Former Detroit Red Wings fan favorite officially retires after longtime career

Valtteri Filppula is unique in that he has won not only a Stanley Cup championship, but an Olympic Gold medal and an IIHF World Championship Gold medal.

That's a kind of pedigree you don't find on many NHL rosters nowadays, and for Filppula, he hasn't been on one since 2020-21 when he last suited up for the original-six squad, the Red Wings.

Filppula was a key part of the Red Wings' 2007-08 Stanley Cup-winning team, adding 36 points in a depth role.

He served as a Red Wings forward from 2005-13, and then returned to play from 2019-21. Filppula would play a total of 591 games of his NHL career wearing the winged wheel.

In the NHL, he'd play a total of 1,056 games before he decided to take his career overseas, and home to Switzerland (Swiss-A, Geneve Servette), and Finland to play for Jokerit Helsinki.

His last season spent playing with Jokerit Helsinki, he'd be successful playing European hockey and come away with the Mestis Championship in Finland's second division.

Filppula would end his career in his homeland, Finland, winning a major title and serving as captain.

Filppula joins only 30 other players of the Triple Gold Club around the world and remains the only Finnish member to do so.

What unique honors, and a storybook ending to a career.

Filppula was originally drafted 95th overall in the 2002 NHL Draft by the Detroit Red Wings.