At roughly 3:00pm local time today, the Pittsburgh Penguins made the announcement that winger Pascal Dupuis was forced to call it a career due to medical concerns. His retirement will begin immediately, he will not play another game for the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The 36-year-old Dupuis had appeared in 18 games this season after missing the majority of last season because of blood clots in his lungs. After six months on blood thinners, Dupuis resumed hockey activities over the summer and hoped to continue his career, but that just won't be the case. He missed the last week of camp and the first two weeks of the season this year due to undisclosed health issues, and he also missed the Edmonton and Calgary games in November after going to the hospital for a recurrence of his condition. Dupuis had played less over the last week, and the announcement today is not surprising in light of what he has been going through.
The Penguins released this statement from Dupuis in their press release: “It was very difficult for me to make this decision to have to step away from the game,” Dupuis said. “My wife and four children have always been my first priority, and playing with my condition has become a constant worry for all of us. I want to thank my teammates and the Penguins organization for their unwavering support during this difficult time.”
You cannot discount the reasons for calling his career at this moment. Dupuis is the father of four, young children. He simply cannot continue to play under these circumstances if it puts his overall health, and essentially his family's well-being at risk. As difficult as it is for him, it is the correct decision for him to make today.
A Career in Review
Duper's tenacity payed off, and he never returned to the minors in his career. He played 76 games for the Wild in 2001-02, scoring 15 goals that season and 20 the following year. He would spend five full seasons with the Wild before being traded to the New York Rangers for former Penguin Adam Hall in February 2007. Dupuis would only play in six games for the blue shirts before being traded again to the Atlanta Thrashers at the trade deadline.
Dupuis would play the remainder of the 06-07 season for Atlanta, scoring three goals in 17 games for the Thrashers after the deal. He would remain with the Thrashers into the 2007-08 season before the trade that would change his career for ever.
On February 26, 2008, Penguins GM Ray Shero pulled off a blockbuster move to acquire winger Marian Hossa from the Atlanta Thrashers to play wing with phenom Sidney Crosby. The Penguins traded away forwards Colby Armstrong, Erik Christensen, Angelo Esposito and their 2008 1st Round pick for the Slovakian winger. The Penguins also got another player in that deal, at the time a relatively unknown commodity: Pascal Dupuis.
Dupuis played in 16 games that regular season, scoring 2 goals and 12 points in a bottom six role. He would be a major factor on the penalty kill that would lead that Penguin team to the first of back-to-back Stanley Cup Final appearances. In 20 post season games in 2008, Dupuis would score 2 goals and seven points, but the Penguins would fall short of winning the Cup as Detroit took them out in six games.
He would continue in a bottom six role in the 2008-09 season for the Penguins. He would continue to factor in on the club's penalty kill and posted 12 goals and 28 points in 71 regular season games. He would not post any points that post season, but he was a key figure in other aspects and would raise the Stanley Cup with the rest of the Penguins on June 12, 2009; the first and sadly only time he would raise it as a player.
The rest of the story is history. The Laval, Quebec native would remain with the Penguins for the remainder of his career, playing primarily on the right wing of Sidney Crosby for the majority of those years. His best season would come in 2011-12, where Duper posted 25 goals, 59 points in 82 regular season games. Duper was an iron man, missing just two regular season games from 2009 until 2013. The last three seasons of his career would be marred with injury. A freak incident would result in torn knee ligaments just days before Christmas 2013. In February 2014, Duper suffered his first bout with blood clots before they would return again last season. In his last 73 games in a Penguins uniform, spread over the last three seasons, Dupuis posted 15 goals and 35 points.
Pascal Dupuis will always be remembered for his play alongside Sidney Crosby over a five year span from 2009-2013. While some hockey pundits will tell you Crosby inflated Dupuis' numbers, I think that is a rough way of looking at things. Dupuis was one of the hardest working players in the NHL and certainly on the Penguins. He never took a shift off and the evidence of that can be proven by his statistics with the Penguins. In 452 career regular season games with the Penguins, 105 of his 109 career goals came at either even strength or short handed. He only scored 4 power play goals in his entire Penguin career. He scored 97 of his 109 5-on-5, working his tail off and working in the dirty areas alongside Crosby and Chris Kunitz.
