Reaves Calls It at 39, Another Name Off the Roster

Ryan Reaves announced his retirement from professional hockey on Tuesday, closing out a career that brought him to Toronto among other stops. He was 39. The headline on the announcement — "I Thought I Was Invincible" — is the kind of thing an enforcer says, and Reaves spent the better part of two decades earning the right to say it.

It is a small item in a summer that has had larger ones. Campbell retired in July to pursue life coaching. Hutchinson followed him out the door a week later. Calle Jarnkrok went back to Sweden. Samsonov resurfaced in San Jose. Fraser Minten signed a massive extension in Boston. The Reaves retirement is one more line on a list that has gotten long, a reminder of how thoroughly this organization has turned over since April.

None of these departures are the story on their own. Taken together, they sketch the outline of a franchise that finished 32-50 and is now shedding its recent past in nearly every direction. The players coming in — Bobrovsky, Andrae, Brisson, Blankenburg on a tryout — are the ones worth watching as camp gets underway. Reaves was already gone in any meaningful sense. Now it's official.