If that accomplishment means something deeply personal to the 38-year-old, well, don’t ask him to say it.
"Most importantly, it means that I've been lucky enough to play on a lot of great teams and had a lot of teammates and coaches that value winning above anything else,” Quick told NHL.com. “Just grateful for the work all those guys put in around me in order for me to be in a position to try to accomplish it."
Quick, of course, is being a modest teammate, refusing to bask in the spotlight as he has done for the entirety of his 17-year NHL career, the first 15-plus with the Los Angeles Kings. It’s certainly not surprising. It’s expected.
“‘Quickie’ is not big in these spotlight type things,” Kings defenseman Drew Doughty said. “He doesn’t even like the attention.”
But those like Doughty who know Quick best know 400 wins, a milestone only 14 goalies in NHL history have reached, does indeed have a deeply personal meaning to him.
“I know it deep down,” Doughty said. “I mean, 400 wins for a goalie is so, so tough to do. Man, he’s been just playing great for a long, long time. I miss playing with him every day. It’s simply amazing.”
Quick’s legend was obviously made in L.A.
He won the Stanley Cup twice with the Kings, in 2012 and 2014. He won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the Stanley Cup Playoffs in 2012, when he went 16-4 with a 1.41 goals-against average, .946 save percentage and three shutouts.
“He almost basically won us a Cup,” Doughty said.
Quick had 370 wins in 743 games played with the Kings. He is first in team history in games played and wins; with 354 more games played and 199 more wins than Hockey Hall of Famer Rochie Vachon.
Quick himself will one day be in the Hockey Hall of Fame. It would be shocking if he didn’t get there, especially now that he will be a 400-game winner too.
"I cannot say enough things about this guy,” said Mike Richter, who won 301 NHL games with the Rangers and was Quick’s idol when he was growing up in Connecticut. “He's quietly put together this career. When the Rangers went to the Stanley Cup Final against him in 2014, we had Henrik Lundqvist and we all know how great he was. I knew how good of a goalie Quick was, but after that first game, the way he played, it was like, 'Oh my God, our advantage has diminished, it's gone, because this guy between the pipes on the other end is sensational.’ I don't think people still fully appreciate how good he is.”
It was in Los Angeles where Quick developed and honed his reputation for being ultra-competitive, protecting his net as much as he did himself and his teammates.
“That’s just his personality, his character really,” Kings captain Anze Kopitar said. “Obviously, it was his crease, so he stood up for it. And it was nice to see. It’s on us to, obviously, protect him, or I guess now one of the other guys, but it was on us to have protected him. And I thought for the most part, we did a lot of times. But, you know, there was times he maybe was a little bored and wanted to mix it up, and that’s what he did.”
It would be shocking if Quick’s No. 32 doesn’t eventually hang from the rafters at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. It’ll be the same for Kopitar’s No. 11 and Doughty’s No. 8. They’ll all join Dustin Brown’s No. 23.
But of that grouping, only Quick had to reinvent himself to stay in the NHL.
“His career in itself has been amazing, but he's resurrected it too,” Richter said.
That he’s done that, becoming one of the League’s premier backups the past two seasons behind Igor Shesterkin in New York, is a testament to Quick’s ability to adapt physically and mentally.
It was hard leaving L.A. There was a bitterness he felt at the time, and maybe still does feel, about how it went down, being traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets on March 1, 2023. At the time, Kopitar and Doughty voiced their displeasure too.
But a day later Quick was traded to the Vegas Golden Knights and he became a mentor as well as a backup to Adin Hill in their run to the Stanley Cup championship that season. Quick began to figure out the nuances of being a backup.
He brought that to New York, signing a one-year, $825,000 contract with the Rangers on July 1, 2023. Quick went 18-6-2 with a 2.62 goals-against average and .911 save percentage in 27 games, including 26 starts. He became part of New York’s leadership group.
“I just kind of looked at it as a new opportunity, right,” Quick said. “That last year I was with L.A. it was the same thing, it was an opportunity to play and try to have success. You turn the page when they trade you and you go somewhere else. Then you do it again and you look forward to that opportunity for how you can help the team in whatever way you can."
Quick re-signed with the Rangers on March 4, a one-year, $1.275 million deal that he’s playing on this season.
This season, he’s 6-4-0, including shutouts in back-to-back starts; 37 saves in a 4-0 win at the Detroit Red Wings on Nov. 9 and 24 saves in a 2-0 win at the Seattle Kraken on Nov. 17. Win No. 399 came against the Boston Bruins on Thursday, when he made 32 saves in a 2-1 victory that snapped a four-game losing streak for New York. With Shesterkin on injured reserved, Quick is now the No. 1 for New York.
“His ability to move around, make saves that seem hard to make, he makes them seem pretty regular,” Red Wings forward Patrick Kane said. “I know he’s having a great year this year, and happy to see it, because with what went on with him in L.A., getting traded from there, and then obviously winning the Cup there in Vegas and coming to New York, he’s been a real bright spot for that team. Fun to see him do well, especially at his age. It’s impressive. I guess there’s hope for a lot of us older guys, right?”
