Blake Wheeler, Who Once Ruptured A Testicle, Officially Retires After 16 NHL Seasons
Right-winger had his best years in Winnipeg, including a pair of back-to-back 91-point seasons
He didn't sign with an NHL team last season, so there was speculation that he may be hanging them up, but not former Winnipeg Jets captain Blake Wheeler is making it official: he's retiring.
Wheeler appeared on an episode of the radio show Jets at Noon this week and revealed that he had decided to call it a career after 16 NHL seasons and 1,172 games played.
"More or less, right after last year knew I was all done," Wheeler said, per Global News. "I just haven’t felt like a rush to make a formal announcement or anything. But yeah, after my injury and kinda the way things ended last year, I just didn’t have anything left in the tank for it. So yeah, I was at peace with it almost immediately after last year, and yeah, I’m just enjoying being a dad and kinda slowing things down a little bit, and being around my family."
Wheeler, a native of Plymouth, Minn., played for the Green Bay Gamblers of the USHL and then played college hockey for the Minnesota Golden Gophers.
Despite being selected by the Phoenix Coyotes in the 2004 NHL Draft, Wheeler signed with the Boston Bruins as a free agent in 2008. In 2011, he was traded to the Atlanta Thrashers and played the tail end of their season before the team moved to Winnipeg.
After 16 NHL seasons, Blake Wheeler has officially announced his retirement. (Photo by Andreea Cardani/NHLI via Getty Images)
Wheeler had his best years in Winnipeg, including a pair of back-to-back 91-point seasons, and was named the team's captain for the 2016-17 season.
In 2023, he signed with the New York Rangers, but missed a chunk of the season with a leg injury. He appeared in one game for the Blueshirts during the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs, which proved to be his final NHL game.
Congrats to Wheeler on a heck of a career. I think he's going to go down as one of the most underrated Americna-born players. He was on the 2014 Olympic team and was a Hockey Guy's Hockey Guy.
I mean, who could forget when he ruptured a testicle and stayed in the game?
Now that's peak Hockey Guy-ism.