Brent Seabrook retires from Blackhawks after 15 seasons: ‘It was a hell of a run’

Brent Seabrook announced his retirement Friday, more than a year since his last game with the Blackhawks. | AP Photos

The last weekend before Christmas, Brent Seabrook celebrated the upcoming holiday with a classic Canadian winter retreat.

At that moment, life was good. The 35-year-old defenseman felt largely recovered from his trifecta of hip and shoulder surgeries 11 months prior. He was excited to rejoin the Blackhawks for January training camp, continue his NHL career after more than a year off and prove wrong the endless criticism over his albatross contract.

“We [got] up Saturday and went up into the mountains with the kids,” Seabrook said. “A bunch of the dads from my son’s hockey team shoveled off a pond, and the kids skated. We did some ice fishing, made a fire and had a beer.”

Then life struck back.

The morning of Monday, Dec. 21, 2020 dealt Seabrook’s resolute determination to keep alive his 15-year Hawks career an ultimately fatal blow.

“I woke up, and I couldn’t walk,” he said. “I had no idea why. And it’s been like that ever since.”

After trying but failing over the past few months to regain any momentum toward an eventual return, Seabrook announced his retirement Friday.

In the official NHL lexicon, he didn’t officially retire. Instead, “it will not be possible for [him] to continue playing hockey.” He’ll spent the remaining 3.5 years of his contract on Long-Term Injured Reserve, providing the Hawks some salary cap relief — although that relief is complicated and Seabrook’s $6.875 cap hit through 2024 will remain an obstacle — and ensuring he’ll still receive all of his guaranteed salary.

But Seabrook made it clear that after 1,237 regular- and post-season games, three of the biggest overtime goals in Hawks history — Game 7 against the Red Wings in 2013, Game 4 against the Bruins in 2013 and Game 4 against the Predators in 2015 — and three Stanley Cup rings, this is definitely the end.

“It was a hell of a run,” Seabrook said. “I’ll never forget these last 15, 16 years.”

Seabrook’s defense and locker-room leadership powered the Blackhawks to three Stanley Cup titles.

This 16th year might not be remembered quite as fondly. Seabrook said he considered retiring a month ago, but realized he’d regret it later if he didn’t make one last push.

He skated on his own for several weeks, then tried practicing with the Hawks’ taxi squad last weekend. But he found it very difficult to keep up, given that he couldn’t “push, pivot or turn” on his right hip.

That prompted a conversation with Hawks team physician Dr. Michael Terry in which it became clear his options were exhausted.

Seabrook first talked privately and individually to longtime teammates Duncan Keith, Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews about his decision, then addressed the whole team this week before going public Friday.

Terry said in a statement Friday that he and Seabrook “tried all available conservative treatments, and nothing has worked well enough for him to live life as an athlete.” Seabrook described that process as like “throwing darts at a dart board.”

An X-ray revealed Thursday he has zero cartilage remaining in his right hip. A hip replacement might be needed eventually, he thinks, in order to achieve his newly set goal of skiing regularly with his wife and three kids.

“I told my body to screw off for 15 years, and it finally turned around and said, ‘Well, I’m not going to do it anymore,’” he said.

Seabrook’s final NHL game will go down as Dec. 15, 2019, fittingly a 5-3 win at home over the Wild.

On Dec. 18, healthy scratched for the third time in two months, he finally approached Hawks doctors about his multitude of physical ailments. That came as a shock to team management.

“He never mentioned anything, and then when he finally did mention it, we realized how serious it was and how he’d been playing with this for a long time,” general manager Stan Bowman said. “That goes to his personality. He didn’t want to make a big deal out of things.

“You’d see him block shots, and he could barely walk. We’d say, ‘You have to get that X-rayed. And he said, ‘I’m fine.’ That’s how he was wired.”

Seabrook’s bad contract and declining play — partially because of those undisclosed injuries — made him a frequent scapegoat in recent years. But during his prime, he and Duncan Keith stood equally as the Hawks’ two defensive cornerstones.

From 2007-08 through 2015-16, Seabrook missed only 13 out of 786 games and played almost 23 minutes a night, cementing himself as one of the NHL’s most reliable defensive defensemen. His offensive contributions were never as heralded, but he averaged a quietly impressive 35 points per season during that span.

And in the locker room, Seabrook’s unflappable demeanor and uncanny ability to always say the right thing at the right time, every time — be it to a certain teammate or to the whole team — was a driving force behind the Hawks’ three championships. His No. 7 sweater stands a good chance of one day rising to the United Center rafters.

But asked Friday how he personally hopes to be remembered in Chicago, Seabrook — his physical weathering having finally overcome his warrior mindset — characteristically demanded nothing.

“I played, I gave everything I had, I tried to do it the right way and I wanted to be the best I could,” he said. “That’s a decision for people to make up on their own.”