He was dubbed, by one Postmedia reporter, “the player nobody wanted.” Undrafted in the Ontario Hockey League. Undrafted in the National Hockey League. Signed as minor league fodder by the Calgary Flames mere weeks after the club lost in the 2004 Stanley Cup Final.
Roughly 17 and a half years later, the majority spent in the Flames organization, Mark Giordano plays his 1,000th NHL game on Saturday night when the Seattle Kraken visit the Washington Capitals.
Like everything else in Giordano’s career, 1,000 games didn’t come easy.
He was a walk-on with Owen Sound Attack in the OHL, eventually progressing to be a pretty good junior player.