The Drama Comes to an End and Foppa Says Goodbye

With nearly every playoff bound team vying for the services of one Peter "the Great" Forsberg it appeared very likely that we would most certainly see him once again this year in the NHL. Now it appears that we're stuck with only imagining a wonderful swan song for a player who dominated for much of his career, won 2 Stanley Cups and, at his peak, was one of the best players in the world. His individual successes and awards are numerous, including being depicted on a stamp in his native homeland of Sweden in honor of his remarkable shootout game winning goal in the final round of the 94 Olympics securing the Gold for Sweden.

Peter has dealt with a lot of injuries since then and has been plagued by them for the later portion of his career. While he's always remained effective, it's been difficult for him to remain in the lineup consistently and he chose to take most of this year off to have surgery on his problematic foot. It was expected that he would come back just before the trade deadline but his agent has informed all interested parties that Peter's confidence in his surgically repaired foot is not high enough for him to feel comfortable committing to playing in the NHL this season. While this doesn't guarantee he won't return this season, barring some kind of miracle in the next 10 days it appears that this season is over for him before it ever began. He has originally intended to not only finish out this season, but play next season as well since he was searching for a multi-year deal.

However, I can't help but feel like we will never see Peter back on the ice and it's a real shame. If Peter has played his last game, he'll finish his career as the second highest scoring Swede in the history of the NHL with 871 points, including 248 goals in 697 NHL games. Those numbers on top of his 189 points in 185 games in the Swedish leagues make him an iron lock Hall of Famer worldwide and one of the best to ever lace up a pair of skates.