For his career, Pascal Dupuis will finish with 871 career regular season games, 190 goals and 409 career points.
What this Means Going Forward
Let's start with Dupuis and the team. In the statement released in by the team this afternoon, Dupuis was quoted as saying he'd like to remain with the club in some capacity. "I still want to help the team win a Cup, it just won't be on the ice." Dupuis said, and I hope he does. I think Pascal Dupuis is a vital locker room piece and it would be in the team's best interest to keep him around in some capacity. They could do similar with him that they did with Sergei Gonchar or Billy Guerin and get him involved with the organization's prospects. I think he'd be great at that. The other part of me would love to see him be apart of the game coverage. Can you imagine him as the color guy for the Penguins? The hilarity would surely ensue.
Now, as for the roster and the numbers. The Penguins will place Pascal Dupuis on LTIR (long-term injured reserve), which will give the Penguins his cap hit back to spend on the team. He had a 3.75 AAV, The Penguins would get that money back to spend, which would allow them to acquire either another forward or a defenseman without having to move someone currently on the roster. His 3.75 plus the roughly 400k they had available gives Jim Rutherford roughly 4.1-4.2 million to play with. Several media members think the Penguins will make a move immediately, but we will just have to wait and see.
What I'll Remember About Pascal
I have been incredibly lucky to have meant Pascal Dupuis on numerous occasions. While I was in undergrad, I enjoyed going down to the arena with some of my friends to get the home team's autographs. I still have every single one of those signed pictures, pucks, sticks, jersey, etc. by the way, but some of my favorites come from Pascal Dupuis.
Why?
First of all, there is no one more fun than Pascal Dupuis. You can see it on the ice, in the behind the scenes stuff; his attitude is just infectious. He always has a smile on his face and he always is making people laugh. Quite frankly, he was the heart and soul of this team for the last six years. You will read a lot about Pascal the man over the next few days, and I guarantee you will read that line over-and-over again. He truly is a fun fellow. Some of my favorite pictures I have signed are ones that are far from serious. The picture of Winter Classic practice in the Steelers helmet. The practice picture in the Buccos helmet. All of them great, and I'll cherish them forever.
Dupuis was always gracious with his time and spent hours signing his name for the fans. That is one of the reasons people love him so much, because he is so genuine and generous with his time. He didn't have to stop every day, but he did. He didn't have to take pictures or whatever, but he did. He had fun with us while doing it, and we enjoyed every second of it. We were getting to see our hero up close, how awesome is that?
I don't know if there is anyone pro athlete that understands it better than Pascal Dupuis just how important the fans are to a team and he always treated them as an extension of the team. There is no discounting his popularity amongst us, just look at the home opener this year, he got the loudest ovation. Or look back to the first home game after it was announced he'd miss the rest of last season, when the game stopped for five minutes for a standing ovation for him in the press box. Pittsburgh, just like his teammates, loves Pascal Dupuis.
Then there is Pascal Dupuis the competitor. You have to respect the hell out a guy who fought his way up through juniors, went undrafted, the minors, the bottom six and finally into the top six. He went from a toss-in player to a key component on some of the best Penguins teams. He fought every single shift, 110% effort, no less. He is everything a young athlete should strive to be, hard-working, generous, genuine and a great teammate. I feel for the kids coming up who won't remember Pascal Dupuis on the ice, they missed a real hockey player.
The final part of this piece will be the one moment I will always remember Dupuis for. It didn't happen on the ice, but outside Consol. It was during the 2013 Playoffs, right before the Boston series began. My friends and I were down getting autographs and Duper stopped. One of them mentioned how great his playoff beard looked, it always did look great by the way. I commented back, "thats a real playoff beard, something to be proud of." Duper looked me right in the eye, smiled and said, "Yeah? Where's yours big guy?" before finishing up his last signature and driving into the garage. That was Pascal Dupuis, and I'll always remember him because of that moment, that one minute of being a butt of a Duper joke.
Let me close this piece by saying thank you one last time to the man, the legend, Pascal Dupuis. Thanks for making every day a great day for hockey...