Jay Woodcroft and the Edmonton Oilers received some praise from San Jose Sharks captain Logan Couture for allowing veteran defenceman Jason Demers to play in his 700th NHL game over the weekend.
With Cody Ceci back in Edmonton for the birth of his child, the Oilers recalled Demers from AHL Bakersfield ahead of their game on Saturday in San Jose. Demers had been sitting at 699 NHL games played for nearly two years and he was able to finally reach the 700 games played mark playing against his former team.
Following the game, Couture talked about how Demers had been a healthy scratch late in the pandemic-shortened 2021 season while with the Arizona Coyotes…
“Happy to see him get a chance to play 700 games,” Couture said on Saturday. I talked to him after he was done in Arizona, and he has a little upset about the way that ended. I think they scratched him a few times near the end of the season at 699 when they were out of the playoffs. As a fellow player, that didn’t sit too well with a lot of guys.”
“But good on Edmonton and [Jay Woodcroft] to bring him up and play in this building for 700. I think that speaks about the type of person that Woody is over there behind the bench.”
Demers was selected by the Sharks in the seventh round of the 2008 draft. He made his debut with the team in 2009-10, the same season that Couture broke into the league. Demers played 300 games with the Sharks over parts of six seasons before getting traded to the Dallas Stars in exchange for Brenden Dillon.
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