Talbot Made History in Columbus. That's the Season Right There.

Cam Talbot stopped 20 shots in a 3-2 win on October 10 and became the first goaltender in NHL history to win a game with nine different franchises. He is 39 years old. He was signed in September as emergency depth while Elvis Merzlikins recovered from shoulder surgery. That's how the record got set — not by design, but by circumstance, in a city that needed a warm body in the crease and got a footnote in the record books instead.

It fits. Columbus finished 45-45 and missed the playoffs by 2.5 games in the wild-card race, and the most notable individual achievement of the entire season belongs to a journeyman brought in on a one-year deal because the plan broke down. The offseason was built around solving the scoring problem — Valeri Nichushkin, Luke Tuch, the six-year extension for Adam Fantilli, the Jet Greaves signing. None of it worked the way it was supposed to. Zach Werenski, a defenseman, led the team in scoring. The forward group never found its footing.

The Marchenko trade in late September — the team's leading scorer shipped to Toronto for Matthew Knies — was the clearest signal that management knew it too. What followed was a 6-4 finish over the last 10 games, a defense that tightened up considerably down the stretch, and a season that ended anyway. Good enough to be interesting, not good enough to matter.

Talbot's record is a genuine moment. Nine teams is a lot of hockey, a lot of years, a lot of bus rides and trade deadlines and fresh starts. But the fact that it happened here, now, in this particular Columbus season — signed as a stopgap, setting the record in a building that spent all year searching for something it never found — that part is hard to miss.