Mason Marchment’s path to 100 NHL goals was never supposed to look like this.
He came into the league as an undrafted player, spent a couple of years in the AHL after his junior career ended, and even picked up ECHL time along the way before finally landing an NHL contract. Now the San Jose Sharks forward has turned that long climb into a milestone: 100 career goals.
“It’s special," Marchment said after scoring the milestone goal on Wednesday night. "My son was here today.
Getting to score for him, it’s pretty awesome. For me, especially when I was younger, never thinking I was going to play [in the NHL] to get 100 goals in the National League, it’s pretty special.”
The numbers behind his journey tell the story of just how unlikely it was. ESPN noted that only 15% of NHL players last season were undrafted.
Marchment also spent time with the Toronto Marlies and was assigned to the ECHL, where the pipeline to the NHL is even thinner. This season, just 64 of the 736 players on opening-night NHL rosters were ECHL alumni, which is less than 9% of the league.
Marchment kept pushing through the minors anyway, and the work eventually paid off. He had success with the Toronto Marlies, including a Calder Cup, and that run earned him his first NHL contract from the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2018. He made his NHL debut with Toronto during the 2019-20 season, then scored his first NHL goal the following season after joining the Florida Panthers.
His career since then has been a tour: Florida, Dallas, Seattle, Columbus, and now San Jose. He signed a long-term deal with the Sharks this summer, returning to the organization with deep family ties through his father, Bryan Marchment.
And now he’s in a club that almost nobody reaches. Of the more than 8,000 players who have appeared in the NHL, only 1,290 have hit 100 career goals. Marchment is one of them now.
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