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Derek Ryan Announces Retirement

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Center Derek Ryan has decided on retirement, he told Bob Stauffer of Oilers Now on 880 CHED yesterday.

“I’m retiring. We, my family, are back home in Spokane,” he told Stauffer. “The kids started at their new school here today. I didn’t actively look for a job this off-season. Europe could’ve been an option, maybe other NHL teams, but if it wasn’t going to be Edmonton, I didn’t want to move the family again. As the kids get older that gets harder. We had good roots in Edmonton, and, shoot, I’m almost 40. It’s nice to settle in here in Spokane. We have our house, friends, and family. It’s nice to be home.”

Not only is Ryan from Spokane, but it’s where he began his junior career with the WHL’s Spokane Chiefs all the way back in 2004. His three-year run there preceded one of the most unique pathways to becoming an NHL fixture in recent memory.

Undrafted, Ryan opted to enter the Canadian university system when his junior eligibility ran out in 2007. That’s not uncommon in and of itself, but it’s not a pathway many future NHLers undertake. Those who do rarely spend a full four years there, but that’s exactly what Ryan did. He played for the University of Alberta from 2007 to 2011, leading the CIS West in scoring in his senior season with a 17-30–47 line in 28 games.

Ryan, already 25 years old at the time, then decided to make the jump overseas instead of pursuing a professional career stateside. It was in Europe that the 5’10”, 185-lb center unlocked offensive dominance. He spent three years in the EBEL (now ICEHL), Austria’s top league, playing with Villacher SV (2012-14) and Hungarian club Fehérvár AV19 (2011-12). He recorded 199 points in just 158 EBEL games over that span, including a spectacular 2013-14 campaign that saw him lead the league with 38 goals in 54 games to earn MVP honors.

He then made the jump to higher-level European pro hockey in Sweden, a decision that finally put him on the NHL’s radar. He spent one year with the SHL’s Örebro HK, where he erupted for a 15-45–60 line in 55 games to lead one of Europe’s top leagues in assists and points, being named the SHL’s MVP and Forward of the Year.

Ryan finally landed a two-way deal with the Hurricanes – inking his first NHL contract at age 28 – the following summer. He was immediately named the captain of the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers, their minor-league affiliate at the time, and was an AHL All-Star with 55 points in 70 games. He also got his first taste of NHL hockey late in the season, scoring his first goal in his first game of a six-game call-up.

That trial run kicked off an NHL career spanning over 600 games, most of which were played after his 30th birthday. He quickly established himself as a defensively responsible third-line pivot in Carolina, scoring 69 points in 153 games for the club while averaging over 15 minutes per night. He reached unrestricted free agency in 2018 and got rewarded by the Flames, signing a three-year, $9.375MM contract to return to the province where he played college hockey.

Ryan’s first season in Calgary was arguably the best of his career. He recorded a 13-25–38 scoring line in 81 games and, while he saw a reduction in ice time, won a team-high 58.2% of his faceoffs and added a +21 rating. That earned him Selke Trophy consideration, landing a fifth-place vote for the only time in his career.

While Ryan’s productivity and usage declined steadily over the course of his tenure with the Flames, that didn’t mean he was in an unfettered downward spiral. He still landed a multi-year deal in free agency from the cross-provincial rival Oilers in 2021, signing a two-year, $2.5MM pact to round out their fourth line.

That kicked off a four-year run for Ryan in Edmonton, the longest of his three NHL stops and a run that concluded just a few months ago. He was a regular from 2021 to 2024, appearing in at least 70 games for his first three years there, but was relegated to the press box for a good chunk of last season and even landed on waivers. He totaled 29 goals and 60 points in 261 games for Edmonton, appearing in 19 games in their run to the 2024 Stanley Cup Final but no playing time last postseason. He scored one goal and six points in 36 NHL games last season and also had eight points in 13 games for AHL Bakersfield after clearing waivers, his first minor-league action in nearly a decade.

