Patrick Marleau

Patrick Marleau was born in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, on September 15, 1979, and grew up on his family's farm near Aneroid. There's a sign out on Highway 13 that says it's his hometown. He played two seasons with the Seattle Thunderbirds in the WHL, scoring 51 goals and 125 points as their captain in 1996/97.

The Sharks took him second overall in the 1997 draft, one pick after Boston took Joe Thornton. He was the youngest player in that draft, and he made his NHL debut on October 1, 1997, at 18 years and 6 days old, the youngest debut in the league since 1945. He didn't leave the lineup for a very long time.

He learned the defensive side of the game under Darryl Sutter and grew into a 20 goal, 50 point player. Midway through 2003/04 the Sharks gave him the C for good after Owen Nolan left, and he went to his first All Star Game that season and led us to the conference final, with 8 goals in 17 playoff games.

After the lockout he broke out with 34 goals, 52 assists and 86 points in 2005/06, the same season Thornton arrived. In January 2007 he passed Nolan as the franchise leader in points and goals, and within a few weeks he had the assists record too. He was a Lady Byng finalist twice, in 2006 and 2014, because he played that fast and that clean.

He lost the captaincy in the summer of 2009 and answered with the best goal scoring year of his life: 44 goals and 83 points in 2009/10, on a line with Thornton and Dany Heatley. He reached 30 goals in just 47 games, the fastest in franchise history. Then he won Olympic gold in Vancouver, and in the playoffs he scored the overtime winner in Game 3 and the series clincher in Game 5 against Detroit.

On January 17, 2011, he played his 1,000th game and scored early against Phoenix, the youngest player ever to hit 1,000 games with one franchise. When the 2013 season finally started after another lockout, he scored two goals in each of the first four games, something only Cy Denneny had done before him, back in 1917/18. He scored his 400th career goal that March.

He won a second Olympic gold in Sochi in 2014. In 2016 he finally got to the Stanley Cup Final with us, with 13 points in 24 playoff games. On January 23, 2017, he scored four goals in the third period in Colorado, the first Shark ever to score four in a period, and on February 2, 2017, in Vancouver, he scored his 500th, only the 17th player to do it with his original team.

In July 2017 he signed with Toronto. It hurt. He left holding nearly every offensive record in Sharks history, and he played two seasons as a Maple Leaf. When Carolina got him in a trade in 2019 and bought him out, he came home. He signed back on October 9, 2019, and the next night scored twice in a 5 to 4 win over Chicago. Later that month he played his 1,500th game as a Shark.

We traded him to Pittsburgh in February 2020 so he could chase a Cup, and the Penguins lost to Montreal in four games. He came back to San Jose that October for one last season, and on April 19, 2021, in Las Vegas, he played his 1,768th regular season game and passed Gordie Howe for the most in NHL history. Two nights later he became only the fourth player with 900 straight games.

He finished with 1,779 games, 566 goals and 1,197 points. With the Sharks alone he played 1,607 games and scored 522 goals, 589 assists and 1,111 points, all franchise records except the assists, where he's second to Thornton. He also holds the Sharks records for power play goals, shorthanded goals, game winning goals and shots. He announced his retirement on May 10, 2022.

On February 25, 2023, before a game against Chicago, the Sharks retired number 12, the first number in franchise history to go to the rafters. Thornton spoke, Owen Nolan and Evgeny Nabokov sat on the ice, and Rollie Fingers, Chris Mullin and Barry Bonds walked out with him for the banner. He and his wife Christina still live in San Jose with their four sons, and he still works with the Sharks.

Marleau's stats are full of big goals. His 109 career game winning goals are tied for seventh in NHL history, and 101 of them came in teal, the franchise record. When the Sharks needed a goal, the puck usually found its way to number 12.

The 2010 playoffs were his best stretch. In Detroit, in Game 3 of the second round, he scored in overtime at 7:07 after we came back from two down in the third. Back home in Game 5 he scored the winner that closed out the Red Wings. Then he scored five of our seven goals against the eventual champion Blackhawks.

He had big moments in 2008 too, scoring shorthanded goals on back to back days in Games 3 and 4 against Dallas, the first player to do that in the playoffs since Brett Hull in 2002. His 72 career playoff goals, 68 with us, are why we kept believing every spring.