Marián Hossa

He was the 44th player in NHL history to score 500 goals, and the 80th player to score 1,000 points.

Marián Hossa (born 12 January 1979) is a Slovak former professional ice hockey right winger.

As a youth, Hossa played in the 1993 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament with a team from Bratislava.

Hossa was drafted by the Ottawa Senators in the first round, 12th overall, of the 1997 NHL Entry Draft.

After spending his first seven NHL seasons with the Senators, he played for the Atlanta Thrashers, Pittsburgh Penguins, Detroit Red Wings, and Chicago Blackhawks.

Hossa was drafted in the first round, 12th overall, by the Ottawa Senators in the 1997 NHL Entry Draft from Dukla Trenčín of the Slovak Extraliga.

Shortly thereafter, he was selected fifth overall in the 1997 Canadian Hockey League (CHL) Import Draft by the Portland Winterhawks of the Western Hockey League (WHL), acquiring his major junior rights in the event that he did not immediately stick with the Senators in the NHL.

After seven games in the NHL, the Senators assigned Hossa to junior, where he tallied 45 goals and 40 assists for 85 points in 53 games with the Winterhawks in 1997–98, earning him the Jim Piggott Memorial Trophy as WHL rookie of the year, as well as CHL and WHL West First Team All-Star honors.

He led the Winterhawks to a President's Cup as WHL champions en route to the 1998 Memorial Cup championship.

Late in the third period of a tied championship game against the Ontario Hockey League (OHL)'s Guelph Storm, Hossa collided with Guelph forward Ryan Davis and suffered a serious knee injury, forcing him out of the game.

The Winterhawks went on to clinch the championship in overtime and Hossa returned to the ice on a chair as his teammates pushed him around with the Memorial Cup to celebrate the victory.

With seven points in four tournament games, Hossa was named to the Memorial Cup All-Star team, along with teammate Andrej Podkonický.

The injury kept Hossa from joining the Senators for his rookie season in 1998–99 until December.

Despite missing two months, Hossa managed 15 goals and 15 assists for 30 points in 60 games to earn NHL All-Rookie honours and finish second to the Colorado Avalanche's Chris Drury in Calder Memorial Trophy voting for rookie of the year.

The following year, in 1999–2000, Hossa improved to 29 goals and 56 points.

However, late in the season, on 11 March 2000, he was responsible for an on-ice accident in which he high-sticked Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman Bryan Berard on the follow-through of an attempted shot.

The resulting one-inch laceration nearly forced doctors to remove the eye and nearly ended Berard's playing career.

Deeply regretful and concerned, Hossa went to visit Berard in hospital the next day to offer an apology to which Berard absolved him of any responsibility.

Hossa recorded 32 goals and 75 points in 2000–01, finishing second in team scoring behind Alexei Yashin and earning his first NHL All-Star Game appearance in Denver.

In the subsequent off-season, his rookie contract expired and Hossa became a restricted free agent.

Unable to come to terms before training camp for the 2001–02 season, Hossa sat out the first two weeks before signing a three-year, $8.5 million contract on 26 September 2001.

Despite Hossa's lucrative new contract, his production would dip to 66 points in the first year of the deal.

Hossa would regain form in 2002–03 with a career-high 45 goals and a team-leading 80 points, while competing in the 2003 NHL All-Star Game in Sunrise, Florida.

He then led the Senators to a long playoff run where they were ultimately eliminated in seven games by the eventual Stanley Cup-champion New Jersey Devils in the Eastern Conference Finals.

Hossa led the Senators with 16 points in 18 post-season games.

The following season, he led the Senators in scoring for the second consecutive season with a personal best 82 points, then added four points in seven games in the playoffs as the Senators were eliminated by the Maple Leafs in the first round.

Due to the 2004–05 NHL lockout, Hossa spent the 2004–05 season playing in Europe.

Beginning the season in Slovakia, he joined Mora IK of the Swedish Elitserien to play with his younger brother Marcel after 19 games with former club Dukla Trenčín.

After 32 points in 24 games with Mora IK, Hossa returned to Dukla Trenčín, where he completed the season for a total of 42 points in 22 games with the team.

With NHL play set to resume the following season in 2005–06 and Hossa's previous contract expired, he signed a three-year, $18-million deal with the Senators.

However, the contract only precipitated a deal that sent him that same day to the Atlanta Thrashers along with defenseman Greg de Vries for all star forward Dany Heatley, who had requested a trade following the death of teammate Dan Snyder in a car crash for which Heatley was ruled responsible.

Hossa joined star winger Ilya Kovalchuk and scored 39 goals and 53 assists for 92 points, surpassing his previous personal best by ten points, in his first season with the Thrashers.

In the 2006–07 season, Hossa made franchise history as the first Thrasher to score 100 points in one season, finishing with 43 goals and 57 assists; along with a plus/minus rating of +18.

He was named to his third All-Star Game in Dallas where he notched four assists.

Over the course of his career, he made five NHL All-Star Game appearances and played in three consecutive Stanley Cup Finals with three different teams, finally winning the Stanley Cup in 2009–10 with Chicago.

He won two additional Stanley Cup championships with Chicago during the 2012–13 and 2014–15 seasons.

Hossa's playing career ended prematurely in 2017, when he announced he was suffering from a progressive skin disorder.

His contract was traded to the Arizona Coyotes in 2018 and he formally retired in 2022.

Hossa accumulated 525 goals and 609 assists for 1,134 points in 1,309 regular-season games over his 19-year NHL career.

He was elected into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2020.