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He’ll get paid his $1.15 million salary, which eases the pain obviously for his wife and three kids with the Oilers putting him on injured reserve, then likely long-term injury status for cap reasons.

“Every player wants to go out on their own terms but at the same time I’ve been pretty fortunate to be pretty healthy and not go through surgeries. I’m grateful for that,” said Brodziak.

It should be noted the Oilers picked Dragan Umicevic, David Rohlfs, Kalle Olsson and Mishail Joukov before they called Brodziak’s name 214th at the 2003 NHL Draft.

Umicevic and Co. all have one thing in common.

They played NO NHL games.

Brodziak played 917 games, starting and finishing here with longer stops in between in Minnesota and St. Louis. The odds of seventh-round picks playing even 50 NHL games is about 12 per cent, over 900 games is microscopic so Brodziak defied long odds to carve out an exemplary career as a role playing centre.

In the same 2003 draft, Joe Pavelski went 205 and Dustin Byfuglien 245, so other guys have done it, but Brodziak has no apologies to make. He was a good player for a long time.

“It’s a crap shoot (where drafted) I guess. There’s tons of first-rounders who are supposed to be superstars who never make it,” said Brodziak. “I think I’ve gained an understanding for what it takes to get to the NHL and I have an appreciation for that. I feel I got lucky and made the best of the opportunity. I went through one draft as an 18-year-old where nobody took me, and was a seventh-rounder the next one when I re-entered. I had a really good year (93 points in Moose Jaw) and it opened the door again. But to be honest I wasn’t even sure I’d get drafted at all.”