For the second time in his sixteen year NHL career, goaltender Dominik Hasek has announced his retirement.

Unlike his first retirement at the end of the 2001-02 season, which also came following a Detroit Red Wings Stanley Cup championship and last about a season and a half, expect this one to be permanent.

Hasek pretty much split the Red Wings goaltending duties this past season with Chris Osgood due in part to injury, but while their goals-against average this season was almost identical (his 2.14 to Osgood’s 2.09) and Hasek had one more shutout (5) than Osgood (4), Ozzie had the better save percentage (.914 to Hasek’s .902).

It was in this year’s playoffs, however, that it was apparent Hasek was now past his prime.

After an outstanding performance in last year’s post-season (a 10-8 record, with a 1.79 GAA, a .923 SP and 2 shutouts), Hasek struggled in the Wings opening round series against the Nashville Predators (2-2, 2.91 GAA and a .888 SP) and was lifted midway through Game Four after a horrible outing, replaced by Osgood, who was terrific in carrying the Wings to the Stanley Cup.

The 43-year-old Hasek rode the pine the rest of the way and was a model teammate, not sulking or voicing his discontent, probably because warming the bench for so long gave him enough time to think about his career and to realize that this time, it was truly over.

And it was a tremendous career, as Hasek was unquestionably one of the greatest goalies in NHL history as well as in international competition, playing an unorthodox flopping style that looked out of place in the era of the butterfly goaltender but due to Hasek’s amazing flexibility, concentration and vision worked incredibly well.

He won 389 NHL regular season and 65 playoff games, with 81 regular season and 14 playoff shutouts. His regular season career GAA was 2.20 and SP was .922 and in the playoffs his career numbers were 2.02 and .925.

Hasek was also a six-time Vezina Trophy winner, including a streak of five in six years from 1994 to 1999, and was the first goaltender since Jacques Plante in 1962 to win the Hart Trophy, which he did twice in 1997 and 1998.

He won most of those awards as a member of the Buffalo Sabres, when he had his greatest seasons, which included backstopping an upstart Sabres team to the 1999 Stanley Cup final, which they lost to the Dallas Stars due to a controversial OT winning goal in Game Six.

Those performances with the Sabres earned him the nickname of “The Dominator” and in those days few would dispute that it was well-earned,

It was with the Detroit Red Wings where Hasek would twice have his name on the Stanley Cup, in 2002 where he played every game as their starting goalie and in 2008.   

In his native Czech Republic he’s a hockey god, named the country’s hockey player of the 20th century, and carried that nation’s men’s hockey team to an upset gold medal victory at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano.

Hasek was definitely one of a kind, and he’s a certainty for induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame.