Panthers Bure Retires

MINNESOTA

The Florida Panthers were in town to play the Wild and the Panthers won the game 2-1 but lost one of its best players.

Valeri Bure got in a fight with Wilds Mikhail Yakubov at 10:24 of the first period. Bure who is not by any means a fighter was goaded into the fight and had to defend himself but it had a disastrous effect.

Bure fell awkwardly and Yakubov fell on top of Bure resulting in Bure's leg snapping like a twig.

"It made me cringe." GM Perrault said at the post game news conference. "You could here it snap. The good news for Valeri is he will eventually heal. The bad news for us is because of the severity of his injury he has decided to call it a career and retire. We wish him a speedy recovery and have offered him a scouting job when he is able to get back to doing day to day activities. This is a definite blow to our team at a crucial time of the year but we are more concerned for Valeri's recovery."

Valeri was having a decent year for the Panthers scoring 26 goals and adding 32 helpers for 58 points which was good for 5th on the team. Valeri also had 6 power play goals (tied for 2nd on team) and scored 5 game winners which also tied him for 2nd on the team.

Valeri Bure (31) was to become a UFA at the end of the season as he was in the last year of a contract that paid him $3,380,000 and was rumored to be high on the list of a few GM's wish list which would of ment a big pay day for him.