Veteran NHL enforcer Ryan Reaves has announced his retirement after 16 seasons, confirming the decision in an Instagram post on Wednesday, September 16.
The 39-year-old forward finishes his career with 962 regular-season games, 66 goals and 74 assists for 140 points across seven teams: the St. Louis Blues, Pittsburgh Penguins, Vegas Golden Knights, New York Rangers, Minnesota Wild, Toronto Maple Leafs and San Jose Sharks. He added three goals and six assists in 113 playoff games.
A fifth-round pick (No. 156) by St. Louis in the 2005 NHL Draft, Reaves became one of the league’s best-known physical players. His most memorable moment came in 2018, when he scored the tiebreaking goal in Game 5 of the Western Conference Final against the Winnipeg Jets to help send Vegas to the Stanley Cup Final in the franchise’s first season.
Reaves spent last season with the Sharks, scoring three goals in 50 games. “Father Time remains undefeated. Every hit, every fight, it’s taken its final toll on me,” he wrote, adding that the game “gave me back x1,000.”
