Nashville Predators’ Roman Josi becomes first Swiss-born player with 500 career assists

Josi achieved the feat during Thursday’s 8-4 loss to the Arizona Coyotes. Entering the game with 497 assists in his career, Josi had a three-assist performance on the night to hit the milestone. He started with the secondary assist on Jason Zucker’s second goal of the first period that gave the Preds the early 2-0 lead. Josi then added to it with a secondary assist on Gustav Nyquist’s power play goal midway through the second period to cut the Coyotes lead to 4-3. The Bern, Switzerland product secured the milestone late in the third period with the game in blowout territory by getting the primary assist on Filip Forsberg’s power play goal that made it 7-4 Coyotes.

Josi, who was already the highest-scoring Swiss-born player in NHL history, became the first player from Switzerland to hit the 500-assist milestone in his career. The next closest Swiss-born player to the milestone was defenseman Mark Streit, who had 338 assists in 786 games in his 13-season NHL career, while the next closest active player is Los Angeles Kings winger Kevin Fiala, who has slightly more than halfway to go with 247 assists in 560 games in his 11-season career thus far.

Josi also became the first player in Predators franchise history to hit the milestone, something that isn’t a surprise considering that he has the most career points with the Preds as well. The next closest to the mark was David Legwand, who had 356 assists during his 956 games and 15 seasons with the Preds, while the next closest active Predator is winger Filip Forsberg, who has 314 assists in 689 games and 12 seasons in Nashville.

With the three-assist night, Josi now has 19 goals and 57 assists for 76 points in 73 games this season with what has become a late surge at the Norris Trophy for the defenseman. While he likely won’t surpass his career-high of 96 points in the final nine games of the season, he’s already established his second-highest single season point total in his career with his performance this year.