“I think I got one more left in the tank”: UFA Ryan Reaves eyeing another NHL season
Ryan Reaves is just 38 games shy of hitting 1,000 for his career, and he’s made it clear that he wants to reach that mark.
The 39-year-old winger, who remains an unrestricted free agent after spending the 2025-26 season with the San Jose Sharks, appeared on TSN 1050 in Toronto on Thursday and spoke about his desire to play one more year in the NHL.
“Playing 1,000 games in the NHL is an honor, for sure, especially in the role that I play,” Reaves said on 1050’s First Up show. “But I’ve been training all summer already, and the body’s holding up pretty well. I just think I got one more left in the tank.
“As I came into the league, the older guys would give me advice,” Reaves added. “One [piece of] advice that has been consistent throughout all of them is, ‘Always play as long as you possibly can, because when it’s over, it’s over, and you’re gonna miss it.’ You don’t want to have regrets of, ‘oh, you know, I could’ve played one more year, and I shouldn’t have shut it down.’ I don’t want to have that regret. I think one more year would be fun, and to say I played to 40 would also be kind of fun, too.”
One of the NHL’s most prolific enforcers of the last two decades, the 6’2″, 225-pound Reaves has amassed 66 goals, 140 points, and 1,137 penalty minutes across his 962 career games with the St. Louis Blues, Pittsburgh Penguins, Vegas Golden Knights, New York Rangers, Minnesota Wild, Toronto Maple Leafs, and the Sharks. He’s also appeared in 113 playoff games, including 10 during Vegas’s run to the 2018 Stanley Cup Final.
Reaves first put himself on the radar of NHL clubs with his intensely physical play as a member of the WHL’s Brandon Wheat Kings, located not far from his hometown of Winnipeg. He made his NHL debut with the Blues in 2010-11 and spent parts of seven seasons with the club before being traded to Pittsburgh in 2017.
After less than one full season with the Penguins, Reaves joined the Golden Knights in 2018 and subsequently enjoyed some of his greatest success with the club. He set career highs with nine goals and 20 points in 80 games in the 2018-19 season and consistently made his presence felt in the playoffs, skating in 48 postseason contests over his four years in Vegas.
Reaves shifted into more of a mercenary role for much of the 2020s, although he still enjoyed intermittent periods of success — including an Eastern Conference Final run with the 2022 Rangers — amidst his frequent team changes. Reaves has been traded five times in his career, most recently from Toronto to San Jose in the 2025 offseason.
Reaves appeared in 50 games with the Sharks during the 2025-26 season, collecting three points (all goals) and 37 penalty minutes while averaging 7:48 of ice time. He finished the year with a minus-12 rating, 25 shots on goal, and 160 hits.