A thou moment
Keith calls playing in 1,000th game ‘huge accomplishment’ Seabrook sets record for longevity
The Blackhawks were playing out the string last season when former Hawks defenseman Adrian Aucoin brought his kids to the United Center for a game.
The family headed to the locker room afterward to see old friends, especially Duncan Keith, who had lived at the Aucoin house for a brief period early in his career.
Keith is such a family favorite that Aucoin’s son Kyle, a Harvard commit, patterned his game not after his father — who played 1,108 NHL games and is a former Hawks captain — but Keith.
As the family said hello to players and trainers, the kids began looking around and noticed something: Keith was nowhere to be found.
“I said, ‘I guarantee I know where he is,’ ” Aucoin said. “So I take them around the training room, through the equipment room. He’s still working out.”
This was a meaningless game late in a lost season, and despite the allure of a long summer break just days away, Keith, who has three Stanley Cups and two Norris trophies, was focused on his next season, his next game, his next shift.
“That’s just the way he is,” Aucoin said.
That Keith is, and on Saturday night at the United Center against the Blues, he played in the 1,000th NHL game of a no-doubt-about-it Hall of Fame career.
“It’s obviously a huge accomplishment,” Keith said. “I’m proud of it. More than anything I’m proud to be in the NHL this long and play with a lot of great players and a great organization for a great coach. Just all the good players and good guys that I’ve been able to be on this ride with.”
The ride isn’t nearly over. Keith, 35, is in the ninth year of a 13-year, $72 million contract and he said last season that he would like to play until he’s 45, which might raise eyebrows for some but not for arguably the most fit player in the league.
With his extraordinarily powerful legs, Keith still has one of the fastest first steps in the NHL. But that only makes one of Aucoin’s memories of Keith that much funnier.
“He’s one of the slowest people at doing everything in the world except when he’s on the ice or in training,” Aucoin said. “He eats slow, he talks slow, he walks slow, he responds to things slowly. It’s hilarious.
“We’d just sit there and I’d laugh because he would eat slower than all the kids. I’d be like, ‘Duncs, how are you the fastest player I know but you’re just slow at everything else?’ He was like, ‘I don’t know, my mom taught me to chew my food.’ He takes everything to a new level of eating properly, training properly. Everything he does has a purpose.”
Keith has the most seniority of any Chicago athlete, if you start from when he was taken in the second round of the 2002 draft, 54th overall. If you start from when Keith made his NHL debut he’s tied, fittingly, with fellow Hawks defenseman Brent Seabrook, whose career also began on Oct. 5, 2005.
As defensemen who literally have been at each other’s side almost every step of the way, the two will be linked for their sustained excellence, their winning and for a ferociously competitive nature.
“It has been a long marriage,” said Seabrook, who beat Keith to playing in his 1,000th game late last season. “We’ve had our marital spats over the years and all that, but he’s a great guy. It was never personal between the two of us. We wanted to win, especially when we were playing a lot of minutes together in a lot of big games. We wanted the best out of each other, and that was part of pushing each other to be the best.
“That was when our fights would boil over, but (when) the game was over we were back to good buddies, best buddies and just enjoying it. We’ve always had the same goal, we want to win. We want to continue to win, we want to continue to give ourselves opportunities to win the Stanley Cup.”
Joel Quenneville took over as Hawks coach early in Keith’s fourth season and watched as he grew from being one of the NHL’s better defensemen to a long run being in the conversation as the best.
Quenneville was there when a puck took out seven of Keith’s teeth during Game 4 of the 2010 Western Conference finals (yet only cost Keith a few shifts). He was there during Game 6 of the 2015 Stanley Cup Final when Keith saw a play developing from inside his own blue line, burst down ice and put back his own rebound. It was the only goal the Hawks would need in a Cupclinching 2-0 victory.
But what Quenneville treasures the most about Keith is tied to the reason he was honored Saturday.
He simply plays the game. Season after season, game after game, shift after shift.
“The more he plays, the more he likes it, the better he plays,” Quenneville said. “For a number of years and a number of games, and the bigger the games, the more he would play. It’s not normal. But now not too many guys are up over 25 (minutes) in today’s game. … But he has done it for a long time.”
Yes, he has. For 1,000 games, to be exact.
It was Duncan Keith’s milestone night but Brent Seabrook made a little history, too.
Seabrook became the Blackhawks’ all-time leader in regular-season games played by a defenseman on Saturday, surpassing Bob Murray’s mark of 1,008. Murray, currently the Ducks’ general manager, spent his entire playing career with the Hawks (1975-1990).
Seabrook trails Stan Mikita (1,396 games) by a wide margin but he and Keith, who played in his 1,000th game against the Blues, should pass Bobby Hull (1,036) and Eric Nesterenko (1,013) later this season to reach No. 2 and 3 on the Hawks’ all-time list for games played.
The Hawks’ long-serving blueliners became the only active teammates each to have played at least 1,000 career games. The 973 games in which they have played together are the ninth-most all-time for any NHL pair and most ever for defensemen.
“That’s a pretty remarkable stat,” coach Joel Quenneville said of the record for most games together as defensemen. “(They) have been a big part of our organization, big part of the success.”
Patrick Kane (827 games) and Jonathan Toews (796) will reach their 1,000-game milestone — barring injury or a work stoppage — sometime during the 2020-21 season.
Chris Kunitz has played 970 games with six franchises and is on target to reach the milestone Dec. 14 vs. the Jets at the United Center.
“The more he plays, the more he likes it, the better he plays. It’s not normal.” — Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville on Duncan Keith
He’s got next: Goalie Corey Crawford, who hasn't played since Dec. 23 after suffering a concussion, is expected to make his first start of the season Thursday night against the Coyotes at the United Center. Crawford has been practicing at full speed and appears to be ready to go.
“Looking forward to it,” Quenneville said. “I’m sure he is, too.”