Жон Клингберг 34 насандаа NHL-д үзүүлсэн амжилттай карьераа өндөрлүүллээ

There is the John Klingberg whose offensive gifts from the blue line often masked his defensive warts as he became one of the NHL’s top puck-moving defensemen at his peak.

There is also the John Klingberg who fashioned a 700-game career in the world’s best hockey league while often playing in pain after multiple hip surgeries.

Both can be true. And it’s a career the skilled and once fleet-footed Swede now looks back on with immense pride after he battled through physical challenges.

“As a professional athlete, all I’ve done for 30-plus years is breathe hockey and try to become better and better in every aspect of the game,” Klingberg told The Athletic recently, before he announced his retirement Friday. “But especially for me as a player who’s been skating up and down the ice my entire career and been playing a lot through my skating and my ability to move the puck and join the rush and beat guys one-on-one, right?

“Bottom line is my body doesn’t allow me to do it anymore, and I’ve been trying everything to get it to a point where I can be the best version of myself, but I haven’t seen any positive feedback of my body wanting me to do it anymore. So what do you do as a perfectionist and as a competitor when you start losing hope that it’s going to come to a point where you want it to be? You start losing motivation, right?”

Klingberg, 34, came to terms with this hard reality over the summer months. His mind for the game, he feels, has never been better. It is an asset that Dallas’ 2010 fifth-round NHL Draft pick used to become a key cog in quarterbacking the Stars’ game on the offensive end. His body, which had to recover from two surgeries to repair both of his hips before he reached the NHL and a major resurfacing procedure almost three years ago, isn’t responding as well as it once did.

Training earlier in the summer helped provide the conclusion he’s arrived at. The decision to end a career is rarely easy for a professional athlete, much less one who played the game at a high level. Rather than press on and see whether he could latch on with another NHL team after spending last season with the San Jose Sharks, Klingberg concluded that enough was enough.

“The motivation, I think, moving into last year, was really high with San Jose, but as the season went longer and longer and I’m not seeing my body changing and reacting the way I want to, I think I realized more and more that it probably would be the last year,” Klingberg said from his home in Sweden. “I kind of knew it was going to be either/or. But at the same time, there only was going to be probably a one-year deal on the table. And then bouncing to another team again, which has been one of the hard parts for me.

“I’ve been a part of (teams), but for me, I expect myself to be at least a top-four defenseman, play big minutes, which I did earlier in my career. And then the frustrating part (is) when you feel in your brain that you’re a smarter hockey player and getting more experience throughout the year, but then your body doesn’t keep up and doesn’t allow you to be the player you can be out there. The bottom line is just the motivation of trying everything for my body to react to what my brain wants to do, but it didn’t work anymore.”

While training this summer, his hips wouldn’t cooperate to give him the confidence to skate and battle in the situations NHL defensemen run into every game.

“That’s where you have your answer, and it’s like, ‘Am I really going to try to do this one more year? What’s that going to give me?’” he said. “You’re just going to skate around frustrated, not being able to play the game you want to.

“At the same time as well, for me, I know I’m going out on my own choice right now instead of just feeling I’m trying all the way down to the end.”

Even as Miro Heiskanen came on the scene and became the Stars’ go-to blueliner, Klingberg racked up more points than any other defenseman the Stars employed during his eight-year run in Dallas. He had five consecutive seasons of 40 points or more from his rookie year onward, including a career-high 67 in 2017-18, the second of two seasons when he earned Norris Trophy votes.

The past four years have seen him bounce among teams — the Anaheim Ducks, Minnesota Wild, Toronto Maple Leafs and Edmonton Oilers before finishing with the Sharks, where he still managed 10 goals and 27 points in 56 games. Those hip problems returned with greater force when he joined the Ducks and plagued him until more relief came following his 2023 surgery. Klingberg credits the Leafs with helping him get back to a point where he believed he could contribute effectively to a team.

That was apparent when he joined the Oilers for their 2025 run back to the Stanley Cup Final. He played in 19 of their 22 playoff games and averaged 19 minutes. For a time, Klingberg wasn’t hobbling into arenas on game nights the way he did in Anaheim, Minnesota and Toronto, wondering how he could help his teams when he was, in his words, operating “at 60 percent today.”

“When I had my last surgery, when I re-did my entire hips, (my doctor) said when they opened me up — he’s had like 5,000-plus surgeries — he said this is some of the worst hips I’ve ever seen, and you’re only 30 years old,” he said.

Craig Oster, Klingberg’s agent, still marvels at all the time and money spent in extensive rehabilitation to remain a functioning player determined to extend his career as long as he could.

“It was literally a full-day process to be ready to compete,” the Toronto-based Oster said. “And it’s incredible for him to go through that unique surgery that has only been done by a handful of hockey players and a handful of athletes in the world and be able to come back from it. Another amazing thing.”

Through it all, Klingberg never developed a reputation for having a strong defensive game in his own end. It wasn’t as if he didn’t want to play defense; his hips never gave him an explosive feeling in his skating. Instead of being able to engage freely at any time and close those gaps against onrushing forwards, he’d leave more space to protect himself from being beaten repeatedly. “I would never hit anyone, but the reason why it was so visible was because I couldn’t move,” Klingberg said.

The mental acumen he’s long possessed is what Klingberg hopes to impart and convey in his next act. He’ll be doing television work for SVT, serving as an in-game analyst and doing studio work for national broadcasts in Sweden. Discussing the NHL, the Swedish Hockey League and the national team will be part of his repertoire. Commentary could be a natural fit for a gold medalist in the World Juniors and IIHF World Championship known for his candor.

Because he’s only 34 and just removed from the game, Klingberg said he believes he can bring a fresher perspective and connect with younger viewers. “I feel like I’m a smart hockey guy, and I think I can be really good at it because I can come in and talk hockey through what I see in my eyes and from my experience,” he said. “I’m excited about it.”

And he has found peace with his NHL career. He feels he accomplished a lot but also carries some disappointment with being physically limited to what he could do on the ice.

He’ll cherish his two cracks at a Stanley Cup with the Stars and Oilers; his years with the Stars, when he was a kid who never felt like a superstar but grew into a franchise bedrock and made Dallas his second home; the many teammates he played with over his 12 seasons; all the frivolity over countless dinners; the nights playing cards; and the many people he has come across during his hockey journey.

Mostly, Klingberg wants to be remembered as someone teammates enjoyed playing with and “a guy that people looked up to.” Now he eagerly chases after his two young daughters, Elsa and Ida, with his self-described “sh—y hips,” and does it without pain.

“Living a normal life outside of hockey, when I didn’t work out for a while this summer, it’s been better than it’s ever been,” he said.