Veteran F Pavelski officially retires after 18 NHL seasons
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Veteran forward Joe Pavelski officially retired on Tuesday after an NHL career that spanned 1,332 games.
Pavelski had previously stated after the Dallas Stars season came to an end that he did not expect to play again.
“I don’t want to say this is official, but, you know, the plan is not to be coming back. There’ll be more to come on that," Pavelski said in June. “Everything’s still raw, like nothing official. There’ll be more words and I’m going to need a little bit of time to really put it together and figure it out that way.”
Pavelski, 39, appeared in all 82 games with the Stars last season, recording 27 goals and 67 points. He added a goal and four points in 19 playoff games before his team was eliminated by the Edmonton Oilers in the Western Conference Final.
The 6-foot-1 centre played the last five seasons in Dallas, recording 121 goals and 186 points in 369 games and led them to a Stanley Cup Final in 2020.
Pavelski is coming off a one-year, $5.5 million deal he signed with the Stars in July of 2023.
Drafted 205th overall by the San Jose Sharks in 2003, Pavelski has 476 goals and 1,068 points in 1,332 career games split between the Sharks and Stars.
The Piover, Wis., native represented the Untied States twice at the Winter Olympic Games in 2010 and 2014, taking home a silver medal in 2010. He also represented his country at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey in a seventh-place finish.