Former WHL Champion, playoff MVP Myers skates in 1000th NHL game

Vancouver, B.C.- It’s a massive milestone worthy of one of the NHL’s biggest blueliners.

Former WHL champion and current Vancouver Canucks defenceman Tyler Myers has become the 400th player to skate in 1,000 NHL games and join the elite Silver Stick Club.

The landmark moment came on October 19 as the Canucks downed the Philadelphia Flyers 3-0, with Myers picking up his 279th career assist in the road victory.

“It means a lot, more so to do it with this group,” Myers told reporters post-game. “I love this group, and thinking back to the summer and not knowing what it was going to be like, and to be able to come back and do it with these guys, get a win, it’s just a great night.”

It’s a proud chapter in a journey that started nearly 400 kilometres east of the lower mainland when the Kelowna Rockets selected a 15-year-old Myers- who already clocked in at 6-foot-3-19th overall in the 2005 WHL Draft.

When Myers joined the Rockets midway through the following season, he was billeted with another member of the NHL’s thousand-game club, Luke Schenn, who later recalled just how shy the young Houston-born, Alberta-raised defenceman was.

The pair would establish themselves as some of the most formidable defencemen in the WHL with both becoming first-round picks in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft (Schenn went fifth-overall to the Toronto Maple Leafs, while Myers was called by the Buffalo Sabres at 12th).

Myers’ crowning junior achievements came post-draft, posting a career-best nine goals and 33 assists for 42 points and a +31 rating in 58 regular-season WHL games in 2008-09.

Kelowna entered the postseason as the third seed in the Western Conference and battled hard to the final, handing the regular-season champion Calgary Hitmen their first loss of the playoffs and lifting the Ed Chynoweth Cup in six games.

Myers led all defenceman in playoff points and finished tied for fifth among all skaters with five goals and 15 assists in 22 games (including four points and a +4 rating in the final series) to become the Rockets’ Playoff MVP and earn his entry-level contract with the Sabres.

He’d add another goal and three assists in four games as Kelowna made it to the 2009 Memorial Cup Final in Rimouski, Que.

The following season saw Myers make the jump to the show, suiting up in all 82 contests, potting 11 goals and 37 assists and leading all NHL rookies in assists to claim the NHL’s Calder Trophy as the league’s top rookie.

After parts of six seasons in Buffalo, the now 6-foot-8, 229-pound defenceman made an impact in a stint with the Winnipeg Jets before moving on to his current team, the Vancouver Canucks.

His time on the West Coast has seen the Canucks climb from a rebuilding club to capturing its first Pacific Division title since 2012-13.

At 34 years old, Myers is still a second-pairing defenceman and top penalty-killer on a team with lofty playoff aspirations.

Internationally, Myers, a dual-citizen, has won gold for Canada in the 2008 IIHF U18 World Championship, 2009 IIHF World Junior Championship and the 2023 IIHF World Championship.

Fans will get a chance to celebrate the man affectionately nicknamed ‘Chaos Giraffe’ at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena on Saturday, October 26 as the Canucks return home from a road trip to host Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins.