From Mr. Irrelevant to two-time Stanley Cup champ, Patric Hörnqvist reflects on his career
This story appeared on hockeysverige.se this week and has been translated from Swedish to English.
Patric Hörnqvist retired this past offseason after amassing 264 goals and 543 points in 901 games over 15 seasons of NHL hockey – with a Stanley Cup to his credit. And he achieved all of this despite being ”Mr. Irrelevant.”
The Swede was the last player to be picked at the 2005 NHL Draft when the Nashville Predators scooped him up with the 230th overall selection in the seventh round.
”I remember being out shopping when my agent called me. He said: ’Unfortunately, it doesn’t look good. Don’t count on being drafted,’” Hörnqvist remembers. ”I didn’t count on it either and didn’t know much about the process. I wasn’t a driving force in the junior national team, but more of a stopgap.”
He went to bed the night of the draft, thinking nothing would happen. A knock on the door later, he received different news.
”My dad came into my room and told me that I had been drafted. It was unreal. A fire was lit inside of me. I knew there was a small chance I could make it to the NHL, which had been my big goal the whole time. I wanted to play in the NHL.”
And indeed, he succeeded
In 2008, after a few successful seasons with Djurgården in the Swedish top league, Hörnqvist made his way to Nashville. He instantly made the team out of camp, but was later demoted to Milwaukee Admirals in the AHL after playing 28 games with the Predators. A good lesson, it proved.
”It was a punch in the gut to be sent down. It was the first time I experienced a setback in my career”, he said. ”At the same time, there were some excellent people in Milwaukee. Nashville’s organization was also built so that most players had to start in the farm team. Therefore, they supported the players with good teammates, some “vets” who were really good, and above all, a good coach (Lane Lambert). He trained us to get to the NHL and turned a blind eye if we tried to make that pass, which would have resulted in a breakaway instead of ’You can’t do that, we have to win every game.’”
Hörnqvist had his breakthrough season in the NHL the following year. He scored 30 goals and became one of the top players on the team in 2009/10. He said much of that had to do with the guidance he got from teammates like Shea Weber and Pekka Rinne.
”They were like-minded guys, and great role models”, Hörnqvist said. ”They took care of me, and that’s the most important thing you can get in life. I learned a lot from them. If there’s a new guy on the team, you should help that individual get settled, not push them down. To help someone is the most beautiful thing one can do as a human, which the NHL is very good at”.
He returned the favor a few years later when a young Swede named Filip Forsberg arrived in Nashville after a trade with the Washington Capitals.
”Barry Trotz, who was coaching us at the time, pulled me aside and was totally ecstatic: ’We’ve got the biggest trade going on. Could you take care of him if we get it through?’” he recalls. ”Of course. Rinne and Weber did it for me. Now it was my turn to carry the flag forward. The next day when I arrived at the rink, (Martin) Erat was gone, and we got Forsberg, whom I didn’t know much about at the time. He is seven years younger than me, after all.”
Hörnqvist views the trade as franchise-altering.
”What a damn good hockey player he is! He has meant a lot for Nashville. Without that trade, Nashville probably wouldn’t have been in the finals (in 2017) or been where the team is today. You have to take risks to win, and Nashville chose to trade one of their best players. At the deadline, things like that can happen.”
A year later, he was himself traded. After six seasons with the Predators, he was flipped to the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for forward James Neal at the 2014 draft.
”Paul Fenton (Predators assistant GM at the time) called me in the middle of the night: ’Horny, we have traded you to Pittsburgh. Good luck and thank you. Jim Rutherford will call you in a few minutes, so stay close to your phone’”, he remembers. ”I had barely woken up, but understood what had happened. I waited in the hallway, and my wife asked if something had happened. ’No kidding, we are moving to Pittsburgh’. Isabelle, our daughter, was three months old then.
The trade was a shock and a big disappointment to Hörnqvist at the time.
”It was hard, and I was so damn disappointed. The first time, it’s classic, you don’t think it will happen to you. In that sense, I’ve been lucky both times I’ve been traded, that I didn’t need to be there right away”, he said. ”My mind started spinning. We had just had a child and gotten settled in Nashville. I had signed a five-year contract, only played one year of it, and got an “A” on my chest. Many things were moving in the right direction and indicating that I would stay there for a very long time. Fortunately, I came to a team like Pittsburgh.”
Indeed, being surrounded by players like Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang wasn’t bad for his own career.
”During my years in Nashville, we never had players of that caliber,” Hörnqvist confessed. ”When I began to see the whole picture, I actually felt a bit happy. I was a goal scorer after all, and in hindsight, I took another step in my career when I got to play with such players. For the first three years, I got to play with Crosby and after that with Malkin.”
”During my six years in Pittsburgh, I still spent half the time playing with Crosby. Then you have to develop your game and dare to make that pass that’s a bit risky because if he gets the puck in the middle with speed, a lot gets resolved, so I developed my game and took it to a new level when I got to play with such players.”
