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

Report: Teemu Selanne to decide on playing future in September

San Jose Sharks v Anaheim Ducks

ANAHEIM, CA - APRIL 06: Teemu Selanne #8 of the Anaheim Ducks waits to face off against the San Jose Sharks at Honda Center on April 6, 2011 in Anaheim, California. (Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images)

Getty Images

While some are waiting for their favorite restricted free agents to be signed, others are waiting to see whether or not Teemu Selanne is going to come back for at least one more season in the NHL. After scoring 31 goals and piling up 80 points last year, it was a renaissance for the 40 year-old superstar in Anaheim.

After a year with so many good things for Selanne and so much nostalgia to build on, NHL fans are hopeful that he’ll give it one more go. With Selanne being 41 now and dealing with a knee that’s hounded the latter stages of his career, he’s taking his time to make a decision on whether or not to retire.

A report out of a Finnish newspaper says that Selanne won’t be making a decision on his future until September. Eric Stephens of The Orange County Register got cracking on finding a translator for the story and hooked us up with the information about the Finnish Flash’s future we’re itchy to find out.

Enlisting the translation help of Vesa Rantanen, who’s covered Selanne and many other Finnish players in the NHL for the paper, Selanne reportedly said that it’s “fair for all parties” to hold off on announcing his intentions to the team until then.

Selanne, 41, originally had set a personal deadline of July 1 but pushed that back after undergoing an arthroscopic procedure on his troublesome left knee to see whether it will hold up to competition for another 82 or more games.


The Ducks are a much more offensively potent and formidable team with Selanne on the ice and last year was a true revelation for him. Breaking the 30 goal barrier while playing more than 70 games for the first time since the Ducks Stanley Cup winning season in 2007 helped him give the Ducks the kind of offensive balance they needed. Having a first line of Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry, and Bobby Ryan is great for scoring goals but having Selanne line up with Saku Koivu and Jason Blake gave them a solid one-two punch with their lines.

With Selanne waiting until September and, presumably, before training camp to make a decision it leads us to believe he’s going to be back for another year. The Ducks have been great to Selanne and waiting that long to make a career choice would leave the Ducks in a lurch if he were to retire right before the team was to get together. Unless Selanne has any sort of setbacks with his knee, it would seem likely that we’ll see Selanne back out there one more season.