Longtime NHL veteran forward Brad Malone has officially called it a career after a very respectable career in the league. Brad Malone is not a household name for most fans of the NHL, but he earned himself a legitimate career in the league, beating long odds in the process. The 35-year-old was drafted in the 4th round, 105th overall by the Colorado Avalanche back in 2007. The vast majority of players taken that late in the draft never crack an NHL lineup for even a single game, let alone 200. Despite this, Malone grinded away and worked through the system, eventually making his debut with the Avalanche in the 2011-12 season. From there he would go on to play in parts of nine seasons, split between the Avs, Hurricanes, and most recently, the Edmonton Oilers. <div align='center'><blockquote class='twitter-tweet' data-lang='en'><a href='https://twitter.com/NHLAlumni/status/1832167841002553356'> </a></blockquote></div> Malone rarely stayed with his NHL clubs on a regular basis. He was often a healthy scratch, and frequently rode the waiver wire, being moved to and from the American League to the National League as his teams called on him to fill in. Despite this, he never complained and continued to work hard, regardless of where he was playing, even if that meant long bus rides on AHL road trips. He set career highs in the 2014-15 season when he got into 65 games with the Carolina Hurricanes, scoring 7 goals and 15 points in the process. The following season he was still a regular for the Canes, appearing in 57 contests, but he never played in 20 games in a single season after that. Despite that though, he continued to grind when most players would have called it a career, repeatedly earning brief callups for four more seasons. Malone spent the majority of his time in recent years playing for the Bakersfield Condors, the Edmonton Oilers' AHL affiliate. He spent parts of the last seven seasons with the team, serving as their captain for the last four years including the 2023-24 season, where he spent the entire season with the team. He amassed more than 500 regular-season appearances in the league and tallied nearly 300 points in addition to his 217-game career in the NHL. <div align='center'><blockquote class='twitter-tweet' data-lang='en'><a href='https://twitter.com/HockeyPatrol/status/1832923025362289127'> </a></blockquote></div> Malone was never a star player, but he had a winning mindset and was determined to prove that he could make it in the NHL. While he never scored many points in the world's best league, he did prove that he could hang with the best of them. Perhaps he will even return to the NHL one day in a front office of coaching role. Given how strong his love for the game is, many fans would not find that surprising at all. Source: YardBarker <a href='https://www.yardbarker.com/nhl/articles/veteran_nhl_forward_officially_announces_retirement/s1_14825_40854629?fbclid=IwY2xjawFLGWFleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHfcFJ0-rfcqzHpC1V0SHBEk51VaqxDymBu7ky5R3Sywi38KNULQ83Y_Fsw_aem_aFLvN6-L9iVfFvjfOr9wlw' class='lien_marqueur' target='_blank' rel='noopener'>Veteran NHL forward officially announces retirement</a> Source: HockeyReference <a href='https://www.hockey-reference.com/players/m/malonbr01.html' class='lien_marqueur' target='_blank' rel='noopener'>Brad Malone career statistics </a>