NHL fans are quickly becoming addicted to a new, viral, daily online game called Puckdoku. Each day, a new grid of nine squares is released, with each column or row corresponding to either a team, a statistical achievement (i.e., 50 goals in a season), or a career accomplishment (i.e., 1,000 games played or a Hart Trophy win). The goal is to fill each square with a player’s name who corresponds to both the intersecting column and row. So, if a “Minnesota Wild” row crosses with a “New Jersey Devils” column, you could correctly enter Zach Parise as a player who played for both teams. (A fuller explanation of the rules can be found on the Puckdoku website.)
With the increasing popularity of the game, we wanted to provide you with a quick-reference guide of six players you need to know for your daily Puckdoku game. Note: these are not necessarily exclusively the players who have played for the most teams (you can find that list here), but all have played for nine or more teams and, importantly, had otherwise fairly memorable NHL careers (it won’t do you any good to give you hockey players whose names you won’t remember in crunch time!) Plus, many of these players will have other career accomplishments that you can use to fill out your grid. So, with that in mind, let’s take a look at the six best Puckdoku answers to know (bonus points if you memorize!) We’ll tell you their names and dates, the teams they played for, give you a brief history of their career, and then give you a list of other accomplishments that might pop up as a Puckdoku answer at some point.
*Note: For consistency’s sake, we will list the current team names for the franchises associated with each player, so, for example, the “Phoenix Coyotes” will be listed as the Arizona Coyotes, and the Quebec Nordiques will be the Colorado Avalanche.
1) Mike Sillinger (1990-2009) — 12 Teams
Teams:
- Detroit Red Wings
- Anaheim Ducks
- Vancouver Canucks
- Philadelphia Flyers
- Tampa Bay Lightning
- Florida Panthers
- Ottawa Senators
- Columbus Blue Jackets
- Arizona Coyotes
- St. Louis Blues
- Nashville Predators
- New York Islanders
Mike Sillinger had a very solid NHL career, but is most notable as the player who played for the most NHL teams (and traded a record nine times). We won’t list all of those trades here, but you can see the full list of his journey through the NHL above.
Sillinger’s best seasons came with the Blues late in his career. In the 2005-06 season, despite the Blues finishing last and earning the first-overall pick in the 2006 NHL draft, Sillinger crossed the 20-goal threshold for just the second time in his NHL career, finishing with 22 in 48 games. He was then traded to the Predators, where he added another 10 goals and 12 assists, finishing the season with 32 goals, 31 assists, and 63 points in 79 total games. He finished his career with 1,049 games played.
Other Accomplishments
- 1,000+ games played (1,049) in his career (remember, these career accomplishments should count for all teams)
- 30+ goal season (32): 2005-06, split between the Blues and Predators (*should count for both teams)
2) Olli Jokinen (1997-2015) — 10 Teams
Teams:
- Los Angeles Kings
- New York Islanders
- Florida Panthers
- Arizona Coyotes
- Calgary Flames
- New York Rangers
- Winnipeg Jets
- Nashville Predators
- Toronto Maple Leafs
- St. Louis Blues
Olli Jokinen is certainly best-remembered as a member of the Florida Panthers, where he played nearly half of his NHL games (567) and scored over half of his goals (188) and points (419). In fact, until Aleksander Barkov broke the mark in 2021, his 188 goals stood for a long time as the Panthers’ franchise record.
Related: Olli Jokinen — Florida Panthers Den of Honor
But outside of his illustrious Florida career, Jokinen made stops in nine other NHL cities (albeit some of them very brief). The Panthers ultimately traded Jokinen to Phoenix, where he would play for the Coyotes for just 57 games, before they, in turn, traded him to Calgary. The Flames would trade him to the Rangers, but his departure would be short-lived, as they signed him to a two-year contract that summer. He’d sign his next deal with Winnipeg, where he’d play two more seasons. In the final year of his career, he played for three teams: signing with Nashville, he’d be dealt to the Maple Leafs, where he’d play six games, before being quickly flipped to the Blues, where he’d play his final eight. If you can keep track of all that, you’ll be a Puckdoku master in no time.
