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Patrik Elias takes warm-ups in emotional goodbye to Devils fans (Video)

Greg Wyshynski

New Jersey Devils forward Patrik Elias announced his retirement last week, formally ending his time with a franchise for whom he is the all-time leading scorer in goals (408), assists (617) and points (1,025).

But on Saturday night, his time with the Devils came to a ceremonial end.

Elias joined his team for warm-ups, skating out first by himself and then taking a last lap in front of home fans. (He didn’t play in the game, for the sake of clarity.)

He later dropped the ceremonial first puck before the Devils took on the New York Islanders, who defeated them in the Devils’ home finale.

Elias is unsure what the future holds now that his NHL career is over. One option would be to be a TV analyst.

“If I move back to Europe, I could still do that to some extent or work with the Czech Hockey Federation to some extent,” he told the Devils’ website. “Maybe as an assistant coach to one of the junior national teams or as a consultant and get my feet in the water a little bit and see if I would like doing something like that.”

Fare thee well to Patrik Elias, a player whose number will most certainly hang from the rafters in Newark before too long.

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Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

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