Chris Chelios is the winningest player in NHL history with 880
victories
Chris Chelios became the NHL's all-time regular season wins leader when the Wings defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets 3-0 on Tuesday, January 6th.
It was Chelios' 880th regular season win, passing Scott Stevens who won 879 games with the Washington Capitals, St. Louis Blues, and New Jersey Devils.
Chelios has won 220 games with the Montreal Canadiens, 309 games with the Chicago Blackhawks and 351 and counting with the Detroit.
"It's another great honour, and Cheli has a lot of them," said coach Mike Babcock. "The most special one has to be the playoff games. It just goes to show you that when you play all those playoff games you have done some winning, and he has obviously done a lot of winning in the regualr season too."
Chelios has played in 1,620 regular season games and is the all-time leader in playoff games with 260.
Lidstrom's streak is snapped
The 2009 All-Star Game in Montreal on January 25th will be the first time Wings captain Nicklas Lidstrom is not a starter since 1998.
Lidstrom needs just four assists to tie Larry Robinson for eighth spot all-time for defensmen. He currently has 746 assists. He also needs just two power play goals to tie Brian Leetch for eighth all-time for defenseman.
Other Milestones
Brian Rafalski needs just three points to reach 400. Mikael Samuelsson needs five points to reach 200.Kris Draper is just 11 games shy of 1,000.
Milestones achieved in the Winter Classic
Jiri Hudler scored his 100th point and Henrik Zetterberg picked up his 200th assist.
Carhartt Hardest Working Player of the Month
Pavel Datsyuk was named the Red Wings "Hardest Working Player of teh Month" for December. In 13 games in December Datsyuk scored seven goals and 11 assists for 18 points.
Dominating the Dot
The Red Wings lead the league as team witha faceoff winning percentage of 55.5%. The top five centers on Detroit in terms of faceoffs taken boast a winning percentage of better than 50%. They are as follows:
| Player | Winning % |
| Kris Draper | 60.2% |
| Pavel Datsyuk | 57.3% |
| Johan Franzen | 56.3% |
| Henrik Zetterberg | 53.4% |
| Valtteri Filppula | 50.3% |
This date in Red Wings history
January 6, 2000 - Larry Murphy picked up two assists to become just the third defenseman in NHL history to record 900 career assists.
January 6, 1994 - Slava Kozlov records his first career hat trick in Detroit's 10-3 win over the San Jose Sharks.
Comments
I love reading the milestones. Keep up the great writeups Mike. Very enjoyable reading. Thank you.
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