Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
Thursday morning at Allstate Arena will go something like all of the other AHL games that Cal O’Reilly has suited up for going back nearly two decades.
Except it will be different.
When O’Reilly hits the ice for the Milwaukee Admirals’ school-day visit to the Chicago Wolves (noon ET, AHLTV on FloHockey), it will be the 1,000th regular-season AHL game for the 38-year-old forward, putting him in a class that includes only eight other players who have reached that milestone. The durable O’Reilly has dressed for 45 of Milwaukee’s 49 games this season and has only missed seven games in the one-and-a-half seasons since he returned to Milwaukee, the city where he began his pro career in April 2006.
Go back to when O’Reilly was a 19-year-old arriving in Milwaukee as a Nashville Predators fifth-round pick. From the time he first suited up for the Admirals – that was a home game on April 14, 2006 against, fittingly, the Wolves – through 19 seasons winding his way through pro hockey, he has always found a way to make himself useful. Back then, he was just a rookie out of the Ontario Hockey League hoping to break into the veteran lineup of a Calder Cup contender. The lessons came at him quickly, and they’re ones that he has carried with him ever since.
“You don’t know what to expect,” O’Reilly said of that first game, “and then you’re right into it and then all of a sudden you’re at a thousand games.
“You can’t take nights off, and it was great for me to come in before I played a full year because I got a taste of it. Saw what it’s like, saw what I need to do, and it gave me confidence for going into my first full working year.”
Along that path he has played 145 NHL games, picking up 49 points (16 goals, 33 assists) in the process. He has come close to lifting a Calder Cup, part of Finals teams with Milwaukee in 2006 and with Utica in 2015. After bringing his career full-circle and signing with the Admirals in 2023, he helped them to the Western Conference Finals last spring. And with Milwaukee among the pace-setters in the Central Division, there certainly is reason to think that he might be part of another lengthy postseason run this year.
O’Reilly’s journey has taken him through Milwaukee, Portland, Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Utica, Rochester, Toronto, Iowa, Lehigh Valley and now back to Milwaukee. He has had NHL stops with Nashville, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Minnesota. He has even had parts of two seasons in the Kontinental Hockey League.
“I always tried to be a really good teammate,” O’Reilly explained, “and a good person first and build relationships with guys on my team. I haven’t lost that love or the drive or to do what I need to do in the summers and during the season to be able to keep playing and play at a high level.
“You want people to see you as an unselfish, great teammate.”
Teammate Joakim Kemell was not even two years old yet when O’Reilly made his pro debut. Milwaukee’s captain, 11th-year veteran defenseman Kevin Gravel, is nearly six years younger than O’Reilly. For that matter, the youngest player currently in the AHL, 18-year-old Rochester forward Konsta Helenius, had not yet been born when O’Reilly started his pro career.
On and on those tidbits can go, and O’Reilly’s teammates certainly make sure to let him know. Good-naturedly, of course.
But they also hold him in high respect. To play nearly two decades of pro hockey is one achievement. To continue being a valuable piece of an organization, to get one contract after another, might be nearly as impressive. O’Reilly, who has captained the Comets, Amerks, Wild and Phantoms, has always been able to establish himself and re-invent when necessary.
Early in his career, he needed to earn the trust of Milwaukee head coaches Claude Noel and Lane Lambert. As a rookie, he quickly graduated to penalty-killing work. He has always been known for his sportsmanlike play, never amassing more than 22 penalty minutes in a single season. And as he progressed, he became more and more of an elite playmaker at the AHL level and got himself to the NHL. But NHL work called for different skill sets, and as he transitioned from prospect to veteran to elder statesman, he managed to adapt to new roles as needed.
AHL Hall of Famer Darren Haydar served as a template for O’Reilly, even though they were only teammates briefly toward the end of that 2005-06 campaign. Back then, Haydar was just about at the peak of his game. O’Reilly is 6-foot, 182 pounds, perhaps on the smaller side especially back then. But Haydar was just 5-9, 160. Yet he used his vision and hockey sense to become one of the AHL’s best offensive talents ever. Haydar had found a way, O’Reilly figured, so why not him?
“One of the big things in my game is my brain and using my smarts,” O’Reilly said, “and I think that’s helped me for sure keep playing because of that. I think over my career, I’ve used my mind more than my body in that sense.
“[Haydar] wasn’t the fastest guy, but he was the smartest, most skilled guy on the ice, and I kind of saw similarities in myself. It showed that I could play the way that I played my whole life even at this level. He was such a great guy to me, a wonderful person, and I think he had a big influence on me coming up from junior and seeing the pro life and for the player he was.”
Of course, O’Reilly can also still produce offensively. He set a career high with 21 goals in 2021-22. This season his 30 points (six goals, 24 assists) have him second in team scoring. And with scoring leader Vinnie Hinostroza now with the Minnesota Wild, O’Reilly may well soon take over the team’s top scoring spot.
With O’Reilly’s 1,000th game being on the road, the Admirals will honor him at an upcoming home game. His wife and their four children will be there. So will his parents and in-laws along with relatives and some former teammates. Then it will be back to business. There are two months to go in the regular season, and the Admirals have a playoff push to make. As with so much of O’Reilly’s career, he will go about taking care of the small details, making himself useful for his coaching staff, and contributing.
The Admirals have a chance to chase a Calder Cup championship. And while his younger teammates cannot yet understand what it means to build a career like his, O’Reilly hopes that someday they can.
“They have all been so great,” O’Reilly said, “and they’re a big part of why I still love playing hockey and being part of this. We have such a good group here, and it’s so fun coming to the rink and playing with these guys. It’s a tight room like that. It just makes it that much easier for me to want to keep going.
“I hope being able to do it and still loving it can give them hope to play as long as they can. Hopefully one day they can reach milestones like this later in their career because it does go by so quickly.”
On the American Hockey League beat for two decades, TheAHL.com features writer Patrick Williams also currently covers the league for NHL.com and FloSports and is a regular contributor on SiriusXM NHL Network Radio. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his outstanding coverage of the league in 2016.