Joe Pavelski officially announces retirement from NHL

Joe Pavelski is officially hanging up his skates.

After 1,533 games over 18 seasons, the 40-year-old veteran officially announced his retirement from the NHL on SiriusXM’s NHL Morning Skate on Tuesday.

The Dallas Stars forward hinted at his retirement in June after his team was eliminated in Game 6 of the Western Conference final for the second year in a row.

“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 after Game 6. “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.”

The Wisconsin native, whose 74 playoff goals are the most for a U.S.-born player and were the most among active players, was at the end of his contract with the Stars. He went to the Stanley Cup Final in 2020 in his first season with Dallas, and also got that far with San Jose in 2016.

Selected 205th overall in the seventh round by the Sharks in the 2003 draft, Pavelski made his NHL debut during the 2006-07 season and went on to score 476 goals with 592 assists in 1,332 regular-season games. This season ended with him being fifth among active players for goals and seventh with 1,068 points.

This post-season, Pavelski became the 25th player to appear in 200 playoff games; he finished with 201. He is the only one in that group without a Cup title. He had one goal in 19 games for the Stars in the season’s Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The Stars were the top seed in the Western Conference in these playoffs. After getting through the first two rounds against Vegas and Colorado, the last two Stanley Cup champions, their season ended with a 2-1 loss Sunday night in Edmonton.

“Couldn’t ask for a better opportunity, a better group of guys to be around,” Pavelski said. “There’s been a lot of different emotions down the stretch.”

After 13 seasons with the Sharks, Pavelski was unable to work out a deal to stay in San Jose and instead signed a $21 million, three-year contract with the Stars in the summer of 2019. He then signed consecutive one-year deals, and earned $5.5 million in 2023-24 with a $3.5 million base salary plus incentives based on games played.

He played in all 302 regular-season games for Dallas the past four seasons.

— With files from the Associated Press