Legendary goaltender Henrik Lundqvist is being inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame this weekend. But before he traveled to Toronto for the ceremony, he talked about the final chapter of his hockey career that never came to be.
After being bought out by the New York Rangers in 2020, Lundqvist signed with the Washington Capitals to serve as either the team’s backup or co-starter.
But that moment never happened due to a medical condition that required open-heart surgery.
“It was not meant to be. I was only meant to play in New York.”
He’ll go into the Hall of Fame having only played for the Rangers, and @HLundqvist said that was destiny 🗽 pic.twitter.com/5iGySt59R9
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) November 9, 2023
“When my time was up in New York, I thought my career was over,” Lundqvist, who played 15 season for the Rangers, said during TNT’s telecast of the Capitals-Panthers game, Wednesday. “It was very hard to see myself play anywhere else until I started going to the rink. Then I realized how much I loved the game and how much I loved to compete. And that’s when I started to rethink ‘Maybe, the love for the game is strong that I wanna continue.’ That’s what changed for me. But of course, being in New York for so long, one place, and the relationships I had there, it was hard to picture anything else. It was not meant to be even though at the time that the love for the game was so strong.”
The first-ballot Hall of Famer signed a one-year, $1.5 million contract with the Capitals in October 2020. Weeks later, Lundqvist learned that a heart condition that he had been managing throughout his career had gotten worse, forcing to him undergo open-heart surgery in January.
“It breaks my heart (literally) to share this news: I will not be joining the Capitals this upcoming season,” Lundqvist said then. “After many weeks of tests and conversations with specialists around the country, it’s been determined that a heart condition will prevent me from taking the ice. Together, we have decided that the risk of playing before remedying my condition is too high, so I will spend the coming months figuring out the best course of action.”
Lundqvist made a valiant comeback attempt — he returned to the ice 47 days after surgery — but was ultimately shut down by doctors when it was revealed he had inflammation around his heart.
The best type of workday! 😃 pic.twitter.com/2tWlS1iOmO
— Henrik Lundqvist (@hlundqvist35) February 23, 2021
Lundqvist ultimately retired that summer, ending with most of the Rangers’ major franchise records in goal: games played (887), wins (459), goals-against average (2.43), save percentage (0.918), shutouts (64), and points (27).
“I was in peace with it when it happened when I realized it was not going to happen,” Lundqvist said on TNT. “I was excited for the opportunity and I was very grateful to Washington and how they helped me through that situation as well going into heart surgery. They were incredible. Incredible organization. But again, when I realized the game was over for me, I was at peace with it. And I keep coming back to: it was not meant to be. I was meant to only play in New York even though I appreciated how Washington helped me through that period.”
Lundqvist said that if he would have played in Washington, his family, including his wife Therese and two kids, would have commuted down from New York City to visit during the season.
“[Therese] can see it, how much I loved the game,” Lundqvist said. “It was hard for everyone to — what’s on the other side? That fall I remember that I thought it was going to come down to convincing my wife that I’m going to play even though I had some issues. But in the end, the issues were too great so we had to take care of that instead.”
As for Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin, who will someday join him in the Hall of Fame, Lundqvist believes he could still get Wayne Gretzky’s goals record of 894, even after a slow start to the year where he has just two goals in 11 games.
“They could put him on the power play for the next 15 years,” Lundqvist said. “Just post him out there until he gets the record. Until he’s 65.”
Headline photo: @hlundqvistofficial/IG
