"Jay Bouwmeester inches closer nearly every night.
One more game, one more notch for his iron-man streak.
One more game, one more notch for his playoff-free streak.
Both happen to be the longest active sprees in the National Hockey League - one is wow-worthy; the other, wince-worthy.
All of which should add up to an intriguing regular-season wind-down for the Calgary Flames' smoothie.
Should the slender defender remain unburdened by injury, he'll slide past (former partner) Karlis Skrastins and into the NHL record books with the all-time consecutive-game streak for a defenceman by skating in his 496th straight match on March 15 against the visiting Phoenix Coyotes.
Bouwmeester shrugs off advance hype. "It's a thing that people can do whatever with," he says mildly. "You don't think about it because stuff happens, right? Anything can happen. You can get hurt in practice. I've been lucky - I haven't had any big injuries."
One winter, he cowboyed up through hip issues, which would end up requiring off-season surgery.
His last official injury . . . scratch that. His ONLY official injury is a broken foot - courtesy of a stray slapper - a wound that kept him mothballed for 21 nights in 2003-04. "If you can play, you want to play, right?" says Bouwmeester. "You're not going out there trying not to get hurt."
It's the other streak that resonates with the lanky native of Edmonton. A full complement of games this campaign would give Bouwmeester 635 - without a single sniff of the post-season.
He's still a ways off from Olli Jokinen territory - an NHL-record 799 regular-season games before getting a springtime date - but it still rankles.
Understandably.
"That answers itself - it's something you never want to be associated with," says Bouwmeester. "Last year was probably the year that left the worst taste in your mouth just because there were those expectations. That was a pretty tough one to swallow. But the year before in Florida, we were tied with Montreal for eighth - they beat us in the tiebreaker."
Here, Bouwmeester raises his voice - yes, from barely audible to audible. Blood up, his pulse probably rockets to, oh, 65."
