The NHL Alumni Association announced this afternoon that former NHL player Tomáš Klouček died Sunday in a skiing accident. He was 45 years old.
A Czechia native, Klouček spent his junior days in his hometown of Prague. He generated enough buzz there to get selected by the Rangers in the fifth round of the 1998 draft. He immediately made the jump to North America, playing a year of major junior hockey with the QMJHL’s Cape Breton Screaming Eagles before turning pro in the Rangers organization for the 1999-00 season. The heavy-hitting lefty made an impact out of the gate, posting 113 PIMs and a +22 rating in 73 games with AHL Hartford en route to a Calder Cup championship and an All-Rookie Team nod for his standout defensive play.
Klouček made the Rangers for the first time in 2000-01, and it ended up being the best season of his career. Making 43 appearances after an early-season recall, he averaged a career-high 16:43 per game and posted 1-4–5 with a minus-three rating – a respectable figure on the league’s worst defensive team that season – and 74 PIMs. After subsequent trades to the Predators and Thrashers, he totaled 2-8–10 with a minus-nine rating in 141 career appearances by the time his NHL career drew to a close in 2006.
Klouček remained in high-level leagues for another decade after playing his last NHL game. He spent 2006-07 with the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch, then affiliated with the Blue Jackets, before jumping back over the Atlantic to play with Czechia’s HC Zlín and then Barys Astana in the Kontinental Hockey League. He spent three years with the Kazakh club – more time spent with any team in his career other than Hartford – and posted 7-26–33 in 111 career KHL games.
The last few years of Klouček’s career were spent in his home country with HC Oceláři Třinec and the Jaromír Jágr-owned Rytíři Kladno, but also in neighboring Slovakia, where he won an Extraliga title with HC Kosice in 2014. He closed the book on his stint in pro hockey with France’s Epinal in the top-circuit Ligue Magnus in 2015-16 and 2016-17.
PHR sends our condolences to Klouček’s family, friends, and former teammates.