800th game milestone for Anders Lee created rare NY Islanders and NHL event

When New York Islanders captain Anders Lee stepped onto the ice for his 800th career game on Thursday night in Vegas, it marked a personal milestone but also created a very rare occurrence in the National Hockey League.

800th game milestone created rare NY Islanders and NHL event

Lee was one of four Islanders in the lineup that have played at least 800 games with the franchise. The others being Brock Nelson (881), Casey Cizikas (856), Matt Martin (844). According to statistician Eric Hornick of MSG Networks, that was the first time since Apr. 7, 1986 that it happened for the Islanders when Denis Potvin, Clark Gillies, Bryan Trottier and Bob Bourne all skated in a 9-7 (yes, there were 16 goals scored) loss to the New Jersey Devils at the meadowlands.

Fun Fact: Brad Dalgarno scored his first NHL goal in that game, Pat LaFontaine scored his 30th of the season, and Mike Bossy scored his 61st in the regular season finale.

Four players in the lineup who have played that many games with one team is a rare event, not only in Islanders' history but NHL history. The last time this happened before Thursday night in Vegas was for the Chicago Blackhawks on Nov. 29, 2019, when Brent Seabrook, Duncan Keith, Patrick Kane, and Jonathan Toews took the ice.

What stands out about the 1986 and 2019 occurrences is that all of those players were Stanley Cup champions, with the Islanders winning four consecutive cups from 1980-83 and the Blackhawks hoisting the cup in 2010, 2013, and 2015. The 80's Islanders were a dynasty, and some have used that term to describe those Blackhawk teams, too, even without consecutive championships.

That's what makes the Islanders' current core so unique. It's unusual for so many players to have remaining with the same roster for such a long period time without having won a champiosnhip. The furtherst these Islanders got were consecutive trips to the NHL Semi-Finals/Conference Finals in 2020 and 2021, but have never played for the Stanley Cup and are unlikely to do so on Long Island unless something drastically changes in performance between now and the end of the year.