Other Accomplishments
- 1,000+ games played (1,231) in his career
- 1,000+ career penalty minutes (1,071)
- 30+ goal seasons: 2002-03, 2005-06, 2006-07, 2007-08 (all with Florida)
- 100+ PIMs in a season: 2001-02 (with Florida)
3) Lee Stempniak (2005-2019) — 10 Teams
Teams:
- St. Louis Blues
- Toronto Maple Leafs
- Arizona Coyotes
- Calgary Flames
- Pittsburgh Penguins
- New York Rangers
- Winnipeg Jets
- New Jersey Devils
- Boston Bruins
- Carolina Hurricanes
Now we move on to one of the most contemporary players on this list, Lee Stempniak. The West Seneca, New York native joined the St. Louis Blues as a fifth-round draft pick in the 2003 NHL Draft, and became part of an infamous trade (for Toronto, at least) that sent him to the Maple Leafs in exchange for Alex Steen and Carlos Coliacovo. He’d play the better parts of two seasons in Ontario, before being traded to Phoenix. From there, he’d go on to sign with Calgary, before becoming a piece acquired at the trade deadline three seasons in a row: from Calgary to Pittsburgh (2013-14), from the Rangers to Winnipeg (2014-15), then from New Jersey to the Bruins (2015-16). He’d sign for the Hurricanes and play there two years, before a brief return to Boston for the final two games of his career in 2018-19.
Stempniak does not have any achievements that stand out as remarkable or likely to be Puckdoku categories, though he had 20-plus goal seasons in 2006-07 with the Blues and in 2009-10 with Toronto and Arizona. He finished with 911 games played and 469 points. A very solid, respectable career in which he got to call a multitude of arenas “home ice.”
4) Derick Brassard (2007-Present) — 10 Teams (And Counting?)
Teams:
- Columbus Blue Jackets
- New York Rangers
- Ottawa Senators
- Pittsburgh Penguins
- Florida Panthers
- Colorado Avalanche
- New York Islanders
- Arizona Coyotes
- Philadelphia Flyers
- Edmonton Oilers
Derick Brassard’s career isn’t over — at least not officially. At 35, the Hull, Quebec native is currently an unrestricted free agent, which means he could add an 11th franchise to the list before long. The sixth-overall pick in the 2006 NHL Draft, he played his first five and a half seasons with the Blue Jackets, before they traded him to the New York Rangers in the jaw-dropping Marian Gaborik trade (remember when the trade deadline used to be fun?) But that wasn’t the last franchise-altering trade he’d be involved in, as the Rangers would eventually flip him to the Ottawa Senators as part of the package that brought back Mika Zibanejad.
From there, things got a little weird. The Senators moved Brassard to Pittsburgh as part of a three-team trade. The next season, Pittsburgh traded him to Florida, where he played only 10 games before they traded him to Colorado. After that, he’d sign one-year deals with the Islanders and then the Coyotes and then the Flyers, who dealt him at the deadline to the Oilers. Following that stint, prior to last season, he signed another one-year deal to return to Ottawa, where he would play his 1,000th game on March 2 (and scored two goals, to boot!) Currently a free agent, his future remains undetermined, but he’s traveled a lot in his NHL career, and he’s certainly a name to think about the next time you play Puckdoku.
Other Accomplishments
1,000+ games played (1,013) in his career
5) Paul Coffey (1980-2001) — 8 Teams
Teams
- Edmonton Oilers
- Pittsburgh Penguins
- Los Angeles Kings
- Detroit Red Wings
- Carolina Hurricanes
- Philadelphia Flyers
- Chicago Blackhawks
- Boston Bruins
Now we move on to the guys who can really help you check those accomplishment boxes. Paul Coffey is the first Hockey Hall of Famer on our list, and in hindsight, it’s mind-blowing that he managed to play for nine different teams (then again, “the Great One” himself managed to play for four, so nobody is safe.) Like Brassard, Coffey was the sixth-overall pick, this time in the 1980 Draft, and he’d quickly join a highly-competitive Oilers team that would win the Stanley Cup in his fourth season there. He won two of his three Norris Trophies with the Oilers (the third came with Detroit), and was named an All Star five times.
