In an interview with Quebec media outlet La Presse, NHL veteran and former Philadelphia Flyers forward Derick Brassard announced that he is retiring from hockey after 16 years in the NHL, including a brief stop with the Flyers in the 2021-22 season.
Brassard played his last NHL game, as a member of the Ottawa Senators, on March 30, 2023, when he broke his fibula against the Flyers.
“They reattached my foot to the back. I never wanted to see the replay again, it was too disgusting,” Brassard told Mathias Brunet. “Mikhail Sergachev went through the same thing. I texted him, actually. I was surprised he was able to come back after three or four months.
“I probably would have played one more season. . . but it took me eight months to get back. Coming in November, with Vladimir Tarasenko signed, the salary situation the Senators had, it wouldn’t have worked out. I’d be able to play right now, but at my age, after missing a full year, there’s no way I could come back. Hockey’s over for me.”
During his 1,013-game NHL career, Brassard became somewhat infamous for being a nomadic player; the 36-year-old played for a whopping 10 teams in his 16 seasons in the NHL, despite the fact that Brassard played for the Columbus Blue Jackets in parts of six seasons and for the New York Rangers in parts of four, including one under current Flyers head coach John Tortorella.
As you’d probably guess, the former Flyers forward was involved in quite a few interesting transactions over the years.
In the six different instances that he was traded, Brassard was moved for players like or picks that became Alex Ciernik, Jared McCann, Nick Bjugstad, Ian Cole, Filip Gustavsson, K’Andre Miller, Mika Zibanejad, Jonatan Berggren, and Marian Gaborik.
Brassard joined the Flyers on Aug. 25, 2021, signing a one-year, $835,000 contract given to him by former Flyers general manager Chuck Fletcher. In 31 games with the Flyers, Brassard scored six goals, 10 assists, and 16 points while averaging 14:22 of ice time.
The then-34-year-0ld was later dealt to the Edmonton Oilers on March 21, 2022, for a 2023 fourth-round pick that Danny Briere and the Flyers used to select Ciernik last summer. In the 15 regular season games that followed Brassard’s move to Edmonton, the Hull, Quebec native scored only two goals, one assist, and three points while averaging only 9:53 of ice time.
Brassard appeared in only one playoff game for the Oilers in the 2022 postseason as Edmonton was swept by one of Brassard’s former teams, the Colorado Avalanche, in the Western Conference Finals. The Avalanche later defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning in six games to win the Stanley Cup Final.
Including his pit stop with the Flyers, Brassard finished his 16-year NHL career with 215 goals, 330 assists, and 545 points in 1,013 regular season games.
