{"id":900131,"date":"2026-09-21T13:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T13:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/900131\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T13:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T13:44:09","slug":"veteran-f-kevin-hayes-retires-after-playing-just-five-games-in-khl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/900131\/","title":{"rendered":"Veteran F Kevin Hayes retires after playing just five games in KHL"},"content":{"rendered":"

Veteran forward Kevin Hayes<\/a> has announced his retirement after playing in just five KHL games to start this season.<\/p>\n

The 34-year-old winger went without a point in five games with Ak Bars Kazan after signing a one-year deal to join the club in August.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have decided to end my hockey career,\u201d Hayes said in a statement released by the Russian league on X. \u201cI can no longer play at the level I am capable of because my body does not allow me to perform at my best. And I cannot accept not being in top form.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hayes retires after playing 12 seasons in the NHL, in addition to the brief stint in the KHL.<\/p>\n

He spent the past two years with the Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> but appeared in just 28 games this past season, posting four goals and eight points on the campaign.<\/p>\n

He became an unrestricted free agent on July 1 as the seven-year, $50 million contract he signed with the Philadelphia Flyers<\/a> in 2019 expired. The deal carried a cap hit of $7.14 million, though half of it was retained by Philadelphia when Hayes was dealt to the St. Louis Blues<\/a> in 2023.<\/p>\n

Selected 24th overall by the Chicago Blackhawks<\/a> in the 2010 draft, Hayes leaves the NHL with 185 goals and 445 points in 805 career games.<\/p>\n

He did not appear in a game with the Blackhawks, instead making his debut with the New York Rangers<\/a> in 2014. He also spent time with the Winnipeg Jets<\/a>, Flyers, Blues and Penguins over his career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Veteran forward Kevin Hayes has announced his retirement after playing in just five KHL games to start this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":900132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[16159,64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-900131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-apple-news","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}