Simmonds to play 1,000th NHL game with hometown Maple Leafs

TORONTO --Playing 1,000 NHL games was a bit of a pipe dream for Wayne Simmonds growing up.

The kid from Scarborough, Ontario, had his career sputter before it even began after being passed up twice in the Ontario Hockey League draft. But then he made a last-minute decision to pass up a scholarship to Bowling Green University to head to juniors with Owen Sound.
Now that long ago pipe dream is about to become a reality when he takes the ice for the Toronto Maple Leafs against the visiting Vancouver Canucks at Scotiabank Arena on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; SN, ESPN+, NHL LIVE).
"I don't think I ever really thought about it, to be honest, during my career. It was always kind of just one game at a time," Simmonds said. "It was a blessing just to be in the NHL, in and of itself. So, it was always just take everything that came my way, try to make the best of it, and 14 years later, here we are at 1,000, so it's pretty cool."
"It's been a long journey but I'm definitely happy."
That journey has taken him through Philadelphia, where he established himself as one of the NHL's premier power forwards over the course of 584 games from 2011-2019 with the Flyers. There were also brief stops with the Nashville Predators (17 games), New Jersey Devils (61), and Buffalo Sabres (seven) before he headed home to Toronto as an unrestricted free agent ahead of the 2020-21 season and has played 90 games.
"This guy has never had an easy game," Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. "The way he plays the game, the game has extra demands on someone like him and how he plays. It's impressive, we're incredibly proud of him."
"He brings a lot of spirit to our group. He's a passionate guy, a vocal guy, so both our dressing room and our bench are a lot louder since he's come around. He's a very competitive guy."
The road to 1,000 games began on the West Coast when the Los Angeles Kings selected him in the second round (No. 61) of the 2007 NHL Draft. He made his NHL debut with the club on Oct. 11, 2008.
Fast forward to today and Simmonds credits Mike Futa, now a senior consultant to Carolina Hurricanes general manager Don Waddell, for helping launch his NHL career. Futa, who joined the Kings as their director of amateur scouting just 17 days prior to the 2007 draft, pushed to select the forward. After all, he was keenly aware of what Simmonds could bring as it was Futa who was the general manager at Owen Sound when Simmonds played there.
"Getting me to the OHL and drafting me to the Los Angeles Kings, he put his career on the line for me," Simmonds said. "It was his first year there as [director] of amateur scouting, so he is definitely up there for me."
And, likewise, Futa is proud of the success Simmonds has achieved.
"It's one of the best stories that I've ever had in hockey," Futa said. "It just seems like yesterday I was meeting with him and his family, convincing him to come to Owen Sound, and now he's about to play his 1,000th game. He's a guy that has done so much in the community. Not only has he broken down all the barriers to become an incredible NHL player, but he's an incredible human being as well."
In 2012 Simmonds started Wayne's Road Hockey Warriors, a summer ball hockey tournament in his hometown of Scarborough aimed at raising funds to help children of all ethnicities in the area get the same opportunity he had to play hockey.
"It was just instilled in me from my parents at a young age," Simmonds said. "I watched my parents work extremely hard as a young kid. I worked with my dad in the summers doing construction work. Everything they went through to get me to this point, obviously, I can't say enough about my parents. They definitely instilled hard work and dedication into me, and I've always lived by that."
That hard work and dedication is something Justin Williams, who was a teammate of Simmonds with the Kings for parts of three seasons, noticed immediately.
"He kind of looks the exact same back then as he does now," Williams said. "He was always wiry but strong and would stick up for his teammates. But he always worked - that goes without saying - and to see he's reached 1,000 games, it's quite an accomplishment.
"I liked having him around because I have a set of chicken legs myself so he was the only guy when we were walking around the gym, I could say I had bigger legs than him. That was nice for me."
Despite his lean, 6-foot-3 frame Simmonds has never shied away from playing a physical style. He has scored 521 points (262 goals, 259 assists) and has 1,219 penalty minutes in his first 999 games.
Matt Nichol, who has trained Simmonds for more than 10 years, can testify to the work ethic.
"He's not low maintenance, he's no maintenance," Nichol said. "I think he trusts slowly but when he does trust, he trusts implicitly. For him, it's 'You tell me what you need me to do and it will get done.' He is one of the hardest-working, most low-key, humble guys you will ever encounter."
It's that combination that has helped Simmonds earn the respect of his teammates everywhere he has played. Current linemate Jason Spezza is among the admirers.
"The career he has had has been remarkable, how hard he plays, the physicality, the fighting, hitting, playing around the net, those are hard jobs to do," said Spezza, who has played 1,227 NHL games himself.
Reaching the milestone is not only a cherry on top for the career of Simmonds, but doing it in front of the hometown faithful makes it even sweeter. And for Maple Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas, Simmonds has delivered exactly what was expected upon his arrival.
"We brought him in here because we felt we didn't have enough players like Wayne Simmonds," Dubas said. "And he certainly added a lot to our group.
"Just not the same usual path that most other people take to get [to the NHL]. Everyone knows he competes every single night. So that's a hard 1,000 games. Not that it's ever easy but I think in his case, in particular, what he's gone through and how he's gone about it, I think is a great example for every single player in our room and others in hockey."