Owen Nolan announced his retirement from the NHL after 18 seasons on Tuesday at a press conference in San Jose, according to the NHL via Twitter.

If more players played like Nolan in today's game, the NHL would be a more exciting sport to watch. He hated to lose and was as competitive as anyone.

Nolan played for seven teams during his brilliant NHL career, including the Quebec Nordiques, Colorado Avalanche, San Jose Sharks, Toronto Maple Leafs, Phoenix Coyotes, Calgary Flames and Minnesota Wild.

He also won the 2002 Olympic gold medal with Team Canada in Salt Lake City.

Nolan, who will turn 40 on Sunday, last played in the NHL during the 2009-10 season with the Wild and scored 16 goals with 17 assists in 73 games.

For his career, Nolan scored 422 goals with 463 assists in exactly 1,200 career NHL games. His best statistical season was in 1999-00, when he scored 44 goals with 40 assists for a career-high 84 points as a member of the Sharks. He played 568 games with the Sharks, the most of any team he played with.

It was nice to see Nolan retire in San Jose, because his most productive years came as a member of the Sharks. He also served as team captain for five years.

Nolan was an exciting power forward who was a fan favorite in the 1990s with his physical play and goal-scoring ability.

The passion he played with was fun to watch, and it helped the Sharks play an exciting style of hockey during Nolan's time with the team.

Nolan played the game the way it was meant to be played, and he gave fans a ton of excitement each night that made the price of admission well worth it.

One of our favorite memories of Owen Nolan was his called shot goal on Dominic Hasek at the 1997 NHL All-Star Game to complete his hat trick.

Nolan's career was quite impressive, and it will be interesting to see how much support he gets for the Hockey Hall of Fame over the next few years.

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