Playing time has been sparser for veteran winger Ryan Reaves in recent years but he isn’t ready to call it a career just yet. In a recent appearance on TSN 1050 (audio link), Reaves indicated that he’s still hoping to find a team for the upcoming season.
The 39-year-old played in 50 games with San Jose last season, notching three goals while adding 160 hits and 37 penalty minutes in a little under eight minutes per game of playing time. Those numbers largely mirror how things have gone over the last three seasons as he has gone from a fourth-line regular to one who plays more sparingly with more sheltered minutes.
Reaves has played 16 seasons in the NHL across seven different organizations, spanning 962 games. In those outings, he has 66 goals, 74 assists, 3,225 hits, and 1,137 penalty minutes.
He noted during his interview that he’d like to get to the 1,000 games-played mark in the regular season, something of a rarity for an enforcer while not wanting to call it a career while he still feels he has something left in the tank:
As I came into the league and the older guys have given me advice, one [piece of] advice that has been consistent throughout all of them is play as long as you possibly can, because when it’s over, it’s over. You’re going to miss it, you don’t want to have regrets of ‘I could have played one more year, I shouldn’t have shut it down.’ I don’t want to have that regret.
I think one more year would be fun and to say I played at 40 would also be fun, too.
Reaves stated that a couple of teams have shown some interest thus far although no formal offers have been presented. Considering where he is in his career and the limited role he’d likely play, he’s likely to only receive offers worth the league minimum and filling that particular spot on the roster isn’t generally the top priority for teams at this point in the summer.
Teams still looking to make moves at this point are generally aiming higher in the lineup to land upgrades.
With that in mind, it might take another month or so for any formal offer – a guaranteed deal or a PTO – to materialize. While he made it clear he’d prefer something to get finalized sooner rather than later, patience will have to rule the day if Reaves wants to extend his playing career and have a shot at 1,000 games, a mark that has been reached 425 times in NHL history.