Ryan ends his rather remarkable pro career with 82 goals, 127 assists, and 209 points in 606 NHL regular-season games with a +14 rating. He was also one of the better faceoff-takers of the last decade, winning 55.3% of his draws.

PHR congratulates Ryan on his persevering career and wishes him the best in his post-playing future.

Image courtesy of Walter Tychnowicz-Imagn Images.

Aaron Dell Announces Retirement

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Goaltender Aaron Dell announced his retirement late last night. The 36-year-old wrote on his Instagram page that he’s hanging up his skates after a lengthy professional career that included seven NHL seasons.

“After 13 seasons of professional hockey the time has come for me to hang up the skates and leave my playing days behind me,” Dell wrote. “I wanted to thank all of the people that believed in me and supported me throughout my career. Lots of ups and downs. An undrafted 6 foot tall goalie that was given a chance by the San Jose Sharks organization. When I look at some of the names I had the privilege of working with like Nabokov, Thornton, Pavelski, Marleau, Couture, Karlsson, Burns and so many great players that I will always consider friends, I feel very fortunate.”

The Alberta native began his pro career with the Central Hockey League’s Allen Americans in 2012 after a three-year stint at the University of North Dakota. He split the following season with ECHL Utah before formally joining the Sharks organization in 2014-15, landing a deal with their AHL affiliate at the time in Worcester. After he exploded for a .927 SV% in 26 games for the Woo Sharks down the stretch, Dell landed his first NHL contract and signed a two-way deal with San Jose.

He spent the following year back in the AHL, this time with the San Jose Barracuda, but won a spot on their opening night roster for 2016-17 as Martin Jones’ backup. That began a four-year run for Dell as the Sharks’ primary No. 2 option, including a standout rookie season. He only made 17 starts and three relief appearances behind the workhorse Jones but was excellent when relied upon, posting a .931 SV% and 2.00 GAA with an 11-6-1 record in his first taste of NHL action.

That would end up being the peak for Dell, who was already 27 when he burst onto the scene. He remained a serviceable backup for the coming years and even cracked 30 starts in 2019-20, but by the time he hit free agency that fall amid the pandemic, his averages over his four years in San Jose were a .908 SV% and 2.76 GAA – right around league average for that period.

Dell’s play dipped after that. He signed with the Maple Leafs in 2020 but was claimed by the Devils off waivers before ever playing a game for them. In seven games as New Jersey’s No. 3 option in the shortened 2021 season, he only managed a .857 SV% and 4.14 GAA. From that point forward, he spent most of his time back in the AHL, although he did have brief stints back in the NHL with the Sabres in 2021-22 and a second go-around with the Sharks in 2022-23 as a call-up option. He spent most of 2023-24 on an AHL contract with the Ontario Reign but got an NHL deal from the Kings at the trade deadline to serve as an emergency recall option in the postseason.

Last season, Dell returned to the Sharks organization for a third time on an AHL deal with the Barracuda. He had an .890 SV% and a 3-3-3 record in 10 games for them and a .914 SV% and a 6-6-1 record in 13 games for their ECHL affiliate, the Wichita Thunder.

Dell put a pin in his playing career after recording a .905 SV%, 2.92 GAA, five shutouts, and a 50-50-13 record in 130 NHL appearances. He also had a .912 mark and 11 shutouts with a 70-57-20 record in 155 AHL games in parts of eight seasons.

We at Pro Hockey Rumors congratulate Dell on his career and wish him the best in his post-playing endeavors.

Tyson Barrie Announces Retirement

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Amid his participation in yesterday’s Avalanche alumni game, defenseman Tyson Barrie confirmed to Nathan Rudolph of the DNVR Avalanche podcast that he’s retired.

A third-round pick of the Avalanche in 2009, Barrie was a highly intriguing offensive option out of the WHL’s Kelowna Rockets and quickly looked like he could be something of a steal. He led the league in assists by a defenseman in his post-draft year and was named the WHL’s top defenseman as a result, but concerns about the righty’s size and defensive acumen meant he returned for a fourth and final season of junior hockey before making the jump to the pro ranks in 2011-12. Even then, he spent most of that year in the minors and only received 10 NHL games.

