Former NHLer calls it a career after major success outside the league

PUBLICATION

TJ Tucker
April 16, 2023 (4:07 PM)

SHARE THIS STORY

At the age of 38, Nigel Dawes has decided to hang up his skates and end his professional hockey playing career. Dawes may not be well-known to many NHL fans, although he did play there, but his retirement marks the end of a very successful career mostly spent outside the world's most notable hockey league.

Dawes was born in Winnipeg to a Canadian mother and Jamaican father. After a junior career where he won U18 gold with team Canada, as well as World Junior Championship silver and gold, he was drafted in the 5th round, 149th overall, by the New York Rangers in 2003. Between the Rangers, Phoenix Coyotes, Atlanta Thrashers, Calgary Flames and Montreal Canadiens, Dawes played 212 games in the NHL before he decided to leave following the 2010-11 season. It was then that he really made his mark.

Dawes signed with Astana Barys of the KHL, a team based in Kazakhstan. His time there made him a legend with the team, and the entire league. From 2011 to 2021, Dawes became the top-scoring non-Russian born player ever to hit the ice in the KHL. He continues to hold that record to this day. Dawes scored 293 goals and 505 points in 550 KHL games, and was named an All-Star for the league on six occasions. He had nine straight KHL seasons with at least 20 goals, including four straight with 30 or more. In 2016, while still playing with Astana Barys, Dawes was given Kazakhstani citizenship and played for that country's national team at the Olympics and the World Championships. He went on to also play with Yekaterinburg Automobilist, and Kazan Ak-Bars of the KHL before suddenly leaving the league in 2021 and signing in Germany. Dawes has never said why that decision was made, but he left the KHL while he was still putting up very good numbers there.

For the last two seasons, Dawes had been playing with the Mannheim Eagles of Germany's Deutsche Eishockey Liga. The Eagles were recently eliminated from the playoffs, and that's when Dawes decided he was done playing pro-hockey. He leaves behind an impressive career. Some of Dawes most productive KHL seasons came with Automobilist, where he played along side Pavel Datsyuk.