Fifty-four players have decided they aren’t good enough anymore – or at least willing – to play in the EURO League and they’ve retired. For some, the decision is not a surprise. They were never good enough in the first place. Others, however, were in lineups a few weeks ago.
One player who decided to try to play one more year is longtime Helsinki goalie Henrik Lundquist. The super Swede who is now 40 is pratically begging his old friend Trevor Grimm to reserve a Fighting Royals sweater for him in Season 12.
The next season could also have four 39-year-olds, including forwards Ilya Kovalchuk and Jason Spezza. There could also be 14 players who are 38.
Here is a list of the newly retired players who were on teams in Season 11:
Goalies
- Pekka Rinne (Last season: 49 GP for Gothenburg) (2-time all-star)
- Marc-Andre Fleury (Last season: 0 GP for St. Petersburg) (2-time all-star)
Defensemen
- James Wisniewski (Last season: 0 GP for Helsinki) (1-time all-star)
- Kris Russell (Last season: 12 GP for Minsk)
- Nikita Nikitin (Last season: 77 GP for Stockholm)
Forwards
- Ryan Getzlaf (Last season: 1 GP for Bratislava)
- Nathan Horton (Last season: 75 GP for Geneva)
- Ryan White (Last season: 14 GP for Berlin)
- Pierre-Edouard Bellemare (Last season: 82 GP for Paris)
- Tim Kennedy (Last season: 7 GP for Belfast)
Newly retired players who didn’t play in Season 11
Goalies
- Jimmy Howard (3-time all-star)
- Mike Smith (1-time all-star)
- Thomas Greiss
- Jan Laco
- Jeff Glass
Defensemen
- Tobias Enstrom (2-time all-star)
- Trevor Daley (1-time all-star)
- Mark Giordano
- Anton Stralman
- Andrej Sekera
- Gerhard Unterluggauer
- Micki Dupont
- Kevan Miller
- Marc-Andre Gragnani
- Brendan Mikkelson
- Brian Lee
- Cody Goloubef
- Ryan Stanton
- Brett Bellemore
Forwards
- Eric Staal (3-time all-star)
- Matt Moulson (2-time all-star)
- Alex Steen
- Clarke MacArthur
- Erik Condra
- Teddy Purcell
- Blake Comeau
- Shawn Matthias
- Brooks Laich
- Sergei Zinovjev
- Nathan Gerbe
- Lauri Korpikoski
- Andrei Kostitsyn
- Matt Frattin
- Dale Weise
- Andreas Nodl
- Corey Emmerton
- Brandon Bochenski
- Mario Kempe
- Carter Rowney
- Corey Tropp
- Ryan Russell
- Brandon Bollig
- Mark Olver
- James Sheppard
