{"id":9591,"date":"2025-07-20T03:41:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T03:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/9591\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T03:41:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T03:41:10","slug":"winnipeg-jets-icon-blake-wheeler-announces-retirement-from-nhl-after-16-seasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/9591\/","title":{"rendered":"Winnipeg Jets icon Blake Wheeler announces retirement from NHL after 16 seasons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Long-time <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/winnipeg-jets\/52\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Winnipeg Jets<\/a> captain Blake Wheeler has announced his retirement from the NHL on Saturday after 16 seasons in the league.<\/p>\n<p>Wheeler spent 13 years with the Atlanta Thrashers\/Jets organization after he was acquired in February of 2011 in a trade with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/boston-bruins\/6\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Boston Bruins<\/a>, and was named captain of the team heading into the 2016 season.<\/p>\n<p>Wheeler contributed at least 20 goals and 60 points in seven consecutive seasons with the Jets, serving as a steady presence in the locker room through six postseason appearances in his time with the team.<\/p>\n<p>He retires as the Thrashers\/Jets franchise leader in games played (897), assists (550) and points (812), and ranks among the top five in most other offensive stats.<\/p>\n<p>Wheeler was the fifth overall pick in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft by the Phoenix Coyotes, and made his NHL debut four years later as a member of the Bruins.<\/p>\n<p>The native of Plymouth, Minn. spent the final year of his career with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tsn.ca\/nhl\/team-page\/new-york-rangers\/3\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New York Rangers<\/a> in 2023-24.<\/p>\n<p>In 1,172 career NHL games, Wheeler scored 321 goals and finished with 943 points. He totaled 10 goals and 45 points in 66 playoff games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long-time Winnipeg Jets captain Blake Wheeler has announced his retirement from the NHL on Saturday after 16 seasons&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9592,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-9591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}