Raffi Torres had a professional tryout with the Carolina Hurricanes prior to the 2016-17 season, but upon being released from that tryout, the 35-year-old has decided to retire from the NHL. Ultimately, Torres’ body didn’t hold up and he is now focusing on his children as opposed to trying to avoid NHL suspensions.
Via Yorkregion.com, Torres outlined that while he wanted to play another year, his body wasn’t up to the challenge.
“It’s never easy to stop doing what you love to do. I wanted to play one more year and when I went to Carolina I wanted to make sure I didn’t want to question myself. In the end I wanted to make sure if I could hold up or not.
I had a good summer in training. But these days the game is a lot quicker. One week into camp my body wasn’t responding. Once the contact started…you can’t mimic game situations.
When I look back, I had some great memories. It was a lot of fun.”
Torres’ career will go down as one of the most colorful in NHL history. He was a first-round pick (fifth overall) by the New York Islanders back in 2000, but his career will only be remembered by the sea of suspensions and questionable hits. Torres continually proved that he wasn’t going to change his style of play, regardless of the ever-increasing suspensions from the league. The last straw was a hit on Jakob Silfverberg which earned a massive 41-game suspension – the longest non-lifetime ban ever received by a skater in the NHL.
Here’s a quick look at some of Torres’ antics:
Good riddance.
Torres was a player who refused to change his style and many fans wanted to see him kicked out of the league as a result. That never happened, but now that the NHL has evolved and moved away from the old model of fourth-line skaters only focusing on fighting, Torres has been shifted out organically.
He’ll ultimately point to his health as the main reason he’s hanging up his skates, but the fact is that Torres and players of his kind are irrelevant in the modern NHL and that’s a good thing.
