Sundin won’t be back to help Canucks this yea
Mats Sundin, a lock for the Hockey Hall of Fame, has announced he is retiring from professional hockey, 18 years of which were spent in the NHL.
“It’s a little sad to announce that my career as a professional hockey player is over,” Sundin, 38, told reporters at a press conference in Stockholm. “I would have loved to play until the age of 65, but as a hockey player you obviously retire a little earlier than that.”
He leaves the NHL as the top scoring Swedish player in NHL history, having scored 564 goals, 785 assists and 1,349 points during a career with the Quebec Nordiques, then the Toronto Maple Leafs and last season with the Vancouver Canucks. He was an eight-time NHL All-Star but one of only five NHL players to have scored at least 500 goals and never played in a Stanley Cup Final Sundin left the Leafs in 2008 for the Canucks in a last attempt to win the Stanley Cup after earlier refusing to allow Toronto to trade him.
But Vancouver was ousted in the Western Conference semifinals. He finished his final season with nine goals and 19 assists in 41 games.
Sundin never won the Stanley Cup but found success with the Swedish national team, winning world championship golds in 1991, 1992 and 1998. He also captained Sweden to the Olympic gold in Turin in 2006, where he set up Nicklas Lidstrom for the winning goal against Finland in the final. Now he obviously won’t be playing in next year’s Olympics in Vancouver.
“A Stanley Cup ring would’ve been nice to have, but in all honesty I’ve experienced and won so much since I landed in Quebec as a 19-year-old,” Sundin told reporters.
Most hockey fans will remember Sundin as a Maple Leaf. In all, Sundin played 13 seasons with Toronto, becoming the longest-serving European captain in NHL history. He became the first European to be selected with the top overall pick in the NHL Entry Draft when the Quebec Nordiques drafted him in 1989.
NHL Betting at WagerWeb.com
(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
Loading ...