He slowly worked his way up the Avs’ depth chart, seeing less and less AHL time each season before earning his final recall in November 2013, early in his age-22 season. While he checked in as a fringe top-four option at even strength, he overtook Erik Johnson as Colorado’s top power-play quarterback and ended up recording a 13-25–38 scoring line in 64 games over the balance of the campaign. Those 0.59 points per game placed him inside the top-15 among NHL rearguards that year.

The 2014-15 campaign marked Barrie’s true coming of age. He broke the 50-point plateau – the first of four times he’d end up doing so in his career – while serving as Colorado’s de facto No. 1 option for a good portion of the season with Johnson injured. He would continue averaging north of 21 minutes per game for the remainder of his Colorado tenure, twice earning fringe votes for year-end All-Star honors.

Colorado didn’t have a ton of team success during Barrie’s six-year run as a full-timer there, though, only making the playoffs three times and winning a round once. His struggles away from the puck played a significant role in that. Only once, his final season in Denver, did Barrie manage to record a positive expected rating based on shot quality generated and allowed when he was on the ice at even strength. He posted a negative actual plus/minus rating in his last four years for Colorado, including a league-worst -34 mark in the Avs’ disastrous 22-win season in 2016-17.

Entering the 2019-20 season, Barrie was a pending unrestricted free agent and had been made redundant with Cale Makar’s emergence in the preceding postseason. That kicked off the latter journeyman phase of his career, beginning with a July 1 blockbuster that sent him to the Maple Leafs in exchange for Nazem Kadri. It didn’t work out all that well for Barrie or Toronto. He was no longer his club’s top power play option, sitting behind Morgan Rielly on the Leafs’ power play pyramid, and his offensive output declined to a more pedestrian 5-34–39 scoring line in 70 games as a result.

With Barrie’s point production his only real calling card, the fit in Toronto obviously wasn’t going to be a long-term one. They let him become a free agent during the COVID-laced 2020 offseason, and he proceeded to land a one-year, $3.75MM “prove-it” deal with the Oilers.

Barrie was plopped onto a top power-play unit in Edmonton with the two-headed monster of Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid – the league’s two leading scorers in the shortened 2021 season – and responded with the best campaign of his career. He recorded 48 points in the truncated 56-game schedule, leading the NHL in scoring among defenders. His defensive deficiencies remained quite visible, though. He only managed a +5 rating compared to regular partner Darnell Nurse’s +27 mark, and as Edmonton was swept in the first round of the playoffs, Barrie became the first defenseman in league history to lead the position in scoring while not receiving a single Norris Trophy vote.

While Barrie remained a fine puck-mover for the Oilers, his production never quite found that gear again. His minutes began to drop back below the 20-minute mark, and at the 2023 deadline, he was sent to the Predators in the deal that landed Edmonton two-way dynamo Mattias Ekholm.

Nashville marked the last real turning point in Barrie’s career, and it wasn’t for the better. While he was still quite effective for the Preds down the stretch after the trade, recording 12 points in 24 games, that didn’t last very long. In 2023-24 – the final year of a three-year, $13.5MM extension he signed with Edmonton – Barrie tumbled down Nashville’s depth chart and ended up becoming a routine healthy scratch by the time the season ended. As such, he was limited to just one goal and 15 points in 41 games and only drew into the Preds’ playoff lineup once in their first-round loss to the Canucks.

Ahead of his age-33 season and with his value at an all-time low, Barrie ended up needing to settle for a professional tryout with the Flames to participate in an NHL training camp last fall. He did convert that into a $1.25MM contract in early October, but the fit wasn’t quite what Calgary hoped for. He only logged 13 appearances for the club and even ended up on waivers and cleared, seeing his first AHL action in over a decade with the Calgary Wranglers.

