With the Anaheim Ducks’ game November 15 against the Boston Bruins, so skates Antoine Vermette in his 1,000th NHL game.
Drafted 55th overall by the Ottawa Senators in the second round of the 2000 NHL Entry Draft, Antoine Vermette made his NHL debut October 9, 2003.
Vermette's rookie campaign ended with his first taste of NHL postseason action by playing in four playoff games in the spring of 2004.
The Quebec-born forward enjoyed the better part of five seasons playing with the Sens before he was traded to Columbus on March 4, 2009 – just in time to play 17 regular season games with the Blue Jackets, during which he scored 13 points en route to playing four games during the franchise's first trip to the Stanley Cup playoffs.
His first game as a member of the Blue Jackets on March 7, 2009 also marked the beginning of an impressive 482 consecutive regular season games played streak that ended six-plus years later on October 24, 2015 when an injury kept him out of the Arizona Coyotes’ lineup.
In Vermette’s first full season with the Blue Jackets he hit career highs in three categories, ending the 2009-10 regular season with 27 goals, 38 assists and 65 points before heading to the desert.
After three-plus seasons in Columbus, the durable forward spent three years with the Coyotes before a twist of fate led him to hoisting Lord Stanley's Cup in 2015. He was traded to the Blackhawks on February 28, 2015 and became a key part of Chicago's third Stanley Cup win in six years. Vermette made important contributions by scoring seven points in the postseason, including three game-winning goals – two of which came in the Stanley Cup final series versus Tampa Bay.
He returned to the Coyotes for a second stint in 2015 before moving onto the Anaheim Ducks in 2016. Now in his second season with the club, Vermette has already enjoyed one milestone with the team by surpassing the 500-point mark at the start of the season.
Since entering the league in 2003-04, Vermette has won the fourth-most faceoffs among all NHL players during that time period, and he currently boasts a career faceoff-winning percentage over 56%.
Vermette is the second active skater this season to hit the 1,000-game mark after Rick Nash did so with the New York Rangers on October 26. With puck drop tonight at Honda Center, Vermette becomes the 313th NHL player of all time to reach the milestone.