Blackhawks winger Pat Maroon is in his 14th NHL season but there won’t be a 15th. The veteran revealed to CHSN during today’s pregame show (Twitter link) that he plans to retire at the end of the season, citing a desire to start a new chapter with his family.
Maroon is in his first season with Chicago after signing a one-year, $1.3MM contract with them in free agency last summer. He was brought in to play a mentoring role while taking a regular shift on the fourth line and has done just that, getting into 59 games this season where he has 16 points, 95 hits, and 81 penalty minutes in 11:37 of playing time per outing.
It felt like the 36-year-old was going to be a candidate to be moved at the trade deadline earlier this month to a team looking to add some extra depth and experience for the stretch run. However, he indicated to the team last month that his preference was to remain with Chicago rather than be on the move for the second straight deadline.
Maroon was a sixth-round pick by Philadelphia back in 2006, going 171st overall. He spent parts of four seasons in their farm system but never got a chance to play with the Flyers, eventually being traded to Anaheim in 2010.
While Maroon saw a bit of NHL action with the Ducks after the move, it took until the 2013-14 campaign for him to become a regular player for them at the age of 25. He wound up spending parts of five years with them before he was traded to Edmonton at the 2016 deadline. With the Oilers is where he had his best success offensively, notching 86 points in 154 games over parts of three years before being moved to New Jersey at the 2018 trade deadline.
Maroon then signed with St. Louis the following summer, winning a Stanley Cup with them in 2019 before moving on to Tampa Bay where he won two more in consecutive seasons. Along the way, he went from being more of a second-line option as he was with Edmonton to more of an energetic bottom-six piece, one that spent parts of four years with the Lightning before being picked up at the deadline by Boston last season.
All told, Maroon has 125 goals and 195 assists along with 1,583 hits and 1,071 penalty minutes in 839 regular season games across eight different organizations heading into today’s action. He also has suited up in 163 postseason contests, in the top 75 in NHL history in that regard where he has 53 points and those three Stanley Cup rings. While Maroon has a few more weeks to add to those regular season numbers, it has certainly been a very solid career for someone who wound up being a late bloomer after working his way up from a long stint in the minors.
Photo courtesy of Perry Nelson-Imagn Images.