Mark Recchi is at that point in his NHL career where numbers matter. The figure that seems the least important is 39 – the age of the still high-flying forward.
It’s not hard to feel young in the Pittsburgh Penguins’ dressing room, where Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin have taken over the offensive load before they are even old enough to drink.
“I was trying to hide that,” Recchi said of his age. “It’s obviously been great.”
Recchi, who celebrated his birthday Thursday, is third in Penguins scoring behind his kid teammates. They can only hope at this point to hit the 500-goal milestone that Recchi recently reached.
Like Mats Sundin, who has averaged about a point a game in 1,200 contests, Recchi has kept up that pace in 1,300 NHL games.
With those credentials and two Stanley Cup rings from his first stint with the Penguins and another last season with Carolina, Recchi should receive significant consideration for the Hockey Hall of Fame once he finally hangs it up.
“That’s what keeps me going,” he said of the quest for championships. “I look at our team right now and I see a contender in the not too far distance here. That’s what I play for.
“Ultimately that’s what we all play for. You get a taste of it and you want to keep going. I’d like to take another run at it again.”
Recchi became the 38th NHL player to score 500 when he netted two last week during a shootout win at Dallas. He has 501 goals and 1,313 points in 1,306 games over 18 seasons – placing him 28th on the career scoring list.
His deal with the Penguins is set to expire after the season, but Recchi is looking to stay in Pittsburgh into his 40s.
“I obviously love what I see here. I’d like to be part of that again,” Recchi said. “You never know come summertime whether the organization wants to go a different direction. But obviously I like it here and I like these young guys and I like where they’re going.”
Hurricane warning
Matt Cullen and Aaron Ward missed the banner-raising ceremony honoring the Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes on opening night.
By that time, they were knee deep into the transition period with their new club, the New York Rangers.
Breaking away from the bunch on the eve of the season didn’t seem right, but four months later Cullen and Ward got another chance to celebrate with their former teammates. They made plans for a pre-dawn trip Friday to Washington to meet up with the rest of the Hurricanes and head to the White House for an appearance with President Bush.
“It’s a little bit of a weird feeling,” Cullen said. “I thought they’d maybe do it more in the summer. But whatever, they’re all good friends. We’re all part of it together so it’ll be easy to separate.
“Go there, have fun with the guys, but with the tight race it’ll be able to get the focus back in.”
The Rangers had Friday off and were traveling to Tampa, Fla., in advance of Saturday’s game with the Lightning. Cullen and Ward were set to head south later in the day after the East Room ceremony.
“We’ll be there by dinner time,” Cullen said.
Scoring late
Waiting until the last minute isn’t always so bad.
Dallas defenseman Philippe Boucher scored the NHL’s 26th final-minute tying goal this season when he connected with 2.2 seconds remaining in regulation at San Jose on Tuesday. The late heroics turned into two points as the Stars eventually beat the Sharks in a shootout.
Zach Parise became No. 27 when he netted the tying goal for New Jersey with 31.8 seconds left at Philadelphia on Thursday. The Devils defenseman doubled the excitement when he scored the winner with only 49.5 seconds showing on the overtime clock.
Brian Gionta, the Devils’ 5-foot-7 spark plug, has turned the trick into an art form. Benefiting greatly by rules that allow him to get in close to the net without getting clobbered, Gionta has scored an NHL-leading three tying goals in the final minute of games this season.
In those games, the Devils defeated Toronto and Philadelphia and lost to Nashville.
Of the teams who beat the regulation buzzer, 18 ended up winning. At this point last season, there were 22 goals netted in the closing minute that tied games.
Selling seats
The NHL is claiming great gains at the box office.
Despite minuscule television ratings and declining interest in the second season following the yearlong lockout, the league said 3,193,093 were in attendance for the 187 games last month – the greatest January in the NHL’s 89-year history.
An average of 17,075 per game – which represented 92.3 percent capacity at the 30 rinks – was 1.7 percent higher than last year, the previous-best January, when there was an average of 16,785.
NHL attendance has dropped half a percentage point overall from last season at this point, but it has increased slightly each month of this campaign.
