Former Vancouver Canucks defenceman Matt Irwin announced his retirement after an 11-year NHL career.

An undrafted blueliner, the Victoria native was able to carve out 461 games played in the NHL while making stops with six teams.

Irwin took the long and unusual road to the NHL, but he was able to make it there all the same. He first made a name for himself with the Nanaimo Clippers of the British Colombia Hockey League, where he emerged as the best defenceman in the league for two straight years in 2007 and 2008. Afterwards, he spent two years with the UMass Minutemen, where he was among their most productive blueliners.

That helped Irwin get the attention of the San Jose Sharks, who inked him to a two-year entry-level contract (ELC) in March 2010. From there, he continued his scoring touch with their then-AHL affiliate, the Worcester Sharks, which included a breakout season in 2011-12, where he finished second on the team in scoring with 11 goals and 42 points. He would get called up to the big leagues a year later, where he would spend the vast majority of the rest of his career. 

Irwin would spend parts of three seasons with the Sharks before leaving in 2015 to sign a one-year contract with the Boston Bruins. He would only get into two games with the main squad, as the majority of the campaign was spent with the AHL’s Providence Bruins. This would prompt him to move elsewhere a summer later by joining the Nashville Predators, where the left-shot defenceman quickly emerged as a dependable third-paring blueliner. He would help guide his new team to Game 6 of the 2017 Stanley Cup Final before falling to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

He remained reliable in his role for parts of three seasons before he was traded in February 2020 to the Anaheim Ducks along with a 2022 sixth-round pick in exchange for Korbinian Holzer. Interestingly enough, this would be the only time he got traded in his NHL career, which occurred mere weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, he took his talents elsewhere the subsequent offseason by signing with the Buffalo Sabres for the COVID-shortened season.

After his brief stay in Buffalo, he went on to the Washington Capitals, where he spent parts of two seasons and found a bit of a resurgence. It helped him get the attention of his hometown team, where he signed with the Vancouver Canucks in the summer of 2023. Although he got a callup midway through the season, Irwin never got to play in an NHL game in the blue and green as he spent the entire year with the Abbotsford Canucks. Despite never getting a proper homecoming, he still provided veteran leadership for the AHL squad, recording 16 points (five goals and 11 assists) in 65 games played.

His one-year stint with the Canucks’ organization proved to be the final stop of his professional career as the 6’2″ and 200-pound defenceman opted to hang up his skates after going unsigned in the offseason. In those 461 career games, Irwin amassed 93 points (25 goals and 68 assists) while adding four points (a goal and three assists) in 47 career playoff games.