According to an announcement from the AHL’s Hershey Bears, defenseman and captain Aaron Ness has retired. Ness has a handful of games of NHL experience, though most of his professional days were spent in the AHL.
Ness’ professional career began in 2008, being selected with the 40th overall pick of that summer’s draft by the New York Islanders. Drafted out of the famous Minnesota state high school hockey pipeline, Ness jumped to the NCAA’s University of Minnesota the next season. He spent three years with the Golden Gophers, scoring six goals and 43 points in 111 games.
After his junior season, Ness signed his entry-level contract with the Islanders and began playing for their AHL affiliate, the Bridgeport Sound Tigers. During his time with the Islanders organization, he spent most of it with the Sound Tigers, where he was named the team’s captain for the 2014-15 season. He had the second-best production of his AHL career that year, scoring eight goals and 45 points in 74 games.
Additionally, Ness earned an extended look in the NHL with New York. During the 2013-14 season, in a depth role, Ness registered one goal and three points in 20 games for the Islanders, averaging 14:48 of ice time per game. Unfortunately, that relationship didn’t last much longer, and Ness left as a free agent in 2015 to join the Washington Capitals.
The Capitals organization is where Ness enjoyed the best years of his career. From the beginning of the 2015-16 campaign to the 2017-18 season, Ness skated in 18 games for the Capitals while tallying three assists. Similar to his time with the Islanders, Ness spent most of his time in the AHL, this time with the Hershey Bears.
Ahead of the 2019-20 campaign, Ness signed with the Arizona Coyotes and left after two seasons to sign an AHL deal with the Providence Bruins. After his one-year stint in Rhode Island, Ness returned to the Bears on another AHL deal.
Now in his second stint with Hershey, Ness was immediately given a leadership position on the club and was named the team’s captain last season. He helped the Bears capture back-to-back Calder Cup championships in 2023 and 2024.
In total, Ness has a modest NHL scoring line of one goal and seven points in 72 games. Still, he amassed 61 goals and 339 points in 818 AHL games, with another two goals and 19 points in 81 postseason contests. Including his two Calder Cup rings, Ness enjoyed a 15-year career in the AHL, with over half of those being spent with the Bears. We at PHR congratulate Ness on his career and wish him the best in his next chapter.
The in-famous?!? The in-famous?!?
Here’s an interesting philosophical question. Should Ness be considered to have been a success as a 2nd round draft pick? He didn’t get much NHL time so you could say that’s a failure if that’s your metric, but he was a stalwart AHL player and likely influenced development of other NHL players, like a lot of unheralded AHL lifers. He got a decent enough AHL run while with the Islanders, so they got some value out of that pick.
He was certainly a success as a professional hockey player — nearly a thousand pro games doesn’t precisely suck.
But as a 2nd round pick? The average Islanders fan would say “of course not.” Even if we just look at defensemen in the 2008 draft, they passed on Justin Schultz to take Ness. They passed on Marco Scandella and T.J. Brodie to take Ness. (Never mind the non-defensemen: Derek Stepan, Adam Henrique, Braden Holtby, Gustav Nyquist, Cam Atkinson) 25 guys picked lower than Ness played at least 300 NHL games.
Did he influence the development of Islanders NHL players? To no great effect, seemingly: in the seven years from Ness’ first full season in Bridgeport, the Isles missed the playoffs four times, and made it as far as the second round exactly once.
Hey Brennan, you are on a roll. You recently told us that speculating on a coach losing his job is a bad thing as you speculated on a coach losing his job. Now you call the MN high school hockey pipeline infamous? Really? You don’t know the definition of the words that you are using? Wow.