Barrie was a free agent this summer, and there was no reported interest in him on the open market. He hangs up his skates with 822 games played in 14 seasons, 23rd among his rather stacked draft class. He scored 110 goals and added 398 assists for 508 points, 10th in the league among defensemen since he debuted back in the 2011-12 season. He averaged just over 21 minutes per night for his career and made $47.85MM in estimated total earnings, per PuckPedia.

All of us at PHR congratulate Barrie on his fine career and wish him the best in his next steps.

Image courtesy of Sergei Belski-Imagn Images.

Minor Transactions: 8/4/25

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As we creep a little closer to training camps starting up, there have been a handful of minor moves around the hockey world recently.  We’ll run through those here.

  • Veteran goaltender Anton Khudobin has announced his retirement at the age of 39, Shaiba.kz relays. Khudobin spent parts of 14 seasons in the NHL, compiling a 114-92-33 record with a 2.52 GAA and a .916 SV% with six different teams.  After spending most of 2022-23 in the minors, he opted to play in Russia but didn’t play much at the VHL or KHL levels.  Khudobin didn’t suit up at all last season but has now made his retirement official.
  • The Hurricanes’ affiliate, the Chicago Wolves, announced (Twitter link) the re-signing of center Nikita Pavlychev and the signing of defenseman Jacob Friend to one-year contracts. Pavlychev had his best AHL performance last season, picking up 25 points in 63 games after primarily playing in the ECHL for the previous four years.  As for Friend, he split last season between playing in Austria and Germany but has three years of playing in the minor pros in North America.
  • After being moved in the KHL just a few days ago, Matvei Guskov has a new team once again as he has signed with HK Sochi. The Wild drafted Guskov in the fifth round back in 2019 but he has struggled since then, especially last season where he had just four goals in 38 games spread between three other KHL teams.  Sochi’s rosters usually aren’t as deep so Guskov may have a pathway to a bigger role and more production now with this move.  Minnesota continues to hold his NHL signing rights indefinitely.
  • AHL Rockford, affiliate of the Blackhawks, announced the signing of defenseman Tyson Feist to a one-year deal. The 24-year-old only played in six AHL games last season, spending most of the year with ECHL Orlando where he had 17 points in 57 appearances.  However, Feist saw action in 32 AHL contests in 2023-24 and will be looking to see more regular action at that level in 2025-26.

Nathan Beaulieu Announces Retirement

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Former first-round pick Nathan Beaulieu has announced his retirement from professional hockey, according to the NHLPA.

Beaulieu, 32, hangs up his skates after playing 471 NHL games for the Canadiens, Sabres, Jets, and Ducks. The longtime bottom-pairing defenseman last appeared with Anaheim in the 2022-23 season, spending the last two campaigns in Europe but playing sparingly due to injuries.

The Ontario native was the No. 17 overall pick of the 2011 draft by Montreal from the QMJHL’s Saint John Sea Dogs after helping guide the team to a Memorial Cup championship and being named to the tournament’s All-Star team. He was a tantalizing junior prospect, never outright dominating offensively but still putting up strong point production with dominant defensive impacts while playing a highly physical brand of hockey.

While his physicality translated to the professional level, the other parts of his game only did so in short bursts. Beaulieu only ever topped 20 points in a season once, making a career-high 74 appearances for Montreal in 2016-17 while receiving significant power-play deployment for the only time in his career. He averaged 19:29 per game for the Habs that year, putting together a 4-24–28 scoring line with 102 blocks.

Aside from that, he was still a serviceable bottom-pairing piece for the Habs for a few years after emerging as a full-time NHLer in 2014-15. He ended up recording 60 points and a +19 rating in 225 games for the team that drafted him before he was traded to the Sabres in the 2017 offseason.

After the trade, Beaulieu was firmly relegated to being a No. 7 option. He never made more than 60 appearances in a season after that relative breakout of a 2016-17 campaign, averaging 15:27 per game for Buffalo, Winnipeg, and Anaheim over his final six NHL seasons.

