One thousand regular-season wins.
That’s a lot of goals, saves, hits, shot blocks, stitches, emotion, pressure, jubilation and everything else that comes with a single game in the National Hockey League.
And now, since the NHL’s inception in 1917, the Nashville Predators are the 27th franchise in League history to reach the mark.
Doing so in just their 26th season is no small feat. No club that has come after them since 1998 has reached the plateau, and since that first puck drop in October of that year? Only 10 NHL clubs have more victories in the regular season.
In fact, the Preds are the second-fastest team in NHL history - 2,020 games played - to achieve the feat.
A pair of goals from Steven Stamkos on Tuesday in a 5-3 win over Vegas helped to give the Preds their 1,000th win in club history, a storybook moment the night before the Predators officially unveiled the Golden Hall to celebrate the franchise’s top members.
“It’s really amazing, actually, to be part of two different big events in different ways,” Preds Head Coach Andrew Brunette said following the 1,000th win. “I’ve been really grateful for my career to be able to do some certain things, and that definitely is one. You go through this hockey life that I've gone through, and you sometimes look back…every day this year, you're looking forward, but to be part of that is really special, and I think I'm very grateful for having that opportunity, and the people that let me have that opportunity. So, it couldn't have come at a better time with what's going on tomorrow, with David [Poile] and Pekka [Rinne] and Shea [Weber being inducted into the Preds Golden Hall]. I know there's a lot of alumni in the building, and I hope everybody feels a little better about the Nashville Predators tonight when we go home.”
So, how did we get here? Let’s take a look back at the other milestone victories over the past 25 years for the Predators - starting with the first triumph, and then every hundredth after that.