Penguins' Marcus Pettersson still going strong after 82 regular-season games
When preparing for an NHL season, players aim to make sure their bodies can stand up to an 82-game grind.
For Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Marcus Pettersson, that won’t be enough.
The 22-year-old Swede is set to play in his 83rd game of the season when the Pittsburgh Penguins take on the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday night.
When Pettersson was traded to the Penguins for winger Daniel Sprong, Pettersson had already played in Anaheim’s first 27 games of the season. The Penguins had only completed the first 25 games on their schedule, though, giving Pettersson the opportunity for 84 if he stayed in the lineup the rest of the way.
He has, and if Pettersson does hit 84, he’ll be the 10th NHL player to appear in more than 83 games since the league went to its current schedule in 1995-96.
Penguins assistant general manager Bill Guerin set the modern-day record by playing 85 games with Edmonton and Boston in 2000-01. Rem Murray tied that mark with the Rangers and Nashville in 2002-03.
“That is interesting,” Pettersson said. “It’s a weird kind of coincidence. It’s a lot of fun playing a lot of hockey.”
Playing more than 82 games is more than a trivia footnote for Pettersson, though. It shows that he has arrived as a full-time, everyday NHL defenseman.
Last year, in his first season in North America, Pettersson played twice as many games with Anaheim’s AHL affiliate in San Diego as he did with the Ducks.
“It’s been huge,” Pettersson said. “I had not even a quarter of a season last season. To come in and play almost every game this year has been huge for a learning experience, having to take every night as it comes and kind of stay even keel throughout a whole season. It’s a long season. It’s been a huge part of my development, for sure.”
And for the record, Pettersson said he’s holding up just fine physically even as his breakthrough season has stretched past 82 games.
“Pretty good,” he said. “Still young.”
Jonathan Bombulie is the TribLive assistant sports editor. A Greensburg native, he was a hockey reporter for two decades, covering the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins for 17 seasons before joining the Trib in 2015 and covering the Penguins for four seasons, including Stanley Cup championships in 2016-17. He can be reached at jbombulie@triblive.com.
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