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He started the practice skating on defence as an extra body of sorts. By the end of it, he was back working with the first-unit power play.

“We didn’t like him much on defence,” coach Willie Desjardins joked afterwards. “We got him off there right away.”

Sedin has been an NHL iron man since breaking into the league back in the 2000-01. He played all 82 games that season and has done so for most of the ones that followed. At one point he played 679 straight games without missing one.

Henrik said he’s been lucky.

“I have been lucky not to have too bad of injuries,” he said. “I like to think I have a pretty good sense of who’s on the ice and where guys are on the ice and try to stay away from the bad hits and those kinds of things — knock on wood. I think it’s a lot of luck, for sure.”

Anyone who has watched him knows it’s about a whole lot more than luck

“I think it’s how he works in the summer and I also think it’s his pain threshold,” Desjardins said. “I think he plays when other guys wouldn’t play lots of times. He’ll battle through a lot to stay in the lineup.”

Henrik, in fact, has been battling his current ailment for quite some time. He left last Thursday night’s game in Philadelphia when he felt he had become a liability to his team.

“I had some issues in that area, but it is nothing that stopped me from playing,” he said. “I think it is one of those things where you get one problem and you try to correct it by doing other things and then it gets to you. I have had this throughout my career where there has been problems, but I have been able to play through them. It didn’t feel fair towards the team to go out there and not be 100 per cent.