Yandle NHL’s iron man, for now

Keith Yandle’s hands were soaked in blood, teeth in his fist, some choppers even littered on the ice as he skated off to the locker room hunched in pain, an emergency dental visit ahead.

He lost nine teeth thanks to a puck to the face, got some Novocain and it still hurt the next day.

Yet he played the next game. And the next one. And on it went. Through busted teeth, injuries and slumps and new teams, he played and played and played some more.

On Tuesday night with the Philadelphia Flyers, Yandle played his 965th consecutive game, breaking the long-standing NHL record held by retired centre Doug Jarvis.

For Yandle, it was that November 2019 game, when he played for Florida and was struck by the puck against Carolina, when his iron man ethos truly took hold. He happened to meet Bobby Orr soon after that game and the Hall of Fame defenceman told him, “If you can skate, you can play. When a legend like that is saying it to you, you’ve got to suck it up and play.”

Jarvis never missed a game in his career, playing 964 times from Oct. 8, 1975 to Oct. 10, 1987 with Montreal, Washington and Hartford.

The 35-year-old Yandle started his streak on March 26, 2009 with Phoenix and has played1,075 games in total with the Coyotes, Panthers, Flyers and New York Rangers.

“It’s kind of the way hockey players are built. You kind of try to play through as much pain as you can,” Yandle said recently. “There’s been some times I’ve not felt great. It was tough sledding. But it’s one of those things where you just try to battle through it and help out your team.”

His tenure with the Panthers ended with one giant asterisk to his iron-man status: Yandle had played in 57 straight playoff games, but was a healthy scratch in three of Florida’s playoff dates last season.

Yandle’s regular-season streak was set to end last January when former Florida coach Joel Quenneville said publicly that Yandle would not play the next game — much to the dismay of a close family friend.

“I’ve seen his mouth get destroyed and go back in the game. I can’t understand why anyone would try and sabotage his iron-man streak,” Iona coach Rick Pitino tweeted on Jan. 15, 2021. “Despicable and disappointing.”

Yandle, who was 22 when the streak started, did indeed play and scored his 100th career goal. The Panthers bought out the rest of Yandle’s contract at the end of the season and the Flyers signed him to a one-year, $900,000 (U.S.) deal.

He thought he’d signed with a playoff contender. The Flyers’ slogan this season was “Bring It To Broad.” The “It” turned out was a pair of 10-game losing streaks, the first franchise to ever suffer two within the first 40 games of a season.

Yandle also might not hold the record for long. Arizona’s Phil Kessel has played in 941 consecutive games and is productive enough to keep it going.