Dustin Brown and Marian Gaborik's Journey to 1,000 Games

Dustin Brown and Marian Gaborik have taken their own unique paths towards 1,000 games.
The 33-year-old Brown has played with the Kings his entire career.
The 35-year-old Gaborik is with his fourth organization.
Brown has been a wrecking ball of a forward, someone who has combined a heavy hitting game with two-way headiness and scoring touch.
Gaborik has used his speed, shot and ability to find open ice to score at least 30 goals seven times and reach the 40-goal mark three times.

In many ways, they exemplify that no two players who hit 1,000 games are alike in skill-set alone. Instead, they are bound by something deeper than just talent. It's an ability to figure out how to stay in the NHL, be productive for an extended period of time and adapt with the game as it changes.
"There's all varying degrees of skill level, but to be able to stay in the league and find a job year-to-year for that long, that's part of it," Brown said.
Gaborik currently has played in 997 games and Brown has played in 994. Only 313 players in NHL history have played in 1,000 games.
"It's impressive. And not only that, at that point, approaching 1,000 games, they're still very productive players," Kings coach John Stevens said.
Brown has been doing quite a bit of reflection of late about his early NHL moments. After being selected with the 13th overall pick in the 2003 Draft by Los Angeles, Brown made his debut on Oct. 9, 2003 and scored his first goal on Nov. 22, 2003. Those are the events that have stuck out as he has hit this point of his journey.
"It seems like such a long time ago that I was playing my first game and scoring my first goal and all those sorts of milestones," Brown said.

Brown also finds it somewhat neat that he will likely become the second King to play all of his 1,000 games with the organization behind Dave Taylor, who was the team's general manager for the 2003 Draft.
"There's only one other person who has done it and it's actually the guy who drafted me, so it's kind of a full circle for me," Brown said.
For Brown, his biggest moments in his career are obvious - captaining the Kings to two Stanley Cups.
"I could score 50 goals a year, it wouldn't matter if we don't have a chance to play for the Cup," Brown said. "As a player that's all that really matters. If you told me I could score 10 points this year and we would win a Cup, I would sign."
Gaborik was picked third overall by the expansion Minnesota Wild in the 2000 NHL Draft. He quickly became the team's biggest offensive threat and most exciting player. His 42 goals and 83 points in 2007-08 are still single-season Wild bests. His 219 all-time Wild goals are the most in team history.
After signing with the New York Rangers as a free agent before the 2009-10 season, Gaborik scored 41 goals or more twice during his time in New York that lasted three-plus years.
In the 2012-13 season, he got traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets, where he spent 34 games over parts of two years, before eventually landing in Los Angeles via trade in 2013-14 and fulfilling his hockey dream by winning the Stanley Cup in 2014.
"Time is flying. It has gone by pretty quickly. In a perfect world I would have hit it way earlier than this. Well I haven't hit it yet, but it would happen earlier, but hopefully things will go well and I can hit it right on schedule right now," Gaborik said. "I mean I spent a lot of years in Minnesota. Great experience. New York obviously was something different, but really enjoyed my time there. Columbus was kind of like a short stop and here winning a Cup, that was definitely a dream come true."
Gaborik was cautious in discussing his closing on 1,000 games in part because injuries have slowed his trek. He has played over 70 games six times in his career and was hurt at the start of the season, only recently coming back into the lineup in late November and scoring four goals in seven games.
"I try not to think about it but it's in the back of my head," Gaborik said of nearing the 1,000 game mark. "I just want to take it game-by-game now and hopefully believe it's going to happen in the schedule the way it's supposed to."
As Stevens alluded to, one of the more impressive parts of both players nearing this milestone is that they're both playing impactful roles with the Kings this year. Brown has 24 points in 29 games, while Gaborik hasn't missed a beat despite missing most of the year so far. He scored his 400th career goal in the Kings' Tuesday win against the Wild at home, becoming the 94th player in NHL history to do so.

"It's an admirable thing in my opinion. If you look at a guy like Brownie, he plays the game extremely hard, he plays every night, he's up around the 80, 82-game mark every year and plays as hard as anybody in the league," Stevens said. "Gabby's battled through a lot of injuries and really takes great pride in his fitness and training and being prepared and is a very elite trained athlete and I think when you have an older player that's well trained, he gives himself a chance to be a good player approaching that mark in his career of 1,000 games."