Rob Blake Retires

A 21-year NHL career has come to an end with the announcement of Rob Blake's retirement on Wednesday.  The news came unofficially down the wire on Wednesday afternoon with a full announcement set do be done in the next week or so, waiting for the Stanley Cup Finals to conclude.  Obviously, with breaking news like this, all that the news conference will do is give him time to thank those who he wants to thank and so on and so forth, but it looks like it's the real deal here, so we can strike him off our lists for the 2011 season.

The 40-year old blueliner had himself a pretty good career as an elite defenseman, winning a Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche in 2001, a Norris Trophy in 1998, numerous All-Star team appearances, First and Second Team All-Star nods and an Olympic Gold are under his belt or on his mantle after the last 21 seasons.  He finished with 240 goals, 537 assists in 1,270 games between Los Angeles, Colorado and San Jose, managing to stay in the Western Conference for his entire career.

In 2010, Blake finished 48th among all blueliners in scoring with 30 points in 70 games with the Sharks.  This means you might have to dig a little deeper to find your last defenseman, since Blake won't be around at your next Draft. 

Blake was scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1st, finishing a deal that had a cap hit of $3.5 million.