Phoenix Coyotes Captain Shane Doan is scheduled to appear in the 1,000^th regular season National Hockey League game of his career tonight when the Coyotes visit the Columbus Blue Jackets at 5 p.m. at Nationwide Arena.  Doan has spent his entire career with the Coyotes/Winnipeg Jets franchise.

Doan, 33, will become just the second player in franchise history to appear in 1,000 games with the organization, joining retired defenseman Teppo Numminen, who holds the Club record with 1,098 games played.  Doan will also become the 24^th player in NHL history to play 1,000 games for the team that drafted him and the 42^nd player to appear in 1,000 games with one franchise.

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One thousand games isn't much of a milestone anymore given it's the equivalent to about 12 full seasons. In fact, 32 active players are ahead of him on the GP list, but how many either (a) did it with just one team or (b) are only 33 years old?

Doan should be able to crack into the top 20 in games played all time if he hangs around into his late 30s, having been a relative iron man in obscurity and in the league since right out of junior at age 18. It was interesting yesterday listening to him slip on the well worn cap as that troubled franchise's leader and star player, a spokesman who about 30 media members waited patiently to hear from on all things Coyotes.

He's gotten pretty good at defending his market and making the plea for more time in the desert.

"The fans – that’s a lot of ask of them to come out to the building when they don’t know if the team’s going to be back," Doan said, as the group of media whittled down to only two reporters and the dressing room emptied out.

"I was in Winnipeg when we went through it the first time and that’s a great hockey market, Canadian town, everyone loves hockey there, and there wasn’t a lot of fans there that [last] year either. That was tough. It’s a difficult situation for anyone to go through when your team is leaving."

At this point, it's Doan's team, too. He's been there since he was a teen, 14 years, maturing in the desert even as all the various Coyotes-related fiascoes all unfolded right in front of him.

Doan was a marvellous player in junior, and I can't help but wonder — after seeing him then and seeing him now, perhaps winding things down — if his career couldn't have been a whole lot brighter in another market and on better teams. As it is, we'll probably remember him for his longevity in the desert more than anything, as a 25-goal man who got the call for Team Canada more often than not (and often due to a sterling reputation around the league more than his production in it).

It's interesting how it can happen, where, in a 30-team league, players fall to franchises that are in holes they never quite climb out of. Doan's played 999 games, sure, but just 32 in the postseason — the last of which is a nearly eight-year old memory.

It's that mediocrity he points to in defending the fan base in Phoenix, but it's also that mediocrity that has kept him from the spotlight, on the sidelines every April. And, meanwhile, he wants the team to stay as much as anyone.