John Klingberg retires from NHL after 700-game career
Veteran defenseman John Klingberg announced on Friday that he has officially retired from professional hockey, having put the finishing touches on a 700-game NHL career as a member of the San Jose Sharks last season.
A native of Gothenburg, Sweden, Klingberg was chosen with the No. 131 overall pick in the fifth round of the 2010 NHL Draft by the Dallas Stars, and he was certainly one of the biggest steals of one of the strongest draft classes of its decade.
Klingberg broke into the league with a bang as a 22-year-old rookie in the 2014-15 season, immediately making his presence felt offensively by racking up 40 points on 11 goals and 29 assists in 65 regular season games.
The six-foot-two puckmover had the best regular season of his career from a production standpoint when he notched 67 points in 82 games in the 2017-2018 campaign, and he was an instrumental factor in Dallas’ surprise run to the Stanley Cup Final in the 2020 bubble postseason, when he chipped in 17 points in 21 games while contributing significantly on the power play.
Klingberg’s tenure in the Lone Star State ended with him as one of the more decorated players in franchise history. To this day, he ranks 10th in franchise history in points among all skaters and second among defenseman, trailing only the legendary Sergei Zubov.
After leaving Dallas, Klingberg bounced around the league as a journeyman, spending brief periods of time with the Anaheim Ducks, Minnesota Wild, Toronto Maple Leafs, Edmonton Oilers and Sharks. Klingberg didn’t spend more than 56 regular season games with any of these clubs, but his 27 points in 56 games in San Jose last season put him second on the team in scoring by a defenseman despite missing considerable time.
In total, Klingberg finishes his run in the NHL with 92 goals and 351 assists for 443 points in 700 regular season games to go with 43 points in 92 Stanley Cup Playoff games.
Klingberg’s prime aligned with the window in which NHL players did not participate in the Winter Olympics, but while he never represented Sweden on the Olympic stage, he still put together a decorated international career, winning gold at the IIHF World Championships in 2017 and 2018.
