If Teemu Selanne decides to retire rather than keep his NHL career going at the age of 43, he’ll be hanging up his skates as one of the all-time greats. He has more goals and points than any Finnish player ever, he’s won the Stanley Cup, the Calder Trophy, and was the first player to ever capture the Maurice Richard Trophy.
He’s a future Hall of Famer, but even for a guy like him, there’s always that one extra milestone or accomplishment that’s still out there to be claimed, especially in the NHL with its long and rich history.
So what major accomplishments could Selanne achieve if he decides to extend his career? As part of our Anaheim Ducks day coverage, we’re going to highlight some of the big ones:
-- Among Finnish-born players, there’s still one major statistical category that Selanne isn’t the leader in: assists. Jari Kurri has 797 career assists to Selanne’s 755. In other words, Selanne would need to have a pretty good season to surpass Kurri in 2013-14, but that’s certainly not an impossible goal given that Selanne recorded 49 assists as recently as 2010-11.
-- Selanne is already the Anaheim Ducks’ franchise leader in games played, goals, and assists, but he could also become the first Anaheim player to ever record 1,000 points in their uniform. Currently Selanne has recorded 961 points as a member of the Ducks, so it wouldn’t take a great season from him to reach that milestone.
-- When it comes to games played, Selanne ranks 36th in the NHL’s all-time leaderboard with 1387. If he plays in at least 71 games next season, he’ll rocket up the list and surpass Glen Wesley, along with retired greats like Luc Robitaille and Paul Coffey. The question is where Selanne will end up if he surpasses Wesley and there’s no simple answer. Selanne could end up as high as 20th, but Jaromir Jagr and unrestricted free agent Roman Hamrlik are both ahead of Selanne, so it’s possible for The Finnish Flash to play in a full 82 games and still end up in 22nd place.
-- Selanne has 1430 career points, which is good for 15th place on the NHL’s career list. That’s just 37 points shy of Hall of Famer Stan Mikita.
-- Perhaps the most interesting thing to watch would be the goal race between Selanne and Jagr. Selanne is 11th on the NHL’s all-time list with 675 while Jagr ranks 10th with 681. Even if Selanne can’t catch up to Jagr though, he is in a position to pass some legendary players like Mario Lemieux (690), Steve Yzerman (692), and Mark Messier (694). Keep in mind that after Selanne and Jagr, the next highest goal scorer on the active list is 36-year-old Jarome Iginla with 530 goals and after that Marian Hossa has 434 goals, so it might be a very long time before anyone else reaches the heights that these two aging stars have achieved.
-- An Olympic gold medal. After all, he was invited to Finland’s orientation camp. The best Selanne has ever done in the Olympics was a silver medal in 2006.