Chris Neil officially called it a career on Thursday afternoon.
Neil was selected 161st overall in the 1998 NHL Entry Draft by the Ottawa Senators and he went on to spend his entire 15-year career with the Sens and was one of the toughest players to play against during his prime. In 1,026 career games, the Flesherton, Ontario native totaled 2,522 penalty minutes, which ranks him 20th on the NHL’s all-time penalty minutes leaderboard.
During his career, Neil spent a lot of time getting under the skin of his opponents and one guy he would spend a lot of time interacting with whenever their teams played against each other was Darcy Tucker.
Shortly after the news of Neil’s retirement went public, Tucker was quick to congratulate the former Sens enforcer with a pretty funny tweet.
Tucker and Neil dropped the gloves against each other back in 2003, but they probably won’t carry over the physical stuff into any alumni games going forward.
(H/T Twitter/16DarcyTucker)
