Kevin Hayes’ hockey career is over, and the Dorchester native is leaving behind a long NHL run that stretched across 12 seasons.
The 34-year-old forward announced his retirement Monday after a brief stop in Russia with AK Bars Kazan, where he played five games in the KHL and finished without a point. He signed with Kazan in late August.
“I have decided to end my hockey career,” he said in his retirement announcement, posted by the KHL. “I can no longer play at the level I am capable of because my body does not allow me to perform at my best. And I cannot accept not being in top form.”
Hayes’ pro resume ends with 805 NHL games, 185 goals and 446 points. He skated for the Rangers, Flyers, Penguins, Blues and Jets over the course of his career.
Boston was always part of the story. Hayes grew up in Dorchester, starred at Noble and Greenough School in Dedham, and then became a standout at Boston College before eventually reaching the NHL. He was drafted 24th overall by the Chicago Blackhawks in 2010.
At BC, Hayes put together a four-year career that included 44 goals and 132 points in 141 games. He won an NCAA title in 2011-12, then helped anchor one of the most dangerous college lines of the era alongside Johnny Gaudreau and Bill Arnold in 2013-14. Hayes finished that season with 65 points in 39 games, while Gaudreau piled up 80 points and Arnold added 53.
“He’s such a great representative of BC,” Boston College head coach Greg Brown said Monday afternoon. “Wears his colors very proudly, and his personality is someone that you want to be around.
He’s always fun to talk to, always fun to be with. So he had an incredible career.
I’m very happy for him.
“Hopefully, he’ll show his face a lot around BC now that he’s retired. But you think about his line with Johnny [Gaudreau] and Billy Arnold, and it was one of the best in BC history.
So the legacy that he left here, and the person that he is, is someone we’re very proud of. And like I said, I hope we see him around often.”
Hayes turned pro in 2014 after signing with the Rangers as an unrestricted free agent once Chicago’s rights expired in August of that year. A big-bodied, versatile forward, he had six seasons with at least 40 points and reached a career-high 55 points in 2018-19, a season split between New York and Winnipeg.
His final years also carried a heavier weight. Hayes was a finalist for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy in 2021-22, a year shaped by the death of his older brother Jimmy and by Hayes’ own health issues. Jimmy Hayes died in August 2021 at 31 from a drug overdose, and Kevin Hayes also dealt with a blood infection and three surgeries while playing 48 games for the Flyers that season.
In an August 2023 Players’ Tribune tribute to Jimmy, Hayes looked back on what it meant to come from Dorchester with his brother and see their names on local jerseys. “Two kids from Dorchester … who woulda thought?
But you know what the best part of being in the NHL with him was? We’d be back home in Dorchester grabbing a coffee in the neighborhood, and all of a sudden some kid would come into the coffee shop with his dad, and he’d be wearing me or my brother’s jersey,” Hayes wrote.
“Seeing the HAYES on the back of the extra-small sweater always gave me chills.
“We weren’t the best players in the NHL, no matter what my sisters say. But we were local heroes, and that was better than anything.”
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