{"id":51254,"date":"2019-07-10T21:42:54","date_gmt":"2019-07-11T01:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=51254"},"modified":"2020-12-26T16:32:51","modified_gmt":"2020-12-26T21:32:51","slug":"pittsburgh-penguins-matt-cullen-announces-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2019\/07\/10\/pittsburgh-penguins-matt-cullen-announces-retirement\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Penguins Matt Cullen Announces Retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After flirting with retirement for the past few seasons, forward <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/c\/cullema01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Matt Cullen<\/a><\/strong> has officially announced his retirement from the NHL. It was announced by the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/nhl-teams\/penguins\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Pittsburgh Penguins<\/a> twitter account this afternoon with a video of Cullen and his story:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Matt Cullen: his story, his words.<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/rsL9o4yk1j\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/rsL9o4yk1j<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/985mgUtqpk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/985mgUtqpk<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/penguins\/status\/1148983463254659072?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 10, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Matt Cullen Announces His Retirement<\/h2>\n<h3>Overall career<\/h3>\n<p>Cullen appeared in over 1,516 games overall which was second all-time for American born players. He had 266 goals and 731 career points for his career. Cullen played in the NHL for 21 seasons for eight different teams along his journey. The team that he played for the longest was the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/nhl-teams\/ducks\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Anaheim Ducks<\/a> as they were the team that drafted him. He played there for six years until he went to Florida and then to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/nhl-teams\/hurricanes\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Carolina Hurricanes<\/a> where<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2018\/07\/21\/franchise-best-carolina-hurricanes-2005-06-season\/\" target=\"_self\"> he won his first of three Stanley Cups.<\/a> The year he won with Carolina (2005-2006) was the year he scored the most goals in a season for his career (25) and had the most points during a season in his career (49).<\/p>\n<p>After Carolina, he had a stop with the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/nhl-teams\/rangers\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New York Rangers<\/a> before going back to Carolina for a couple of seasons then going to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonhockey.com\/nhl-teams\/wild\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Minnesota Wild<\/a>. During this time, Cullen was putting up solid 30-40 point seasons while scoring anywhere between 10-20 goals a season. Those are very solid numbers for a top-nine center at the time. He was very consistent for whatever team he played for. He could play center or wing and move up and down the lineup.<\/p>\n<p>Even in the playoffs, he would still produce, especially as the games got bigger. Cullen appeared in 132 playoff games throughout his career and scored 19 goals with 58 points. 13 of his 19 goals were scored either on the Hurricanes or Penguins since those are the teams he had a lot of success with but he still scored three with the Senators in 2009-2010 and had a couple more with other teams.<\/p>\n<h3>What he did for the Penguins<\/h3>\n<p>Before Cullen got to the Penguins, Pittsburgh had been in a rut. They had just bowed out of the playoffs in five games against the New York Rangers, they hadn&#8217;t won a cup since 2009, things were way out of whack. One of the signings that general manager <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/r\/rutheji01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Jim<\/strong> <strong>Rutherford<\/strong><\/a> made after the 2015 season was bringing in Matt Cullen to anchor the fourth line. It turned out to be one of the best decisions he has made in his time in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n<p>Cullen got to play behind <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/boninni01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nick Bonino<\/a><\/strong> (who Rutherford also acquired during that offseason) and brought much-needed depth scoring to the Penguins. Whenever the star players like <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/c\/crosbsi01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sidney Crosby<\/a><\/strong> or <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/malkiev01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Evgeni Malkin<\/a><\/strong> went dry for Pittsburgh, they never had any depth scoring to balance it out until someone like Cullen came in. During the 2015-2016 season, he had 16 goals and 32 points playing on the fourth line. He also had some massive playoff goals along the way. That included the Game 3 winner against the New York Rangers in the 2016 Stanley Cup Playoffs:<\/p>\n<h2>Highlights<\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Cullen&#039;s goal on breakaway | Penguins @ Rangers\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/g5_vSuK3A5g?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It seemed as if there was any time the Penguins needed something, Cullen was always there to answer the call. That goal was one of the most important goals scored during that run.<\/p>\n<p>The same was also said when he came back to the Penguins in the 2016-2017 season. He had 13 goals and 31 points that season. He also produced an outstanding goal in the playoffs against the Washington Capitals that led to a postseason series win:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Cullen fights off check to score short-handed for Penguins\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5N5aMwRz4tk?start=3&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This goal not only opened the scoring of this game, but it also opened the floodgates for the Penguins as they raced to a 2-0 series lead. But what an unbelievable effort it was by Cullen on this goal to get past <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/s\/shattke01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kevin Shattenkirk<\/a> <\/strong>and sneak it past <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/h\/holtbbr01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Braden Holtby<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Another one of his best games against the Penguins came during that run. It was the biggest game of the season for Pittsburgh and it&#8217;s when Cullen played his best. In Game 6, he led the Penguins in ice time and helped kill off five Predators power plays.\u00a0 That helped ensure that the Penguins would hoist the Stanley Cup. He was also making his presence felt at 5v5 for Pittsburgh throughout the night as well and had an on-ice view when <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/h\/hornqpa01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Patric Hornqvist<\/a><\/strong> scored the cup-clincher.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, Cullen amassed for 36 goals and 83 points in 225 career games for the Penguins. His year this past season may have been down. However, don&#8217;t discount the importance of him to the team whether it&#8217;s on or off the ice.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2017\/06\/676876410.jpg\" alt=\"\">PITTSBURGH, PA &#8211; MAY 1: Pittsburgh Penguins Center Matt Cullen (7) skates during the overtime period. The Washington Capitals won 3-2 in overtime of Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Second Round during the 2017 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs May 1, 2017, at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, PA. (Photo by Jeanine Leech\/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After flirting with retirement for the past few seasons, forward Matt Cullen has officially announced his retirement from the NHL. It was announced by the Pittsburgh Penguins twitter account this afternoon with a video of Cullen and his story: Matt Cullen: his story, his words.https:\/\/t.co\/rsL9o4yk1j pic.twitter.com\/985mgUtqpk &mdash; Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) July 10, 2019 Matt Cullen [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":574,"featured_media":12145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,34],"tags":[37,5738,1761,2569,38,955,44],"class_list":["post-51254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-penguins","category-news","tag-hockey","tag-hockey-news","tag-matt-cullen","tag-news","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-news","tag-pittsburgh-penguins"],"modified_by":"Dan Mount, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/574"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}