(SportsNetwork.com) – Former NHL player Alex Kovalev has announced his retirement.<\/p>\n
Kovalev last played in the NHL with the Florida Panthers during the 2012-13 season and spent last season with Swiss second-tier team EHC Visp.<\/p>\n
According to the International Ice Hockey Federation’s website, Kovalev made the announcement in an interview with Swiss TV station Kanal9. He cited injuries as the reason for his decision.<\/p>\n
The 41-year-old Russian native was selected by the New York Rangers with the 15th overall pick of the 1991 NHL Entry Draft and joined the team for the 1992-93 season. He then helped the Rangers end a 54-year Stanley Cup drought the following year, posting 21 points in 23 playoff games.<\/p>\n
Kovalev spent his first six-plus seasons with the Rangers, then was traded to Pittsburgh and played with the Penguins until the 2002-03 campaign when he was sent back to New York. He also played with Montreal and Ottawa before rejoining Pittsburgh late in the 2010-11 season and signed with the Panthers in January 2013.<\/p>\n
In 1,316 NHL regular-season games, most of any Russian-born player, Kovalev notched 430 goals and 599 assists for 1,029 points. He added 45 goals and 55 assists for 100 points in 123 playoff games.<\/p>\n
On the international level, Kovalev won Olympic gold at the 1992 Games in Albertville and bronze at the 2002 Salt Lake Games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(SportsNetwork.com) – Former NHL player Alex Kovalev has announced his retirement. Kovalev last played in the NHL with the Florida Panthers during the 2012-13 season and spent last season with Swiss second-tier team EHC Visp. According to the International Ice Hockey Federation’s website, Kovalev made the announcement in an interview with Swiss TV station Kanal9. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nhl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20415\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}