Alexander Steen retired from the NHL on Thursday after 15 seasons, the past 12 with the St. Louis Blues.
Defenseman Robert Haag (#8) of the Philadelphia Flyers defends his Goalie Brian Elliot (#37) as Left Wing Alexander Steen (#20) and Center Paul Stastny (#26) of the St Louis Blues look for the puck to rebound.
The 36-year-old forward sustained a back injury last season and has multiple levels of degenerative herniated disks in his lumbar spine.
“This has been an emotional process,” Steen told the Blues website. “But as I look back on my years in hockey, I would like to thank our organization, our city, our fans and my teammates as I am so proud of all the teams I was part of.”
Steen was limited to four postseason games last season because of the back injury. He played in each of the Blues’ three round-robin games in the Stanley Cup Qualifiers before playing 8:59 in Game 2 of the Western Conference First Round against the Vancouver Canucks on Aug. 14; the Blues lost the best-of-7 series in six games.
“Quite honestly, I was surprised last year that he was able to get through the season as well as he did and miss as few numbers of games as he did,” Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said. “Everyone would like to leave the game on their own terms, and unfortunately, Alexander’s back is forcing him into retirement. That’s a difficult spot.”
Steen told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Aug. 24 that he sustained the injury prior to the July training camp that was part of the NHL Return to Play Plan.
“With kind of an accelerated timeline, I think we were chasing it a little bit from the get-go,” he said. “Tried taking a couple periods off, like a couple of sections of camp … to see if things would calm down. But we just couldn’t get it under control.”
Steen was entering the final season of four-year, $23 million contract (average annual value $5.75 million) he signed Sept. 23, 2016, and could have become an unrestricted free agent after this season.
He scored 17 points (seven goals, 10 assists) in 55 games last season, an NHL career-low, and played his 1,000th game Feb. 1.
“On the ice, Steen was a player that management and the coaching staff, and more importantly teammates, knew what they were going to get on a nightly basis,” Armstrong said. “He didn’t play an easy game, but he played a winning game. He does a lot of things behind the scenes that I didn’t know about, that other people didn’t know about, as far as mentoring young players, holding them accountable and giving them a shoulder to cry on, for lack of a better term.”
Steen is fourth in Blues history in games (765), fifth in points (496), sixth in assists (301) and ninth in goals (195).
Selected by the Toronto Maple Leafs with the No. 24 pick in the 2002 NHL Draft, Steen scored 622 points (245 goals, 377 assists) in 1,018 games with Toronto and St. Louis. He scored 36 points (15 goals, 21 assists) in 91 Stanley Cup Playoff games and helped the Blues win the Cup in 2019.
The Blues would be able to save the $5.75 million NHL salary cap charge on Steen’s contract this season if he is put on long-term injured reserve as an injured player. If done, that would leave them about $4 million under the cap of $81.5 million for this season, which would allow them to sign another forward and re-sign restricted free agent defenseman Vince Dunn.
“But we could have some money to spend here between now and the start of the season when Alexander will go on LTI,” Armstrong said. “I don’t want to get too in-depth because it is complicated, but there could be opportunity for us to add players either prior to the season or into the season.”
NHL.com independent correspondent Louie Korac contributed to this report
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