NO STOPPING HIM
TEAMMATES MARVEL AT 36-YEAR- OLD HOSSA’S STAYING POWER
Marian Hossa has earned the right to be bored.
This is a man who has played 1,175 regular- season games and 194 playoff games. A man who has played on the game’s grandest stage — the Stanley Cup Final— five times in the last eight seasons. A man who has held the Cup aloft three times.
So you’d understand if the 36- year- old veteran wasn’t all amped up to play some regular- season game in October. You’d expect him to just go through the motions at this stage of his 18th NHL season. And you’d probably cut him a little slack.
But, then, you wouldn’t really know Marian Hossa.
“Hoss just keeps going,” teammate and locker- room neighbor Bryan Bickell said. “He still looks like he’s 25, and it’s because of how hard he works and prepares himself. I’ve been sitting beside him for the last five years, and I look up to him, what he does, how he does it, even though I’m almost 30. He’s a guy that plays 110 percent every night, to be ready for every game.”
What drove Hossa in his early days was a youthful desire to score as many goals as possible. By the end of the 2000s, he was motivated by his dream of winning a Stanley Cup, a desperate quest which saw him lose in the Final with the Penguins in 2008 and the Red Wings in 2009 before finally breaking through with the Blackhawks in 2010. And again in 2013. And again in 2015.
Now? It’s pretty simple, really. He’s just having too much fun to do anything else.
“Put it this way,” Hossa said. “Being on this team, it’s exciting. We’ve got lots of fun guys on our team, even just watching sitting on the bench. And it’s a good atmosphere. Maybe If I’m somewhere else, it wouldn’t be the same. But right now, I’m looking forward to it, and I’m still having fun.”
But what separates Hossa from other affable, aging veterans is that he’s still on top of his game. He’s almost certainly the top two- way winger in the game. And his quickness and deftness on the backcheck, his muscle in the corners, his touch around the net and his vision haven’t diminished with age.
If anything, his all- around game keeps getting better.
It looked as though age finally was catching up to Hossa two years ago as a nerve issue in his back nagged at him, but he played all 105 games ( regular- season and postseason) last year, tallying 22 goals and 39 assists. He said he feels as good as he has in a long time, and coach Joel Quenneville said he has been “flying” this fall, skating better than ever. There’s no concern about back- toback games anymore, no need to treat the big Slovak with kid gloves.
“Playing more games is better because nothing’s stopping you,” Hossa said. “If you have long times off [ it’s harder]. Jumping on a moving train is tougher for older guys.”
For the Hawks, Hossa’s late- career success is important for more than just onice reasons. His contract is something of a running joke in hockey circles. He was 30 years old when he signed the front- loaded, 12- year deal, which immediately was deemed an albatross once the rules changed after the 2012 lockout. Hossa will be 42 when the contract ends following the 2020- 21 season. If he retires before then, the Hawks will be slapped with a significant annual cap penalty for the remaining years, depending on how many years are left on the deal.
But here’s the thing. That contract doesn’t seem quite so absurd anymore. With a cap hit of $ 5.275 million, Hossa is a steal. And it’s starting to look more and more possible that Hossa will follow in Jaromir Jagr’s skate marks and play — and play well— into his 40s.
“Absolutely,” Toews said. “It just comes down to what he wants to do, because he has the ability, he has the tools. Really, there’s nothing he can’t do.”