Chris Phillips Autograph Card

For a while there, while he was a healthy scratch - it happened 9 times so far this season - it wasn't so obvious that Chris Phillips was going to be able to crack the record-setting milestone, but tonight's the night it happened, as he passed Daniel Alfredsson for most games played in an Ottawa Senators uniform. The Sens played this video tribute:


And they also posted these pictures of his family taking it all in on their Twitter page:

The Phillips family is out in full force to support Chris on his record-setting night for the #Sens! pic.twitter.com/fFCchsphkw
— Ottawa Senators (@Senators) February 6, 2015

Phillips, the reliable, steady defensive defenseman who can pass well and check cleanly wasn't your typical, flashy first-overall pick. However, here are the rest of those who made up the top-10 in 1996: Andrei Zyuzin, Jean-Pierre Dumont, Alexandre Volchkov, Richard Jackman, Boyd Devereaux, Erik Rasmussen, Jonathan Aitken, Ruslan Salei, and Lance Ward. Seven of them were pretty good, but none was a true impact player, certainly not the way Phillips has been in his 17-year career.

He garnered some Norris vote consideration twice and played for Team Canada five times, winning gold twice at the World Juniors (1996 and 1997) and silver twice at the World Championships (2005 and 2009), and coming home empty-handed once in 2000.

I first thought this photo of him was from a Spengler Cup because of the Zepter ads on the uniform, but I'm fairly confident they're from the 2009 Worlds, as they were held in advertizing-friendly Switzerland:

It's card #27 of Upper Deck's 2013-14 Team Canada set (the Signatures version of the card, featuring a blue-sharpied sticker autograph), showing him in Canada's red (and black) ''visitors'' uniform.

He has another year left on his contract, so it's a good bet that he'll reach the 1200-game plateau - if not this season, then early next year; he's currently at 71 goals and 217 assists, so hitting the next milestone mark for those might prove difficult, but he can take his 288 points and round them up to 300 probably around the same time he hits 1200 games. He has a knack for scoring two goals in milestone games: he did so in both his 800th and 1000th game.