Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Sandis Ozolinsh calls it a career

SandisOzolinsh

Arguably the greatest Latvian hockey player ever is hanging up his skates.

Defenseman Sandis Ozolinsh, a seven-time NHL All-Star and Stanley Cup champion, announced his retirement from professional hockey on Tuesday, per Latvian news outlet Sporta Centrs.

Ozolinsh, 41, was taken 30th overall at the 1991 NHL Entry Draft by San Jose and enjoyed success with the Sharks -- he still holds the franchise record for points by a defenseman in a single season (64) -- but garnered his highest accolades with Colorado in the late 90s.

He won a Stanley Cup with the Avs in ’96, scoring 19 points in 22 playoff games, and finished third in Norris voting a year later, behind Vladimir Konstantinov and eventual winner Brian Leetch.

From there, Ozolinsh would bounce around the league with stops in Carolina, Florida, Anaheim (with whom he’d get to another Cup Final) and New York, before taking a year’s hiatus from hockey and returning to the KHL for Latvian club side Dinamo Riga in 2009. In the KHL, Ozolish re-established himself as an elite-level defenseman, appearing in four All-Star Games while making one final appearance for the Latvian national team at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, leading his country to a near upset of Canada in the tournament quarterfinals.

Ozolinsh retires as the highest-scoring Latvian NHLer of all time, and will now reportedly turn his attention to the political realm.