Former NHLer Nigel Dawes retires from hockey

Nigel Dawes, who spent parts of five seasons in the NHL and is one of the highest-scoring players in KHL history, has announced his retirement at the age of 38.

Dawes spent the past two seasons with Adler Mannheim of the top German league, recording 66 points over 90 games. He had a respectable 84 points in 212 NHL games, and 233 points in 232 AHL games.

Dawes was drafted in the fifth round in 2003 by the New York Rangers, making his NHL debut with the club during the 2006-07 season. He had 29 points as a rookie in 2007-08 before going full-time in the NHL for 2008-09. Dawes was traded to Arizona in 2009 but struggled and didn’t end up resigning. He then proceeded to have a career-high 32 points with Calgary in 2009-10, but was bought out and later signed in Atlanta. The 5-foot-8 winger struggled with the Thrashers and was eventually moved to Montreal, where he failed to score in his four-game stint with the club.

That’s when Dawes took his talents to the KHL, specifically Barys Astana. He quickly became one of the best KHLers, making the KHL all-star game six times and capping his career off with 505 points in 543 games, good for fifth of all time. In 2018-19, his first with Avtomobilist Yekaterinburg, Dawes scored a career-high 69 points, the most by a non-Russian that season.

Dawes might be most known for being among the few players that has represented two countries at a top-level IIHF event. Dawes was the top scorer at the 2004 world juniors and then won gold the following year on a team that featured Patrice Bergeron, Sidney Crosby, Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry, among others. But after playing five seasons with Kazakh-based Barys Astana, Dawes joined Kazakhstan’s national team, where he quickly became the team’s top star. He made his lone top-division championship appearance in 2015-16 and scored eight points in seven games, before winning bronze in Division IA the next year. He last represented Kazakhstan during the qualification tournament for the 2022 Olympic Games in 2019-20.