New York Islanders: Andrew Luck’s Early Retirement Similar To Mike Bossy

Andrew Luck’s retirement shook up the sports world last night. Unfortunately, it’s something New York Islanders fans know all too well.

It’s the last weekend before labor day weekend, which means we’re that much closer to New York Islanders hockey. With September rolling around training camp is just about here but that also means football season is almost back as well.

Last night, the sports world and the football world had a bomb dropped on them. At 29 years old, Andrew Luck decided to call it a career and retire. This was shocking as the season is just two weeks away and he is coming off the best year of his career.

Unfortunately, it’s pretty painfully obvious why he is retiring. Injuries. Throughout his career Luck had a torn labrum, lacerated kidney, a concussion, torn cartilage in his ribs, torn abdomen muscles, and a calf injury.

As Andrew Luck said in his press conference, the past four years he’s been in a ton of pain. That’s why at the age of 29 (the prime of a QB’s career) he is retiring.

It’s a sad day for the NFL as Luck was one of the best QBs in the league and on his way to a hall of fame type of career. This got me thinking, unfortunately, Islander fans know this feeling all too well.

After his age 30 season, Mike Bossy would never play in the NHL ever again. He missed the entire 1987-1988 season because of a bad back and he retired in October of 1988. Bossy’s career was cut too short.

In just 752 career games, Bossy netted 573 goals. At a pace of .76 goals per game if Bossy remained healthy he could’ve been the best goal scorer who ever lived. Let’s say Mike Bossy was able to play another 400 games at the pace he was on, that would be an additional 304 goals. That would put him at 877 goals which would be second all-time to Wayne Gretzky.

Even in a short career, he was still good enough for 22nd all-time in goals scored. What could have been is the prevailing thought from Mike Bossy’s career and we have the same feeling for Andrew Luck as well.

Luck threw for over 3,800 yards per season every year he was healthy. He was widely considered a top-10 QB in the league. If he played another seven to 10 years in the league he would’ve been a first-ballot hall of famer.

You can’t blame Luck who has been fighting to get healthy for so long. He just got to the point where he couldn’t do it anymore and I really feel for him. Hopefully, Luck is at peace and he starts to feel better health-wise very soon.