Peter Ratchuk

Playing career

Peter Ratchuk entered the NHL as a first-round pick, going 25th overall to the Colorado Avalanche in the 1996 draft. He started out with the Cazenovia Chiefs, then played one year at Bowling Green State University before moving to the QMJHL’s Hull Olympiques and turning pro. He joined the Florida Panthers as a free agent ahead of the 1998–99 season, skating in 32 games for the club over two campaigns (1998–99 and 2000–01) and putting up one goal and one assist. After that, his hometown Buffalo Sabres picked him up. During the 2002 preseason, he was assigned to their AHL affiliate, the Rochester Americans, for the 2002–03 season, then headed to Germany. That move sparked a quirky glitch in ESPN’s hockey recaps: because both Ratchuk and Sabres defenseman Dmitri Kalinin wore number 45, and ESPN’s database never removed Ratchuk from the Sabres after he left the league, his name kept popping up in place of Kalinin’s in game summaries.

Ratchuk spent three seasons in Germany’s DEL before returning to North America in 2006–07, signing with the Minnesota Wild on June 6, 2006. That year he split time between the AHL’s Houston Aeros and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. He then went back to the DEL with the DEG Metro Stars, and after his second season there, the team released him on April 20, 2009. On June 21, 2009, he signed with another DEL club, the Hamburg Freezers, for the 2009–10 season. When the Freezers missed the playoffs, he left on April 29, 2010, for Klagenfurt AC in the Austrian Hockey League. He played most of the 2010-11 season there, recording 19 points in 39 games, then moved to the Swiss National League A’s Rapperswil-Jona Lakers on January 30, 2011, to finish the year. After the season ended, he retired and was named a scout for the newly revived Winnipeg Jets of the NHL.