Ryan Reaves still has one more box he wants to check before he calls it a career: 1,000 NHL games. The former Rangers forward is 38 games away from that milestone, and he’s hoping the right team gives him the chance to get there.
Reaves, now 39, has already put together a long run across 16 NHL seasons. He played for the Rangers in 2021-22 and the first 12 games of 2022-23 before getting traded to the Minnesota Wild, and his career has since taken him through seven teams. That includes the San Jose Sharks in 2025-26, part of a resume that stands at 962 regular-season games.
The milestone he’s chasing comes with a Silver Stick, the league’s recognition for players who reach 1,000 games. Only 425 NHL players - 421 skaters and four goaltenders - have done it. Reaves knows exactly what’s at stake, and he says he still has enough left to keep going.
“Playing 1,000 games in the NHL is an honor for sure, especially in the role that I play,” Reaves said Thursday on TSN1050’s First Up. “I’ve been training all summer already and the body is holding up pretty well. I just think I’ve got one more [season] left in the tank.”
He became a free agent on July 1 and is still waiting on a new landing spot, though he said his camp has spoken with “a couple or teams.” For now, patience is part of the process.
“No offers. Interest doesn’t pay the bills and interest doesn’t get you on the ice,” he said. “I think at my age, I’m going to be one of the last puzzle pieces for some teams and I’m fine with that.
“I’m hoping an offer comes somewhat soon. I’ve got to get the kids into school and on hockey teams and gymnastics and all that, so that’s part of the business.”
Reaves’ most recent season ended early because of a hand injury in March. He finished with three points, all goals, and 37 penalty minutes in 50 games.
His Rangers stint was brief but memorable. He played 81 regular-season games on Broadway in a little over one season, posting 13 points - five goals and eight assists - along with 55 penalty minutes. Twenty-five of those penalty minutes came in five of his 94 career fighting majors, with four others coming for non-fighting incidents.
One of the defining moments of his latest season came against the Rangers, when he tangled with Matt Rempe during San Jose’s 6-5 overtime win at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 23. The fight was one of the season’s most talked-about scraps, and Rempe was left with a broken thumb that required two surgeries and ended his season.
“He asked to go off the draw,” Reaves told the media afterward. “I said I was gonna go run somebody first, and then it happened immediately.
It was a good tilt. He’s a big boy, and you have to fight guys like that a little bit differently.
I’ve seen him fight, so I know what he’s good at, what his weaknesses are. It was a good tilt.”
Reaves was drafted in the fifth round, No. 156 overall, by the St. Louis Blues in the 2005 NHL Draft.
He spent seven seasons in St. Louis before moving on to the Penguins, Vegas Golden Knights, Rangers, Wild, Toronto Maple Leafs and Sharks.
Since arriving in the NHL with the Blues in 2010-11, he has 68 goals, 140 points and 1,137 penalty minutes. He has topped 100 penalty minutes four times, and his best offensive season came with Vegas in 2019-20, when he scored nine goals and finished with 20 points.
He also played all 18 games for the Rangers in the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs, when New York reached Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Final before being eliminated by the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Reaves will turn 40 on Jan. 20, 2027, and he’s not hiding from that reality. He pointed to the advice he’s heard from older players throughout his career and said he wants to keep skating as long as he can.
“As I came into the League and the older guys have given me advice, one [piece of] advice that has been consistent throughout all of them is play as long as you possibly can, because when it’s over, it’s over,” he told TSN1050. “You’re going to miss it.
You don’t want to have regrets of ‘I could have played one more year, I shouldn’t have shut it down.’ I don’t want to have that regret.
I think one more year would be fun and to say I played at 40 would also be fun.”
Three players were in the NHL last season at age 40: Alex Ovechkin, Corey Perry and Brent Burns. All three are back this season, and they’ll be joined by Evgeni Malkin, who turns 40 on July 31.
Whether Reaves gets that Silver Stick remains unsettled. But the goal is clear, and he’s still looking for the opportunity to make it happen.
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