A full year before he could become a free agent Greg Pateryn Jersey Womens , the hulking No. 1 defenseman told his agent he wanted to sign a long-term extension with the Tampa Bay Lightning the first day he could. Hedman put pen to paper on an eight-year contract well before the sun went down.”It was never a doubt,” Hedman said that day. ”Staying in Tampa was the No. 1 priority.”Patrice Bergeron felt the same way when he signed his second, third and fourth contract with the Boston Bruins. Like Hedman, Bergeron wanted to stay with the organization that drafted and developed him for as long as possible while taking less money to surround himself with enough talent to win.Now each player is on the road to joining an exclusive and growing club of players who reach 1,000 games with one team. Over the past week, Chicago’s Brent Seabrook and Washington’s Alex Ovechkin became the 49th and 50th players in NHL history to play their first 1,000 regular-season games with the same organization, and that group will welcome many members in the next several years as franchise building blocks lock in to long-term deals.”You’re going to see it more often now,” Capitals defenseman Brooks Orpik said. ”Just the way the CBA is and the way the bigger names probably don’t move around as much as they did in earlier years.”Next season alone, longtime Seabrook defensive partner Duncan Keith and Bergeron are expected to join the one for 1,000 group, with Minnesota captain Mikko Koivu and Los Angeles captain Anze Kopitar in reach of the milestone before the end of 2018-19 if they stay healthy. San Jose’s Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Joe Pavelski, Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin and Chicago’s Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews aren’t far behind as this era of long-term stability produces a parade of silver-stick ceremonies for one-team foundation pieces.”If you’re playing 1,000 games in one organization, you have to be a certain level of player,” said agent Kent Hughes Womens Luke Kunin Jersey , who represents Bergeron. ”It’s really significant because you’re talking about a series of contracts and we’re in a cap world and in order for that to happen in a lot of cases, I think there needs to be a little bit of give and take on both sides.”In Ovechkin’s case, it was a $124 million, 13-year contract signed in early 2008 that then-NBA commissioner David Stern told Capitals owner Ted Leonsis he’d live to regret. The only regret now for Leonsis is not signing his face of the franchise for 15 years, and Ovechkin said if he could turn back time, he’d sign for 16 years.Ovechkin is an anomaly in today’s NHL, where contract lengths were capped at eight years in the last round of collective bargaining talks. Since that CBA went into effect in January 2013, 33 different players have signed eight-year contracts – 28 of whom re-upped with his original team.”It means a lot to any player to get off their career and say, `Well, look at this, I played 1,050 games with one team – my whole career, I’m one of the few,”’ said agent Peter Wallen, who counts one-team players Hedman, St. Louis forward Patrik Berglund and Colorado captain Gabriel Landeskog among his clients. ”The only reason you will stay there for 1 Marcus Foligno Jersey ,000 games is that’s because you’re in the playoffs every year, you know your GM is giving you the opportunity to go deep in the playoffs and they want to win the Stanley Cup.”The other most-recent players to reach 1,000 games with one team – Los Angeles’ Dustin Brown, Detroit’s Henrik Zetterberg and New Jersey’s Patrik Elias – all lifted the Stanley Cup, while Daniel and Henrik Sedin went to the 2011 final and were part of a perennial contender in Vancouver. It’s a delicate balance for teams between paying stars their value and maintaining roster flexibility to contend for several years.”It’s difficult because you can’t let that key player go while he’s in the prime and you have to keep him content,” Hughes said. ”If the player doesn’t work with you, then it becomes more and more of a challenge to find a way to remain competitive.”Yet the one-team, 1,000-game players should keep piling up with the likes of the Flyers’ Claude Giroux, Devils’ Travis Zajac, Bruins’ David Krejci, Kings’ Drew Doughty and possibly the Islanders’ John Tavares – if he re-signs this summer – on pace to hit the mark. Nicklas Backstrom and Evgeny Kuznetsov could follow Ovechkin as the only players to get to 1,000 with the Capitals after none did it in the first 40-plus years of the franchise’s history.”Organizations want to build a core group maybe, and that’s maybe why it’s so common these days that more guys stick with one team,” Backstrom said. ”For me, personally http://www.officialwild.com/authentic-adidas-matt-dumba-jersey , I like that, and obviously not move around. But sometimes you can’t control it, either. I feel like we’ve been fortunate here that we’ve been here a long time, so I’m happy about that.”— CHICAGO — Marc-Andre Fleury’s play in net will go a long way toward determining if the Vegas Golden Knights are going to repeat last season’s success.Of course, if the Golden Knights can produce offensively at a reasonable clip, it won’t hurt.Vegas will carry a three-game winning streak into Tuesday’s road test against the Chicago Blackhawks, who have struggled to establish any sort of rhythm this year coming off their first playoff-free season in more than a decade.Article continues below ...Fleury has recorded back-to-back shutouts, an accomplishment even more impressive considering the veteran goalie did it on consecutive nights. His latest standout performance came in a 6-0 victory over the San Jose Sharks on Saturday when Vegas scored four first-period goals and then coasted behind Fleury, who made 33 saves after shutting out the Calgary Flames on Friday.“I was feeling good, composed, related,” Fleury told reporters after Saturday’s victory, according to the Las Vegas Sun. “I think we’ve been starting to play a bit (more) our style, how we can play and how we should play, and it’s been playing off greatly.”The back-to-back shutouts marked the first time in Fleury’s career he has accomplished the feat on consecutive nights and the third time he has held an opposing team without a goal in back-to-back games. William Karlsson got Vegas (12-12-1) on the board just 14 seconds into the game and the Knights used Fleury’s effort to extend their winning streak.Vegas coach Gerald Gallant said he didn’t mind playing Fleury on back-to-back nights after Fleury didn’t face much pressure on Friday against the Flames. Now, after two days off heading into Tuesday’s game at the United Center Mikael Granlund Jersey , Gallant knows Fleury will be plenty rested to face Chicago.“It makes it easy when you got a guy like Fleury,” Gallant told reporters, according to the Sun. “He had enough work against Calgary, but it wasn’t like he had 50 shots and he had to make outstanding saves back-to-back. We thought he was rested, he felt good, and that made the decision easy for you, especially when he had the shutout the last game.”Like Vegas, the Blackhawks are coming off back-to-back games and a victory after Chicago (9-10-5) picked up a 5-4 victory over the Florida Panthers.The victory, secured by Erik Gustafsson’s overtime goal, snapped Chicago’s eight-game road losing streak and provided the Blackhawks with their third win in their past six games.The victory also preceded the Blackhawks trading Nick Schmaltz to the Arizona Coyotes for a pair of former first-round picks in forward Dylan Strome and Brendan Perlini. Schmaltz told reporters that he was shocked by the trade despite struggling with just two goals and nine assists.General Manager Stan Bowman told reporters on Monday that he believes adding Strome and Perlini improves Chicago’s depth as the Blackhawks continue to try to adjust to the style of coach Jeremy Colliton.“We got two NHL players on our team for one,” Bowman told reporters, according to NHL.com. “You have to give to get. We’re not going to get two really good players like that by not trading away a really good one.”Bowman likes what the new additions bring to the ice.“Watching both Brendan and Dylan play, I think there are a lot of attributes to their game that are going to translate well to how we want to play,” Bowman said. “They bring some size, they’re both big guys.”