Yandle leaves the game without a championship or individual trophy, but currently holds the NHL record for 989 consecutive regular season games played between March 26, 2009 and March 29, 2022. His ironman record looks likely to fall early in the 2022-23 season, Vegas Golden Knights forward Phil Kessel had played 982 consecutive games. Chara won the 2011 Stanley Cup as captain of the Boston Bruins and the 2009 Norris Trophy as the NHL’s best defenseman. Subban won the Norris in 2013 and in 2022 was voted the recipient of the King Clancy Award, going to the player “who best exemplifies leadership qualities on and off the ice and has made a notable humanitarian contribution to his community.” It was a momentous Tuesday with these three retirements falling like dominoes. The NHL doesn’t keep an official record of one-day retirements for grizzled veterans, but league statistician Liv Ellis dug deep to uncover a list of players with as few as 834 games — Subban’s total, less than three — that won the most championships Stanley Cup and individual career awards and never played another game after that season. In the 2009-10 season, 16 players who met the 834-game milestone, combining for 28 Stanley Cup titles and 15 individual awards, did not play again: Chris Chelios, Rod Brind’Amour, Darryl Sydor, Mathieu Schneider, Rob Blake, Bill Guerin, Scott Niedermayer, Vyacheslav Kozlov, Kirk Maltby, Miroslav Satan, Brad May, Stephane Yelle, Paul Kariya, Jere Lehtinen, Pavol Demitra and Aaron Ward. On Tuesday, from his home in Florida, Hall of Fame linebacker Larry Robinson first thought about Chara, whose 1,680 games are the most ever played by anyone at the position. “I remember Chara when he first came to the Islanders,” said Robinson, a six-time Stanley Cup winner with the Montreal Canadiens from 1973-86, whose 1,384 games rank him 15th all-time among defensemen. “He was this huge, huge, huge guy who had a hard time skating. He had no balance, well, little balance, and he really looked a little out of place. I think they started working with him and he made himself into a hell of a hockey player. Everyone looks at how long he’s played, but look at the success he’s had.” Robinson was a senior consultant with the St. Louis Blues in 2018-19 when Hara took a shot of Brayden Schenn in the face during the second period of Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final. The Bruins captain would need two plates with wires and screws to repair his multiple jaw fractures to allow him to play through the Finals, which the Blues won in seven games. “The guy came back to the bench for the third period wearing a mouth guard and a chin guard,” said Robinson, Chara didn’t play in that period but in Games 5, 6 and 7. this is a guy who has a lot of character and desire to win”. “That’s why he was able to play for so long. He kept his desire. He was 40 years old and he was still fighting with kids in the last few years. He was still playing the game the same way in the last years of his career. Congratulations to him. I’m inspired and grateful who preserved the legacy of the defense. Good for him.” In the Czech Republic, retired defenseman Jaroslav Spacek remembered Czar as a gangly teenager in the mid-1990s, skating for Sparta Prague, trying to break into the Czech league. “Everybody saw him as a huge guy, obviously,” said Spacek, now head of youth through youth programs for general manager Martin Straka’s HC Plzen organization. “He wasn’t really skating well and then the Islanders drafted him (in 1996). Everyone was so surprised. But his work ethic got him where he went. He became a captain in the NHL and won a Stanley Cup. I think it was a very good career for him.” Spacek entered the NHL with the Florida Panthers in 1998, a year after Chara debuted with the New York Islanders. “With Chara’s size and the small NHL rink, it didn’t surprise me that he played as long as he did. That may have helped him,” Spacek said. “He went through a few different styles of hockey and adapted to everything. The NHL was more physical when we came in, less like European hockey. Then after the lockout (2004-05), there was more speed, less contact. I was surprised how easily he handled it. this”. Spacek, who played 880 NHL games for eight teams from 1998-2012, admires Yandle’s Ironman record. “That streak is unbelievable, especially for a defenseman,” he said of the durable 6-foot-1, 192-pound Boston native. “You go through the struggles, all the stuff around the net, it’s a wonder he ran that streak as long as he did.” Robinson, too, is impressed by Yandle’s running. “When I met him in Arizona, we did one of (Wayne) Gretzky’s fantasy camps and he happened to be there,” he said. “I was surprised. He’s not really small, but for a guy who plays that position, the size he is, it’s pretty impressive that he can play for that long. Hats off to another player who played that long and also as he did.” Brian Gionta was Subban’s captain for four seasons with the Canadiens, from 2010-14, with a front-row seat to a defenseman who at times had nothing to do with life. “It’s not easy for a young guy with the stars he had in Montreal to handle,” said Gionda of Buffalo. “You can argue PK got distracted by it, but you can also say he still made a good career out of it. A lot of other guys have been swallowed up by the temptations of a big city and a big team like that.”