Coffey would be traded to the Penguins in a shocking deal, but it would be just the first of seven trades he’d be involved in (see the full breakdown here). He grabbed his third Norris Trophy in 1994-95, at the age of 33, before bouncing around from team-to-team late in his career. He played for the Hartford Whalers briefly in 1995-96 before rejoining them in Carolina in 1998-99. He’d finish a career that spanned three decades and two millennia by playing 18 games with the Bruins before retiring in 2001. He finished with 1,409 games and 1,531 points along with 1,802 PIMs in his career. He was rightfully named to the NHL’s 100 Greatest Players list in 2017, and the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2004.
Other Accomplishments
- 1,000+ games played (1,409) in his career
- 1,000+ PIMs (1,802) in his career
- 1,000+ points (1,531) in his career
- 1,000+ assists (1,135) in his career
- 3 Norris Trophy Awards (Edmonton, Detroit)
- 4 Stanley Cup Championships (Edmonton, Pittsburgh)
- 8-Time All-Star (Edmonton, Pittsburgh, Detroit)
- 30+ Goal Seasons (2; Edmonton, Pittsburgh)
- 40+ Goal Seasons (2; Edmonton)
- 100+ Point Seasons (5; Edmonton, Pittsburgh)
- 100+ PIMs Seasons (7; Edmonton, Pittsburgh, Detroit)
- Hockey Hall of Fame (2004)
- NHL’s 100 Greatest Players List
6) Jaromír Jágr (1990-2018) — 9 Teams
Teams
- Pittsburgh Penguins
- Washington Capitals
- New York Rangers
- Philadelphia Flyers
- Dallas Stars
- Boston Bruins
- New Jersey Devils
- Florida Panthers
- Calgary Flames
This list wouldn’t be complete without the living (and still playing in Europe) legend Jaromír Jágr. With the fourth-most games played in NHL history (1,733) and a career that spanned more years than anyone but Gordie Howe, Jágr feels like a virtual Puckdoku “free space.” It’s all the more impressive, then, that the first 11 years of his career all came with the Flyers. Only because of his longevity and his love for the game did he end up playing four stints with teams for a season or less, thereby becoming a great Puckdoku answer.
Jágr’s career has that “Chuck Norris” quality — half legend, half joke, and 100% true. It would be exhausting to list all of his accomplishments or his trades around the NHL here. Late in his career and deep into his 40s, he played brief stints with the Bruins, Devils, Panthers (where he played 181 games) and Flames, simply because he was unwilling to leave the game and league he loves. Even today, at age 51, he continues to play for the Czech team he owns — making him ineligible to join the Hockey Hall of Fame! But there is no question that he one-day will be, just as he was added to the NHL’s 100 Greatest Players list in 2017.
Other Accomplishments
- 1,000+ games played (1,733) in his career
- 1,000+ points (1,921) in his career
- 500+ (and 600+ and 700+) goals (766) in his career
- 1,000+ PIMs (1,167) in his career
- 1,000+ assists (1,155) in his career
- 40+ goal seasons (3; Pittsburgh)
- 50+ goal seasons (3; Pittsburgh, Rangers)
- NHL All-Rookie Team (1990-91; Pittsburgh)
- 5 Art Ross Trophies (Pittsburgh)
- 3 Lester B. Pearson/Ted Lindsay Awards (Pittsburgh; Rangers)
- Hart Trophy (1998-99; Pittsburgh)
- Bill Masterton Award (2015-16; Florida)
- 2 Stanley Cup Championships (Pittsburgh)
- 8-Time All-Star (Pittsburgh; Rangers)
- NHL’s 100 Greatest Players List
What’s Your Puckdoku Strategy?
So, now that you have six aces in the hole, tell us: what’s your Puckdoku strategy? How do you try to call players to mind during crunch time? Are there any players we forgot that other Puckdoku players need to know about? Let us know in the comments. And here’s to your next perfect grid!
