Forward Derick Brassard announced his retirement from the NHL on Sunday.
The 36-year-old revealed the news in an interview with La Presse reporter Mathias Brunet, telling the French newspaper that “Hockey is over for me.”
Through 16 NHL seasons, the native of Hull, Que., scored 215 goals and 330 assists for 545 points in 1,013 career games with the Columbus Blue Jackets, New York Rangers, Ottawa Senators, Pittsburgh Penguins, Colorado Avalanche, Florida Panthers, New York Islanders, Arizona Coyotes, Edmonton Oilers and Philadelphia Flyers.
He last played in 2022-23, scoring 13 goals and 10 assists for 23 points in 62 games with the Senators. A lower-body injury derailed any chance for him to return in 2023-24, and at this stage in his life, Brassard is still going through physiotherapy.
“I probably would have played one more season,” he said in the interview. “I was in (former Senators coach D.J. Smith’s) plans, I think. I’d be able to play right now, but at my age, after missing a full year, it would be impossible to come back.
“Hockey is over for me,” he added.
His best offensive seasons came with the Rangers, where in four seasons, Brassard scored 69 goals and 105 assists for 174 points in 254 regular-season games, including a 60-point season in 2014-15.
He played in the Stanley Cup Playoffs nine times, including four runs to the Eastern Conference Finals — twice with the Rangers in 2014 and 2015, once with the Senators in 2017 and once with the Islanders in 2020. He would be part of the Rangers’ 2014 Stanley Cup Final run, where they eventually loss to the Los Angeles Kings.
Drafted No. 6 overall in the 2006 NHL Entry Draft by the Blue Jackets, Brassard produced lots of offense in the QMJHL, scoring 44 goals and 72 assists for 116 points with the Drummondville Voltigeurs during the 2005-06 season. After being drafted by Columbus, he only played 14 games in his final junior season due to a shoulder injury.
In 2007-08, he split his time between the Blue Jackets and the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch, where he would score 15 goals and 36 assists for 51 points in 42 games in the minors. He would spend six seasons with Columbus before being part of a blockbuster deal with the Rangers that sent Brassard, Derek Dorsett, John Moore and a sixth-round pick in the 2014 NHL Draft to New York in exchange for Marian Gaborik.
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