The 13-year NHL defenseman played his 900th career contest in the Blues' 3-2 overtime win over Edmonton on Monday night, in the midst of his 5th season in St. Louis
St Louis Blues v Boston Bruins | Richard T Gagnon/GettyImages
On Monday night, the St. Louis Blues picked up a stunning 3-2 overtime win over Western powerhouse Edmonton at the Enterprise Center, and it was special for a couple of reasons.
No, it wasn't just the fact that St. Louis managed to beat one of the top teams in the West that has some of the game's best players and subsequently improve their playoff chances, albeit still a few points short of the wild card. Nor was it their now 7-2-1 record in the last 10 games including this one.
Justin Faulk achieved his 900th career NHL game, always an arduous task for any NHLer. 341 of those have come in a Blues sweater, the remaining 559 with the Carolina Hurricanes, where he spent the first 8 years of his 13-year NHL career. Faulk has 41 career goals in St. Louis, and while he's struggled a bit to find the back of the net this season compared to seasons past, he is still on it when it comes to setting up his teammates, with 26 assists and 28 points total in 2023-24.
Faulk is a St. Paul Minnesota native drafted in the 2nd round in 2010 by Carolina, the 37th overall pick in that year's draft. After spending the 8 seasons mentioned above in Raleigh, the Blues acquired him in a trade that involved Joel Edmundson, who played with the Blues from 2015-16 through 2019-20, winning the Cup with St. Louis in 2018/19. Also involved in that trade was AHL prospect Dominik Bokk, who's now back in his native Germany with Lowen Frankfurt, a team in Germany's top league, and a 2021 1st round pick that turned out to be current Blues winger Zach Bolduc.
The 32-year-old has played in 58 of 73 games for the Blues this season, looking to increase that number a little after missing some time due to a pair of lower body injuries, one towards the end of 2023 and another this past January, which saw him land on the long term injured reverse list for roughly a month. He is, however, like many star players on the Blues roster this year, already locked up for at least the next few years and eligible to become an unrestricted free agent in 2027-28.
It's safe to say that one of the Blues' most prolonged defensemen isn't going anywhere, with his penchant to set up some of his teammates who found themselves on the trade market this past March. If he stays locked up, he'll definitely hit game 1000 in a Blues uniform too.
