadn’t ruled out a return to reach 1,000. “It’s a step I’d like to accomplish, but I didn’t get to do it in Montreal,” he said, in a translation by Sportsnet’s Eric Engels. “Maybe that will happen at some point, but not at the moment.”

Hall was the first name called at the 2010 draft. On Oct. 13, 2026, he left the game against Washington at 997.

Show the work

Tests written down

Not in advance (exploratory)

Results computed

October 27, 2026

Every NHL regular-season skater and goalie season 1917-18 to 2025-26 (8,776 players), joined to birth dates and draft records. Games are counted raw and scaled to an 82-game schedule (each season’s games × 82 ÷ that season’s schedule length). Career survival and percentiles are Kaplan-Meier estimates: retirement is the event, and active players (1,147: a current team, or games in 2025-26) are censored at the games they have: Ian Cole, at 990 games after 2025-26, counts as a career that lasted at least 990, drops out of the count after that, and never counts as retired. The method assumes an active player will retire at the same rate as players with the same games who already have, which fails for a young birth group (only its early washouts have retired), so no estimate is given for the 1990s-born. The 2005-14 debut estimate (12.9% raw, 13.8% adjusted) sits above the 11.2% reached if all 75 active players at 800-999 make it, because it also gives the 65 active players under 800 a chance (every active player making it would give 15.5% on actual games). Birth groups are compared only at ages every member has reached. The survival method was back-tested by cutting the data off at earlier seasons, and decade shares were re-checked on odd and even birth years. Debut-class figures (the 2010-11 class, the 2010 first round) are plain counts and medians, not estimates.

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Keep reading

• How Hockey Changed: NHL data stories →One chart-led story a day about how the NHL game, its players and its rules have changed.
• The NHL is getting older again →Player age every season since 1917-18, and why the youth wave ended in 2018-19.
• Has the NHL draft become more accurate? →How often each draft slot becomes a regular, era by era.
• NHL player pages →Every current player: stats, lines, ice time and form.

Sources and method

1. NHL stats (NHL.com), every season since 1917-18
2. NHL stats API: skater summary (games played and teams by season), every season since 1917-18
3. NHL stats API: goalie summary, every season since 1917-18
4. NHL stats API: skater bios (birth date, draft, Hall of Fame flag, current team)
5. NHL stats API: team list (team codes and franchise ids)
6. NHL.com: Taylor Hall injury status report (Oct. 19, 2026; 997 games, left Tuesday’s 4-2 win over Washington)
7. NHL.com: game recap, Carolina 2, Boston 1 (Oct. 27, 2026; Hall left the morning skate with a different injury)
8. NHL.com: game recap, Carolina 5, NY Islanders 3 (Nov. 5, 2026; Hall returned after missing nine games)
9. NHLPA: Taylor and Tyler headline the 2010 draft class (June 28, 2010)
10. Dallas Stars: Tyler Seguin becomes the 410th player to reach 1,000 games (Oct. 30, 2025)
11. Chicago Blackhawks: game recap, Montreal 4, Chicago 1 (Ian Cole’s 1,000th game, Oct. 23, 2026)
12. Chicago Sun-Times, Ben Pope: Ian Cole before his 1,000th game (Oct. 22, 2026)
13. HabsWorld, Kevin Leveille: Canadiens part ways with Andrei Markov (July 27, 2017)
14. theScore, Craig Hagerman: Andrei Markov, “I’d have liked it if Canadiens respected me” (December 2017; quotes from Le Journal de Montréal, translated by Sportsnet’s Eric Engels)
15. Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame: Brent Ashton (998 games, nine NHL clubs)
16. Wikipedia: List of NHL players with 1,000 games played (count, Howe’s first, one-franchise players)
17. Wikipedia: 2004-05 NHL lockout (season cancelled February 16, 2005)
18. Wikipedia: 2012-13 NHL lockout (season cut to 48 games per team)
19. Wikipedia: 2020-21 NHL season (cut to 56 games because of the COVID-19 pandemic)
20. Wikipedia: Utah Mammoth (took over the Arizona Coyotes’ players in 2024)
21. World Hockey Association (1972-79)

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