Marleau special to Sharks, San Jose
To know what Patrick Marleau meant to the San Jose Sharks, look no further than the rafters at SAP Center where his No. 12 was raised Saturday night.
To know what he meant to Sharks fans, look no further than April Blair. The 39-year-old San Jose woman delayed her brain surgery to be in attendance when Marleau became the first player in Sharks history to have his number retired.
“If the doctors are not telling me that I need to do it right away, then I can do it right after Patty’s night,” she said of her operation to remove four tumors believed to be benign, “and then have enough recovery time that I can be back for next season.”
Such is the love that Sharks fans have for Marleau, who, fittingly, became the first player in the team’s 31-year history to have his number retired by the organization in a pregame ceremony Saturday night ahead of a game against the Chicago Blackhawks.
Drafted second overall in 1997 as a 17-year-old, Marleau went on to become the Sharks’ career leader in games played (1,607), goals (522) and points (1,111), among other individual statistics. In 2021, Marleau finished his career as the NHL’s all-time leader in games played with 1,779, one spot ahead of the legendary Gordie Howe.
At the time of his retirement, Marleau had skated in over 70 percent of all Sharks games — regular season and playoffs — in the franchise’s history, the highest percentage of any player for any team with at least 1,000 NHL games played.
But along with Marleau’s
record-setting numbers came a blue-collar work ethic and humility that endeared him to local fans.
“First was his play on the ice,” former Sharks general manager Doug Wilson said when asked how Marleau helped grow the Bay Area’s interest in hockey. “Second of all was how he carried himself and the things he did in the community. He lived in the community, married a San Jose girl. The class and dignity he has …
“What he’s done for this organization, for San Jose, I mean, it’s incredible.”
In an area that had rapidly become infatuated with the NHL in the 1990s, Marleau, from tiny Aneroid, Saskatchewan, became the city’s first homegrown hockey superstar. Over two decades, Marleau became as synonymous with the franchise as any other player, both when it climbed to its greatest heights and experienced its biggest disappointments.
The Sharks made the playoffs 15 times in his first 16 seasons with the team as sold-out crowds at what is now SAP Center remained the norm. With Marleau alongside Owen Nolan, Evgeni Nabokov, and Mike
Ricci, and later Joe Thornton, Joe Pavelski, Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Logan Couture, the Sharks became one of the NHL’s most consistently successful franchises.
“There have been a lot of good players who have played in this organization,” Vlasic said. “But right now, or even 10 years ago, if you say San Jose Sharks, the first player that comes to mind — most of the time people say Patrick Marleau.”
“He did everything well,” Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby said of Marleau. “That’s why he played as long as he did and was as successful as he was.”
The face of the franchise also has received the brunt of criticism for the Sharks’ failure to win a Stanley Cup. But that love and respect from the fanbase endured. Before he arrived, San Jose finished last in its division in four of its six seasons of existence; that happened just once over the 20 complete seasons Marleau spent with the organization.
“I know the team wasn’t very good for a while there, but he was one of the beginning pieces that started to get it going and making a bunch of playoff pushes,” Ricci said. “Obviously, we never got to exactly where we wanted to go, and that’s disappointing, but I think for sure he was the one that started it. People saw a young, budding star, and fans grasped that.
“He had a big hand in the popularity of the Sharks.”
Thursday, Marleau was recognized at city hall with a special flag-raising ceremony, as Mayor Matt Mahan declared Saturday Patrick Marleau Day in San Jose.
“I’ve been going through my mind pretty much my whole career and my childhood about how I ended up at this spot,” Marleau said at the event. “I don’t think it’s really going to hit me until I see (the No. 12) go up. For me, it’s all about the support that I’ve had over the years. I want to thank my family and my friends for being there and for making this possible.”
Instead of No. 12, there was a chance the Sharks might be retiring No. 97 on Saturday if Marleau had gotten his way after the draft.
Marleau wore No. 12 as a star player for the Seattle Thunderbirds of the Western Hockey League, and wanted to keep that number for the start of his NHL career. Since former Sharks forward Ron Sutter, younger brother of former Sharks coach Darryl Sutter, already had that number at the time, Marleau wanted to wear No. 97 in San Jose to reflect his draft year. But then-Sharks general manager Dean Lombardi quashed that idea, and Marleau went with No. 14.
Sutter wore No. 12 until he left the team in 2000, and defenseman Brad Stuart, then forward Bill Lindsay, wore No. 12 during the 2000-2001 season.