- Matt Dumba is retiring after 748 NHL games
- The No. 7 pick in 2012 won the King Clancy Trophy in 2019-20
- Read below for the full Matt Dumba retirement story
Matt Dumba is officially hanging up his skates.
The 32-year-old defenseman announced his retirement Friday, and the NHLPA shared the news after 748 NHL games and a King Clancy Memorial Trophy in 2019-20.
Dumba finishes with 85 goals and 261 points, most of them in Minnesota. The Wild took him seventh overall in 2012 out of the WHL’s Red Deer Rebels, where he scored 20 goals and 57 points in 69 games the year before. He became a regular on the Wild blue line by 2014-15 and spent the bulk of his career there, playing 598 of his 748 games in a Wild sweater.
Minnesota gave him a five-year, $30 million extension in 2018, and injuries slowed him down over the course of that deal. He averaged seven goals and 22 points in 58 games a year across those five seasons.
One of the bigger headlines of his Wild years came in 2023, when his hit on Joe Pavelski in the playoff series against Dallas drew plenty of attention.
From there, Dumba bounced around. He signed a one-year deal with Arizona for 2023-24, then got traded to Tampa Bay at the deadline for a 2027 fifth-round pick and played 18 games for the Lightning.
Dallas signed him to a two-year, $7.5 million deal in 2024, and he played 63 games for the Stars in a bottom-pair role. The Stars then dumped his contract on Pittsburgh with a second-round pick attached, and Dumba lasted 11 games with the Penguins. They sent him through waivers more than once, and he even played an AHL game for the first time since 2014-15.
That’s a lot of stops for a player who went seventh overall. The Clancy Trophy, given for leadership and humanitarian contributions, is the honor he leaves with.
Congrats to Dumba on 13 NHL seasons.
