ST. LOUIS — A persistent, lingering injury issue that hasn't seemed to alleviate itself enough has pushed forward Alexander Steen to look to the other side of his hockey life.
And in turn for Steen, who spent the past 11-plus seasons with the Blues, he announced his retirement from the NHL on Thursday after 15 seasons.
The 36-year-old Steen, acquired by the Blues from the Toronto Maple Leafs along with defenseman Carlo Colaiacovo on Nov. 24, 2008 for forward Lee Stempniak, played just one of the Blues' Western Conference First Round series games against the Vancouver Canucks because of what the Blues describe as "multiple levels of degenerative herniated discs of his lumbar spine" after playing in all three round-robin games inside the Edmonton bubble.
"This has been an emotional process. But as I look back on my years in hockey, I would like to thank our organization, our city, our fans and my teammates as I am so proud of all the teams I was part of," Steen said.
With Steen's retirement, once and when he files, the Blues save $5.75 million in cap space that brings them under the $81.5 million cap ceiling. Steen was going into the final year of a four-year, $23 million extension he signed Sept. 23, 2016, and was due a base salary of $3.5 million. If Steen does not file for retirement, the Blues could place him on long-term injured reserve.
The Blues' projected cap hit, according to capfriendly.com, was at $82,675,515 with Steen and forward Vladimir Tarasenko (shoulder) on injured reserve and accounting for $13.25 million in cap space, but saving Steen's cap hit will give them flexibility to sign restricted free agent Vince Dunn, and the likelihood of Tarasenko and his $7.5 million cap hit going on LTIR is probably not in the cards. There could still be some flexibility to add another scorer, depending on how much Dunn will cost. One intriguing name that is in play is Mike Hoffman, who is an unrestricted free agent and had 59 points (29 goals, 30 assists) with Florida last season.
As for Steen, he played in 1,018 regular-season games (765 with St. Louis, 253 with Toronto) and will finish with 622 points (245 goals, 377 assists), of which 496 came with the Blues (195 goals, 301 assists). His games played is fourth in Blues history, ninth in goals and fifth in points. Steen has also played in 91 Stanley Cup Playoff games (all with St. Louis) and had 36 points (15 goals, 31 assists), and helped the Blues to their first-ever Stanley Cup championship in 2018-19.
However, Steen's role began to diminish and his points production also fell off the past four seasons from 52 points in 2015-16 to 51 the following season, then 46, 27 and a career-low 17 points (seven goals, 10 assists) in 55 games this past season.
But Steen has never been able to shake the injury bug and only played all 82 regular-season games once in his NHL career (2006-07 with the Maple Leafs).
Steen tried to play through the back injury during the NHL Return to Play after the 2019-20 season was paused because of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) but only played in Game 2 against the Canucks before the Blues were eliminated in six games.
Steen, who scored an NHL career-high 33 goals in 2013-14 and had an NHL career-high 64 points and 40 assists in 2014-15, played an important role with Oskar Sundqvist and Ivan Barbashev accounting for the Blues' fourth line during their Cup run in 2019.
Steen was originally selected by the Maple Leafs in the first round (24th overall) of the 2002 NHL Draft. He and wife Josefine welcomed a second child on Wednesday, a boy.