This Week in the NHL: Can Marc-Andre Fleury catch Patrick Roy for second on goalie wins list?
So many games. So little time. What should you focus your NHL hockey fandom on if your favorite team’s games don’t scratch the itch enough?
Welcome to This Week in the NHL. From now until April, we’ll lay out a collection of key games, events and deadlines to watch on the league calendar each week.
So what’s on tap for Jan. 1-7?
Jan. 1: Inaugural PWHL season begins
Toronto will host New York at 12:30 pm. ET and history will be made, with the most elite collection of women’s hockey talent in history finally converging to launch one super league. Each of the league’s ‘Original Six’ teams will play 24-game schedules between Jan. 1 and May 5. Click here to check out Daily Faceoff’s PWHL preview content.
Jan. 1: 2024 Winter Classic
Vegas Golden Knights @ Seattle Kraken, 3:00 p.m. ET
The Seattle Kraken will host the 40th outdoor game in NHL history when the Vegas Golden Knights roll into T-Mobile Park, home of Major League Baseball’s Seattle Mariners. The Golden Knights will already be playing their third outdoor game in just their seventh season of existence. Monday will mark Seattle’s first, making them the 29th team to play in one.
Marc-Andre Fleury’s chase for second on all-time goalie wins list
For so long, it seemed like no goaltender could come anywhere close to Martin Brodeur’s NHL-record 691 wins or even Patrick Roy’s second-place mark of 551. In this load-management era, netminders simply don’t play enough. But future Hall of Famer Fleury is a holdover of the previous generation and, at 39, has accumulated the numbers to leapfrog Roy any day now. Fleury sits at 550 wins. The Wild play three games this week, and Fleury might be busier than normal after starter Filip Gustavsson left Saturday’s contest with an injury.
Connor McDavid’s 900th point
The number 900 doesn’t stand out as particularly prestigious. But every time McDavid reaches a new 100-point milestone, it’s fun to take stock of how quickly he did so relative to every other player in NHL history. He was the fifth-fastest player to 800 points and should be the fifth-fastest to 900 as well, trailing only Wayne Gretzky (385 games, LOL), Mario Lemieux (463), Mike Bossy (582) and Peter Stastny (599). McDavid enters this week’s action with 898 in 601 games.
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