Jetting Into the Sunset

Last week Shane Doan, one of my favorite players, announced his retirement from the NHL after 21 seasons. He was one of the reasons I enjoyed watching the Coyotes last year, even though they weren't a great team. Still, much like I enjoy watching any team that has Jaromir Jagr on it, I enjoyed watching the Coyotes primarily because of Shane Doan.

Doan spent his entire career, save for his rookie season, with the Coyotes in the desert. His rookie season however, was spent as a member of the original Winnipeg Jets, where he was the seventh overall pick in the 1995 NHL Entry Draft. In that first season for him north of the border, which turned out to be the final season of the Jets before moving to Phoenix, Doan saw action in 74 games and scored 7 goals with 10 assists for 17 points overall and a plus/minus rating of -9. With his retirement, he was the last member of the original Jets active in the NHL.

After the Jets relocated to Phoenix, Doan remained there for the next 20 seasons, becoming the soul of the Coyotes franchise and eventually the Captain from 2003-17. He was an NHL All-Star in 2004 and 2009, was awarded the King Clancy Memorial Trophy for the 2009-10 season. The one trophy that eluded him his entire career though was the Stanley Cup. Despite the Coyotes never being consistently one of the top teams in the league, they did make the playoffs nine out of 21 seasons Doan was with the franchise, including a postseason berth in the final year of the Jets, 1995-96. The closest the Coyotes would ever come to the Stanley Cup Final was in 2012, where they made it all the way to the Western Conference Finals, only to be ousted in five games by the eventual cup winner Los Angeles Kings.

Doan retires as the Coyotes franchise leader in a litany of categories. He is the franchise leader in games played, goals, assists, points, power play goals, and game-winning goals. He also leaves the Captain's spot vacant. While no official announcement has been made (at least that I'm aware of), it's rumored that defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who currently serves as the alternate Captain, will graduate to that spot. I would also expect the Coyotes to retire Doan's number at some point in the future.

Doan was one of my favorite players mainly because of his loyalty to the Coyotes/Jets franchise. Sure, he could've gone somewhere else at points and contended for The Cup but he showed a tremendous amount of loyalty and stuck with the Coyotes and helped grow hockey in the desert. I'd go so far as to say that he's one of the main reasons the Coyotes are still in Phoenix and weren't relocated. The cards you've seen in this post are the only three cards of Shane Doan that I currently have in my collection. I thought I had more but when I went through my hockey binder, I was disappointed that I only had these three. I've added Doan to the list of hockey player collections and I'm definitely on the lookout for more, especially a card or two of him with the Jets.

I'll close this by saying congratulations to Shane Doan on a great career and all the best to him in retirement. Thanks for the memories, Doaner. You'll be missed.