Patrick Marleau, Canadian ice hockey player
Patrick Denis Marleau (born September 15, 1979) is a Canadian professional ice hockey forward who is an unrestricted free agent. With 1,779 NHL games played, he is the all-time leader in games played in league history. The San Jose Sharks drafted Marleau second overall in the 1997 NHL Entry Draft, and Marleau has spent the vast majority of his NHL career with the franchise, becoming its all-time leader in goals, even strength goals, power play goals, points, shots, and games played. Marleau is also the fourth player in NHL history to record 900 consecutive games played, reaching the mark one game after breaking the overall games played record.
Marleau is one of just five NHL players to play 1,400 games with one team, and the youngest to reach both the 1,300- and 1,400-game marks. He was seven games short of becoming the youngest player to play in 1,500 games with one team before signing with his second team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, in 2017. After two seasons with Toronto, he returned to San Jose in 2019, and was traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins before the 2020 Stanley Cup playoffs. After failing to win a Stanley Cup, Marleau returned to the Sharks as a free agent for the 2020–21 season. Marleau holds the distinction of playing the most NHL games (both regular season and playoffs) without winning the Stanley Cup, an active streak as of the end of the 2020–21 season.
Internationally, Marleau won gold medals with Canada at the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics. Marleau, one of the most important players of the Sharks for nearly 20 seasons, was known as one of the fastest skaters in the NHL and exhibits a high standard of playing ability combined with gentlemanly conduct. This has earned him two nominations for the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy and has made him a popular player both among fans and his professional peers.