Beaulieu’s final NHL season saw him thrown to the wolves on a severely understaffed Ducks defense in 2022-23, recording four points and a -23 rating in 52 games with ghastly possession numbers. That tanked his value the following summer and led to his move overseas to Switzerland’s EHC Kloten, where he only had two points in 13 games before a hand injury ended his season.

The veteran lefty signed on with Barys Astana of the KHL for 2024-25, but was released after eight games with financial issues forcing the club to part ways with all of its import players. He quickly landed with HC Nove Zamky of the Slovak Extraliga but did not make an appearance for them due to injury.

Beaulieu finishes his career with 12 goals, 86 assists, 98 points, and a -14 rating in 471 regular-season games while averaging 16:18 per night. He also had five points in 21 playoff games with Montreal and Winnipeg. All of us at PHR wish him the best in retirement.

Jaroslav Halak Announces Retirement

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Veteran goalie Jaroslav Halak is ending his playing career, telling Tomas Prokop of the Slovak website Dennik Sport that he’s officially retired.

Halak, 40, hasn’t played anywhere in the last two seasons aside from a brief tryout with the Hurricanes that didn’t result in game action early in 2023-24. A ninth-round pick in the 2003 draft, his 17-year NHL career included time with the Canadiens, Blues, Capitals, Islanders, Bruins, Canucks, and Rangers, last playing in New York’s final game of the 2022-23 regular season.

Montreal was the team that drafted him 271st overall from the QMJHL’s Lewiston MAINEiacs, and that’s where Halak got his start in the NHL three years later. He emerged as another young complement in the Canadiens’ pool alongside young star Carey Price, even taking over the starter’s role in the 2009-10 season and backstopping the team to a surprise run to the Conference Finals before being traded to St. Louis for Lars Eller the following summer.

Halak never spent more than four years with a club in his prime and was prone to year-to-year inconsistency, but he was an arguable top-10 goalie in the league at his absolute peak with multiple seasons of save percentages above .920. He was always more of a 1A option than a true starter, only playing more than 50 games four times, but he ends his career as a one-time All-Star, two-time Jennings Trophy winner, and he finished top-10 in Vezina Trophy voting twice.

After serving as the 1A option for the Blues from 2010-14 and on Long Island from 2014-18 with a brief post-deadline stop in Washington in between, Halak spent the twilight years of his career as one of the league’s better backup options for Boston (2018-21), Vancouver (2021-22), and the Rangers (2022-23). He’s been an unrestricted free agent since then, with no items of note on his NHL future since being released from his aforementioned PTO with Carolina in November 2023.

In 581 regular-season appearances, the Bratislava native posted a 2.50 GAA and .913 SV% with a 295-189-63 record and 53 shutouts. One of the best undersized netminders (5’11”, 189 lbs) of his generation, he posted an even better .919 SV% and 2.48 GAA in 39 playoff games in six trips to the Stanley Cup playoffs.

All of us at PHR wish Halak the best in retirement.

Image courtesy of Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images.

Pat Maroon To Retire After The Season

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Blackhawks winger Pat Maroon is in his 14th NHL season but there won’t be a 15th.  The veteran revealed to CHSN during today’s pregame show (Twitter link) that he plans to retire at the end of the season, citing a desire to start a new chapter with his family.

Maroon is in his first season with Chicago after signing a one-year, $1.3MM contract with them in free agency last summer.  He was brought in to play a mentoring role while taking a regular shift on the fourth line and has done just that, getting into 59 games this season where he has 16 points, 95 hits, and 81 penalty minutes in 11:37 of playing time per outing.

It felt like the 36-year-old was going to be a candidate to be moved at the trade deadline earlier this month to a team looking to add some extra depth and experience for the stretch run.  However, he indicated to the team last month that his preference was to remain with Chicago rather than be on the move for the second straight deadline.

