A look back at Alex Goligoski’s career and influences

One of the longest-tenured members of the 2004 draft class has retired from skating.

Evgeni Malkin and Alex Ovechkin are the only players from this draft who are still in the NHL, while free agent Blake Wheeler has not officially announced his future plans.

Goligoski’s long and effective career is a perfect example of a thriving puck-moving defenseman in this era of hockey, and Penguins fans often get so excited remembering how the trade that earned Pittsburgh him paid off (and it paid off quite a bit) that it overshadows just how good the player who left was.

But as things stand, the trade worked out. In fact, for the Penguins, the deal effectively expired after the 2022-23 season, lasting just a little longer than Goligoski’s career.

Pittsburgh acquired Matt Niskanen and James Neal from Dallas in early 2011. Niskanen’s career was stalled at the time, but the move to Pittsburgh was good for him, and he remained with the Penguins until his transfer as a free agent in 2014.

The catalyst for this trade was Jim Rutherford’s first trade as Pittsburgh’s general manager in the summer of 2014, when Neal was sent to Nashville in exchange for Patric Hornqvist and Nick Sperling.

Sperling was included in a trade the following summer for Phil Kessel to balance the financial situation between the two teams.

Not surprisingly, Hornqvist later became Rutherford’s penultimate trade with the Penguins, acquiring Pittsburgh for Mike Matheson and Colton Scobier, the latter a bit-part player who only lasted one season.

After two years in Pittsburgh, Matheson was replaced by Jeff Petry and Ryan Poehling, with Poehling playing a one-season supporting role.

Petry only lasted one season with the Penguins before being sent to Montreal in a complicated deal that sent Erik Karlsson to Pittsburgh. Because Petry was released for space, it’s not accurate to include Karlsson (or Phil Kessel before him) as a direct branch of Alex Goligoski’s trade tree, as those elements are multi-part and more financially-driven. But it may be appropriate to think of Karlsson as being partially on the roster as an offshoot of Goligoski.

Goligoski had his big moment at what is now known as PPG Paints Arena.

And while an admittedly small footnote, Goligoski remains one of the few Penguins second-round draft picks to have a notable NHL career, despite the recent success of players like Teddy Blueger, Tristan Jarry and Daniel Sprong.