To this day, Hörnqvist is still in awe of Sidney Crosby, not only as a player.
”He is the best person I’ve played with. An amazing human being. You can’t be at that level if you’re not a good person. He is top ten in the world of all time” Hörnqvist marveled. ”The same goes for Malkin, but he was more reserved with some players.”
Alongside these world-class players, Hörnqvist became a key player in two Stanley Cup-winning teams. After beating the San Jose Sharks in 2016, the Penguins beat his former team in 2017. He admits it was a special feeling to come out of that series as a winner, especially after having been traded by the Predators three years before that final series.
”The first year, we were so very good and it was the first time I was part of a winning team like that”, he said. ”The second time, against Nashville in Nashville, the emotions hit a bit harder. It became more emotional for me. It might have been a bit like: ’Damn, how nice it feels that they didn’t get to win’. It was a bit like that, a relief that Nashville didn’t win. Especially when Nashville traded away Shea Weber for (P.K) Subban.
”I think it would have been harder if Weber had played. Now, my best friend had also disappeared. Nashville wanted to make a change and try something new. It went really well, but they didn’t go all the way, which I thought was very nice.”
In 2020, Hörnqvist was traded for the second time in his career. This time to the Florida Panthers. Once again, he was disappointed when being approached about having to leave his team, especially since he had a no-trade clause in his deal with the Penguins.
”Florida had approached me through my agent, and I told them that Jim Rutherford and the Penguins had given me this clause, and for me, it was a matter of principle,” he explained. ”Florida understood me, but by then, a seed had been planted in my head. When I received the third call (from Florida), things changed for me. At the time I knew I didn’t have a ten-year career ahead of me… I wasn’t finished in any way, but my career was starting to come to an end.”
After a lot of contemplation, he accepted a trade to the Panthers. In September of 2020. it was announced that he had been shipped from Pittsburgh in exchange for defenseman Mike Matheson and forward Colton Sceviour.
”The alternative was that I would play on a team where they probably didn’t want me. To make matters worse, it turned into a big media thing. My wife and I looked at each other and felt that this wasn’t our thing”, he said of the trade. ”If I had a choice, I didn’t want to go to someone who didn’t want me. I wanted to feel needed. Then I didn’t care whether it was Pittsburgh or Florida. In Florida, I really felt needed, and so we decided to go there. It turned out to be fantastic.”
During his time with the Panthers, he saw the team become a contender. Hörnqvist holds GM Bill Zito and owner Vinny Viola in high regard.
”They went from being this criticized and burnt-out organization to becoming a place that attracted great players and coaches”, he said. ”We also did all these trades that turned out to be really good for us, getting players like Sam Bennett and Sam Reinhart, picking up Gustav Forsling on waivers, and got guys like Carter Verhaeghe and Anthony Duclair for free. The list was long. Good people, great players that helped us get the group together.”
Unfortunately for Hörnqvist, he never got to reap the rewards of the great development in Florida. Last season he was limited to 17 games because of concussion issues.
”I was hit twice in a short time span. After the first hit, I felt great, but then I got hit again…” he said. ”It was an accident. Me and another guy were both backchecking and turned in the same direction. His shoulder hit my chin at full speed. I woke up in the corner, but after that, I have no recollection of anything. I just woke in the dressing room without knowing how I got there.”
That hit was the last thing he experienced in his NHL career.
”I thought to myself, if I were to take such a hit again, what would my life look like then? Is hockey worth so much to play out the season and then maybe never be able to fully be with my children, to be involved in my family?”
The answer was no.
”I still have a responsibility towards my family,” Hörnqvist said. ”It’s not just hockey, which, of course, has been a big part of my life. There’s something more important than hockey when you have children. At the same time, I knew that my career would probably be over within three years.”
”When it was all over, it became emotionally difficult. For me, it would never be worth it to put on the gear again and risk something. It can happen in a game, during practice, and in so many different situations. We’re not talking about a knee, foot, or hand that you can live normally with, but here it was about something else. Hopefully, I have at least 35 good years left in my life.”
Despite stepping away from the ice, he’s still involved with the Panthers today.
”I don’t really have a specific role, but I’ve already been over there six times (this season), joined in and practiced a bit with the guys. Bill Zito and I developed a good relationship, and he discusses many questions with me about the team, how we should think about the future and all that.”
After 15 years in North America, he relocated to Sweden with his family. That’s a bit of a stumbling block when taking on more responsibility with the Panthers’ management. He does know that there will be more hockey in his life in the future.
”I’m still passionate about hockey, from the details to developing players, making sure the players are doing well, providing the best conditions,” Hörnqvist. “I want to help people improve in their careers. Whether it’s a 15-year-old boy in Sweden or someone in the Florida Panthers doesn’t matter.”