Maroon was a sixth-round pick by Philadelphia back in 2006, going 171st overall.  He spent parts of four seasons in their farm system but never got a chance to play with the Flyers, eventually being traded to Anaheim in 2010.

While Maroon saw a bit of NHL action with the Ducks after the move, it took until the 2013-14 campaign for him to become a regular player for them at the age of 25.  He wound up spending parts of five years with them before he was traded to Edmonton at the 2016 deadline.  With the Oilers is where he had his best success offensively, notching 86 points in 154 games over parts of three years before being moved to New Jersey at the 2018 trade deadline.

Maroon then signed with St. Louis the following summer, winning a Stanley Cup with them in 2019 before moving on to Tampa Bay where he won two more in consecutive seasons.  Along the way, he went from being more of a second-line option as he was with Edmonton to more of an energetic bottom-six piece, one that spent parts of four years with the Lightning before being picked up at the deadline by Boston last season.

All told, Maroon has 125 goals and 195 assists along with 1,583 hits and 1,071 penalty minutes in 839 regular season games across eight different organizations heading into today’s action.  He also has suited up in 163 postseason contests, in the top 75 in NHL history in that regard where he has 53 points and those three Stanley Cup rings.   While Maroon has a few more weeks to add to those regular season numbers, it has certainly been a very solid career for someone who wound up being a late bloomer after working his way up from a long stint in the minors.

Photo courtesy of Perry Nelson-Imagn Images.

Gabriel Bourque Announces Retirement

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Veteran winger Gabriel Bourque has decided to call it a career.  The 34-year-old confirmed to Ciel 103’s Kevin Beaule that he has retired after 13 professional seasons.

Bourque was originally drafted back in 2009 by Nashville, going in the fifth round.  He spent parts of six seasons with the Preds before heading to Colorado for three more years, then Winnipeg for one.  He didn’t play at all in 2020-21 but opted to continue playing after that, spending the last three seasons suiting up with AHL Laval, Montreal’s affiliate but was limited to just 11 points in 43 games in 2023-24.

All told, Bourque ends his playing days with 413 career NHL appearances between the Predators, Avalanche, and Jets.  He collected 40 goals, 63 assists, and 736 hits in those outings in a little over 12 minutes a night.  He currently sits 44th in NHL games played from the 2009 draft class, a pretty good outcome for a fifth-round selection.

Meanwhile, Bourque was more productive in the minors.  He saw AHL action in parts of nine years, tallying 65 goals and 104 assists in 364 games over that span.  He won’t be walking away from hockey entirely, however, as he’s now an assistant coach at College Lionel-Groulx.

Rick Bowness Announces Retirement

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Jets head coach Rick Bowness is expected to announce his retirement later today, TSN’s Darren Dreger reports. Winnipeg promptly released a statement confirming the news.

Bowness, 69, had mulled retirement two seasons ago after the Stars announced he wouldn’t be returning as their bench boss, but he was offered a two-year agreement with a one-year club option from the Jets to stay in the game. Speaking to reporters last week, Bowness said the team hadn’t yet decided on whether or not to exercise its option and needed to talk with his family and the team about his future.

After a 40-year career behind NHL benches as a head coach and assistant, Bowness was named a finalist for the Jack Adams Award for the first time last week. He guided Winnipeg to a second-place finish in the Central Division this season with 110 points and 52 wins, the latter of which tied for the most in Jets/Thrashers franchise history.

Bowness began his time in the NHL as a player. After being selected in the second round of the 1975 NHL Amateur Draft by the Atlanta Flames, Bowness made his NHL debut the following season. The right winger didn’t establish himself as an everyday NHLer until a move to the Red Wings in 1977, who acquired him for cash that summer. He played a career-high 61 games that season before spending the next three seasons as a major-league/minor-league tweener with the Blues and Jets organization, last suiting up in the NHL for the previous incarnation of Winnipeg with 25 points in 45 games in the 1980-81 campaign.

