Retiring Numbers

The Caps very appropriately announced today that they have decided to retire Mike Gartner's number. Gartner, a Hall of Famer, spent 10 of his 19 seasons in the red, white and blue and ranks second in Capitals history in goals (397), assists (392) and points (789). Gartner was traded to the Minnesota North Stars on March 7, 1989, with Larry Murphy for Dino Ciccarelli and Bob Rouse.

His No. 11 is the fourth number to be retired, joining Rod Langway's No. 5, Yvon Labre's No. 7 and Dale Hunter's No. 32. The previous three men all held the captaincy for the Caps.

Puck Daddy has it right: while Gartner certainly deserves to have his number retired, he doesn't strike the same emotional strings as Peter Bondra and Olie Kolzig for today's Caps fans. And, frankly, there isn't really anybody else that is close.

When the Caps unveiled their current sweaters on June 22, 2007, Gartner joined Labre, Langway, Kelly Miller and Sylvain Cote as the guest alumni at the party. That night, Caps owner Ted Leonsis alluded to the fact that Gartner might have his sweater retired in the not-too-distant future. But does that mean Miller and Cote are next? (The answer is no by this count.)

After Bondra and Kolzig (eventually) are honored, my bet is the next number that will be retired belongs to some guy named Ovechkin. And that's probably nearly 20 years down the road.