Longtime minor league fixture Steven Fogarty has retired, he announced on his personal Instagram account on Monday morning.
Fogarty, 31, played parts of six NHL seasons and totaled nine total seasons after turning pro after a collegiate career at Notre Dame in 2016. The Rangers selected him out of Minnesota’s Edina High in the third round of the 2011 draft, but he played an additional season of junior hockey with the BCHL’s Penticton Vees, plus a full four years with the Irish before turning pro and signing his entry-level deal with New York. Serving as a dependable call-up for four years and playing an important role on the farm with AHL Hartford, wearing the “C” there for his last season in the Rangers organization, he went without a point and posted a -2 rating in 18 appearances before becoming a UFA in 2020.
He landed on a one-year, two-way deal with the Sabres for the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season, holding down a similar role to what he’d held in New York. Fogarty was named the captain of AHL Rochester that year but only played in 16 minor league games. He spent other chunks of the season on the taxi squad and briefly on the Sabres’ active roster, where he recorded his first and only three NHL points (one goal, two assists) in nine showings.
Fogarty spent the following three seasons on two-way deals with the Bruins and Wild, adding another four NHL appearances to bring his career total to 31. He’d spent the last two years under contract with Minnesota, where his last NHL action came in a two-game stint in November 2022. Fogarty spent all of 2023-24 on assignment to AHL Iowa, where he served as an alternate captain for the second season in a row and had 37 points (18 goals, 19 assists) in 69 games with a -21 rating.
A UFA for the past week, he now steps away from a lengthy minor-league career that included 106 goals, 162 assists, 268 points, 282 PIMs, and a -80 rating in 464 games in parts of nine AHL seasons, along with his three points in 31 NHL games. PHR congratulates Fogarty on his pro career and wishes him the best in his post-playing endeavors.
Fogarty also commented as he was “Looking Out My Back Door” that even though he felt like a “Fortunate Son” for his NHL career, he felt a strange force commanding him to “Run Through The Jungle” possibly motivated by “The Old Man Down The Road” and while he was happy for his time, he wished for a longer career in the NHL someday, but sadly “Someday Never Comes.” But hey, more time to spend “Down On The Corner” with “Proud Mary” and the rest of his neighbors, although as the clouds gathered Fogarty did harbor some trepidation about “Who’ll Stop The Rain.” I wondered if maybe “Up Around The Bend” in the future he might have a career playing “Centerfield” or maybe even playing in a “Travelin’ Band.”
That and in the room he never made a “Commotion.”
While he never had a chance to see a bad moon rising, he always made sure to tell the rookies that there’s a bathroom on the right.
That was for “The Midnight Special.”
Well put on many levels. Good stuff
This is sad. Dude lives his dream and plays over 500 pro games, has a four year career at Notre Dame and here we are cracking jokes about an unrelated musician. I wonder if he has ever seen the rain?
“Before You Accuse Me,” I looked it up on CapFriendly. Fogarty, 31 years old, earned nearly $1.7 million in his hockey career including $350,000 for each of the past two seasons. That’s way more than the average Joe and he did it playing the game he loved. Plus he got a college education with an athletic scholarship. For Fogarty it is quite an “Effigy.”