As you probably know, San Jose’s Patrick Marleau hit the 500 career goal mark Thursday night, making him the 45th NHLer to ever hit the milestone and tying him on the all-time list with Lanny McDonald.

The second overall pick of the 1997 NHL Draft hit the 1,000 career point mark last season and is currently tied with Ray Whitney at 64th on the all-time points list. He’s never won a major award and, at 37, he’s closer to the end of his career than the productive middle.

He’s also scheduled to become a UFA at the end of this season and, potentially, could leave the only NHL team he’s ever played for. With 19 goals and 28 points in 52 games he’s on his lowest point pace since 1999-2000, when he scored 40 points in his third year in the league. But those 19 goals, accomplished on a not entirely unsustainable 15 per cent shot conversion rate, have him on track to reach 30 goals for the eighth time.

But is he a Hall of Famer?

“I see him as…guys like Dave Andreychuk who struggled to get in who were around a long time and were consistently good players,” Elliotte Friedman said on the Dean Blundell Show Friday morning. “Was Marleau ever sort of like the best player in the league?

“The thing is he’s been consistently really good.”

LISTEN TO ELLIOTTE FRIEDMAN ON THE DEAN BLUNDELL SHOW

Marleau has never won a scoring title, but he has been tremendously consistent throughout his career. His best season came in 2005-06 when offence shot up league-wide thanks to a serious clamping down on obstruction and an increase in power play time — Marleau reached 86 points in 82 games that season. He crossed the 80-point barrier one other time in his career, reaching 83 points in 2009-10. He hit at least 70 points on four other occasions, the most recent coming in 2013-14.

But while he has been a constant, he’s never really been considered a “star.” Marleau has finished top 10 in voting for a major performance award just three times in his career: ninth for the Selke in 2008-09, eighth for the Selke in 2009-10, and tied for ninth for the Hart in 2009-10. But the only award he ever received a first place vote for was the Lady Byng, which he got a few times, but never actually won.

Marleau also has never been named as a first- or second-team all-star.

As his career stats currently stand, he’s probably not a Hall of Famer. With 1,463 games played, the closest player to him statistically right now would be Pat Verbeek, who has a similar amount of points in a similar amount of games. When you adjust for era, Marleau would be 41st all-time in points, around such forwards as Sergei Fedorov, Rod Brind’Amour, Vincent Damphousse and Dale Hawerchuk — two of which are Hall of Famers. But no one is comparing Marleau to Fedorov or Hawerchuk.

By the stats and the awards, Marleau isn’t yet a Hall of Famer, and he may never be. But what might ultimately make his case for the Hall is the health and consistency for which he’s lauded.

“This is the other thing, he doesn’t get hurt. He could play for a while,” Friedman said. “And he’s got an outside shot if he wants to play six or seven more years he could play more games than Gordie Howe in the NHL. And if he does that, it’s going to be really tough to leave him out.”

Era-adjusted all-time NHL point totals around Marleau 37. Sergei Fedorov, 1990-09: 1226

38. Rod Brind'Amour, 1989-10: 1210

39. Nicklas Lidstrom, 1991-12: 1204

40. Al MacInnis, 1981-04: 1200

41. Patrick Marleau, 1997-17: 1198

42. Vincent Damphousse, 1986-04: 1193

43. Jean Ratelle, 1960-81: 1191

44. Dale Hawerchuk, 1981-97: 1189

Let’s consider this for a moment. At 1,463 games played, Marleau is currently 23rd on the all-time list and could move past Wayne Gretzky for 20th by the time this season is over. At that point, he’d be 274 games away from Howe’s record, which actually could be eclipsed by Jaromir Jagr by the time Marleau gets there.

Marleau has not missed a game since 2008-09, but if he averages 70 games played for the next four years, he’d pass Howe’s mark. Assuming his production drops with age, if he averaged a half point a game in that stretch (this season his PPG rate is .54), he’d finish with 1,204 points and 47th all-time.

Is that enough to get him into your Hall of Fame?