in Game Three of the 2013 NHL Stanley Cup Final at TD Garden on June 17, 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts.
It’s been the summer of former Bruins formally announcing their retirement from the game of hockey. And that train kept on rolling in August, as it turned out, this time with Anton Khudobin calling it a career.
Khudobin’s announcement was made by the Stars and confirmed by the NHL.
A seventh-round pick of the Wild back in 2004, Khudobin is known in Boston for his two separate stints with the Bruins organization, the first ranging from 2011 to 2013 before a second run from 2016 to 2018.
Serving as the backup to Tuukka Rask in both of his full-time Boston runs, Khudobin posted a 33-16-9 record, along with a .914 save percentage and 2.50 goals against average, in 62 career games with the Bruins.
Khudobin’s best year for the Black and Gold was also the Bruins’ best year with Khudobin on the roster, too, as he posted nine wins and a .920 save percentage in 14 games for the B’s during the lockout-delayed 2013 season. Not only did the Bruins make it to the Stanley Cup Final that season, but the Khudobin-Rask tandem finished with the third-fewest goals against in the NHL, putting them just nine goals away from matching the Blackhawks for what would’ve been a Jennings-winning year.
One of 30 goalies in Bruins history to play at least 60 games with the franchise, Khudobin’s .914 is the sixth-best, trailing only Terry Sawchuk (.917), Jaroslav Halak (.918), Rask (.921), Tim Thomas (.921), and Linus Ullmark‘s .924. (This is also where it’s worth noting that save percentage has only been tracked since the 1955-56 season, giving this number a slight asterisk, especially when considering the early days of Boston goaltending excellence between hockey legends like Frank Brimsek and Tiny Thompson.)
Khudobin was also a ‘Black Ace’ for the club during their 2011 Stanley Cup run.
Outside of Boston, Khudobin is certainly best known for his work with the Stars over four seasons of play in Dallas. Khudobin’s Dallas run was headlined by a 2020 run that saw Khudobin lead the Stars to the Stanley Cup Final in the Canadian bubble, where they ultimately came up short against the Lightning.
Last appearing in an NHL game in Mar. 2023 (for Chicago), the 39-year-old Khudobin spent the 2023-24 season with Sokol Krasnoyarsk of the VHL (Russia’s second-highest tier of pro hockey) and the KHL’s Sibir Novosibirsk.
Khudobin did not play at all during the 2024-25 season before announcing his retirement from professional hockey this week.
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