Still playing in the Jets organization, Bowness began his career in coaching as a player-coach for AHL Sherbrooke in 1982-83. He didn’t coach the team during his final season as a player with Sherbrooke in 1983-84 but took a job as an NHL assistant with the Jets immediately after retiring. He remained in an assistant role in Winnipeg until 1987 when the organization reassigned him to the minors to become the head coach of their new AHL affiliate in Moncton. A year and a half later, Bowness was back in the NHL – this time getting his first shot as a head coach in the majors. He was the interim boss for the back half of the 1988-89 campaign after Winnipeg fired Dan Maloney midseason. It wasn’t terribly successful, though, and he wasn’t brought back after finishing the season with an 8-17-3 record.

Bowness immediately landed with the Bruins organization and spent the following three seasons there — two as the head coach of AHL Maine and one as Boston’s head coach. He guided the team to a 36-32-12 record in 1991-92 and a Conference Final loss to the Penguins, the eventual Stanley Cup champions.

In the summer of 1992, he headed to the expansion Senators to serve as the first coach in franchise history. Nobody could have bolstered one of the most poorly assembled rosters in league history, though, and Bowness led the struggling franchise to a 39-178-18 record (.204 points percentage) before being let go midway through his fourth season in Canada’s capital.

Bowness spent the next 20-plus years working for the Islanders, Coyotes, Canucks, Lightning and Stars, mainly serving as an assistant or associate. He was briefly the head coach of the Isles for a time in 1997 and 1998 and served as the interim bench boss for the Coyotes in 2003-04 for the final 20 games of the season.

After going 2-12-3-3 down the stretch with Phoenix, Bowness wouldn’t get another try as a head coach for another 15 years. He took over as interim for Dallas midway through the 2019-20 campaign after Jim Montgomery was dismissed due to unprofessional conduct, later revealed to be an alcohol-related incident that led Montgomery to seek treatment for alcoholism and eventually return behind the bench for the Bruins last year. Going 20-13-5 until COVID paused the season, Bowness returned in the bubble playoffs and oversaw the Stars’ first appearance in the Stanley Cup Final in 20 years.

Dallas fell to the Lightning and missed the playoffs the following shortened season but returned to postseason play under Bowness in 2022. After going 46-30-6 and losing in the first round to the Flames, though, the Stars and Bowness mutually parted ways, paving the way for him to return to where his coaching career started in Winnipeg.

Bowness ended his career on a high note, posting a 98-57-9 record and guiding the Jets to back-to-back playoff appearances, even though they both resulted in quick first-round exits. He officially exits the game after 38 seasons behind an NHL bench, with parts of 14 coming as a head coach. His career record stands at 310-408-48-37 in 803 games, a .439 points percentage.

Winnipeg now becomes the seventh team with an active head coach vacancy. No candidates have been linked to the job yet.

PHR wishes Bowness and his family all the best in retirement and congratulations him on one of the lengthiest coaching careers in league history.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Brad Malone To Retire After The Season

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Veteran winger Brad Malone is in his 13th professional season and it will be his last.  AHL Bakersfield announced that this will be his final year and that the Oilers farmhand will be retiring at the conclusion of the upcoming postseason.

The 34-year-old was originally drafted by Colorado, going 105th overall back in 2007 but didn’t turn pro until the 2011-12 campaign.  Malone spent parts of three seasons with the Avs before signing on for two years in Carolina, followed by one with Washington.

In 2017, Malone joined Edmonton in free agency and has stuck with that organization ever since; he’s on his fourth contract with the team.  He has spent most of his time with the Condors during that time but did get into 41 games with the Oilers, ten of which came last season.  This year, the veteran has 17 points through 48 contests in the minors with two games left on their regular season schedule.

All told, Malone will wrap up his career with 217 appearances at the top level where he had 32 points.  He also has suited up in 551 AHL contests so far, tallying 290 points, a quality career for a player selected in the middle of the draft.  Now, he’ll look to go out on a high note with a strong postseason run with the Condors having already sewn up a spot in the Pacific Division.

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