Jake Voracek, former Flyers playmaker, retires
Jake Voracek, who was a starring winger for the Flyers through the 2010s, announced his retirement after 15 NHL seasons but with concussion issues that had piled up.
Jake Voracek hasn’t skated since November 2022 but hadn’t put an official wrap on his career until this week.
The former Flyers winger announced his retirement at age 34, via CNN Prima News in his native Czechia, after a run of 15 seasons and 1,058 NHL games played, but also with numerous concussion issues that had piled up toward the end.
Voracek, originally drafted by the Columbus Blue Jackets at seventh overall in 2007, was shipped to Philadelphia in the summer of 2011 as part of the trade package to acquire Jeff Carter, which coupled with the simultaneous and sudden dealing of former captain Mike Richards to the Los Angeles Kings for Wayne Simmonds and Brayden Schenn, had completely re-tooled the Flyers on the fly.
The core of the team had shifted to a rising star in Claude Giroux, while Voracek and Simmonds rapidly stepped up as the other pieces to it, though arguably through the most turbulent and middling decade in Flyers history.
Voracek, who was a skilled playmaking winger, went on to spend 10 seasons in Philadelphia, using his size and speed to constantly barrel through the neutral zone and keep checkers shielded away from the puck. He amassed 604 points as a Flyer (177 goals and 427 assists) in 727 games, earned an All-Star nod in 2014-15, and put up a single-season best 85 points (20 goals, 65 points) in 2017-18 during a run where Giroux had put himself in the Hart Trophy conversation while the Flyers were rocketing toward the playoffs.
