ANAHEIM — There’s one sure thing about playing an entire career with one team: It’s easier to compartmentalize the memories because they’re all in the same place.
Ryan Getzlaf reached Anaheim in the autumn of 2005, a big 20-year-old center who quickly found a kindred (if sometimes wicked) spirit in teammate, linemate, agitator and friend Corey Perry. The two helped the Ducks win California’s first Stanley Cup in 2007 as well as two Olympic gold medals for Canada in 2010 and ’14. They were known as “the Twins” by the Ducks’ fan base and were the heart and soul of the franchise through good times and tough times, right up until the Ducks bought out Perry’s contract in 2019.
Getzlaf has stayed until the end, announcing his retirement on Tuesday in the only home arena he’s known in the NHL. He has been durable, consistent and a leader, and maybe his only true flaw was that he didn’t shoot the puck enough. He goes into the final 11 games of his 17-season career, beginning Wednesday night against Calgary, with 282 goals and 731 assists for 1,013 career points.
Ducks TV analyst Brian Hayward noted that 11 other players in NHL history have captained a team for at least 10 seasons and scored 1,000 points. Two besides Getzlaf are still active, Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin. Eight are in the Hockey Hall of Fame, and among them are Wayne Gretzky, Steve Yzerman, Mario Lemieux, Joe Sakic and Jean Béliveau.
In this sport, the captaincy isn’t merely ceremonial, and the “C” on the sweater doesn’t go to just anybody. Getzlaf has worn it with distinction in Anaheim for 12 seasons. Did he show glimpses of captaincy material at the start?
“Oh, I don’t know if you could at that point ever expect the captaincy to be at the forefront,” said his former coach twice over, Randy Carlyle, after Tuesday’s news conference.
But the signs pointing toward a productive career were there. Carlyle recalled seeing Getzlaf on a powerhouse world junior championships team in 2005 alongside Sidney Crosby and Jeff Carter, saying: “He stood out as a player that could compete with those players, and those were elite players.”
Getzlaf was the 19th overall pick in the 2003 draft and Perry was picked 28th overall by the Ducks. Both played an extra year of junior hockey during the 2004-05 NHL lockout that wiped out the season, and both started the 2005-06 season with the Ducks but were sent down to the AHL after a month. It wasn’t performance-based or punitive, then-General Manager Brian Burke said, but it was intended to keep them away from Sergei Federov, who was considered something less than a good influence.
Burke recalled in his 2020 autobiography that he told Getzlaf and Perry as much, adding, “If you go down and go through the motions you’ll be down there all year. If not, I will solve this problem and then I will bring you back.” Burke then traded Federov to Columbus for Francois Beauchemin, recalled Getzlaf and Perry, and they never went back to the minors.
And the Ducks ultimately brought in players who really were good examples.
“We had a lot of guys who had played a long time in the league,” Teemu Selanne said Tuesday. “We had the Niedermayers (Scott and Rob), Todd Marchant, Chris Pronger, myself. I really believe that good examples lead to good things, and I think that’s what happened with Getzy.”
Getzlaf talked Tuesday of his loyalty to the Ducks organization and the loyalty they’ve shown him, and noted that the first time there was indecision on either side was at the 2021 trading deadline, which he called “the hardest two days of my life. … Ultimately the decision to stay here was based on the loyalty that this organization has shown me over the years. It just didn’t seem right (to leave).”
This year at the deadline, when new GM Pat Verbeek traded prospective free agents Hampus Lindholm and Rickard Rakell but stated that Getzlaf would remain a Duck as long as he wanted, that should have been a tipoff. Getzlaf said Tuesday that he “kind of went into this year knowing it was going to be my last year. Everything pointed in that direction.”
That set up the chance to finish where he started, a benefit both in terms of identification with his team and the opportunities to do good work within the community. That includes the “Cure Duchenne” charity organization to fight that form of muscular dystrophy in children, and the Ducks’ own “Learn To Play” initiative, which Getzlaf and Perry championed and which Hayward said has introduced more than 18,000 youngsters to ice or roller hockey in Orange County and the Inland Empire.
Staying in one place for a decade or more is a rarity in a sports era of free agency and enhanced player movement. No Duck has done so before now, and across the 57 Freeway, only Tim Salmon played his entire career with the Angels (14 seasons).
There are beneficiaries to that longevity most of us will never know about.
“Being one place in your whole career gives you the ability to create friendships, really walk around the rink,” Getzlaf said. “I know a lot of people’s names (on staff), not as many as I probably should because of my memory, but I do know everybody’s face around this arena.
“I’ve tried to make a point of thanking them every chance I get. They do a lot of things for us that we don’t see and don’t go into what we do. But it means a lot for the entire organization and players to have them there every day, working and doing their job so that we can do ours.”
The memories and relationships and gratitude might be compartmentalized in one place, but through the years that compartment gets bigger.
But you can symbolize it all with a banner. That will happen the day Getzlaf’s jersey number is raised to the rafters of Honda Center.
@Jim_Alexander on Twitter
