Paul Stastny

Paul Stastny, born December 27, 1985, in Quebec City, Quebec, is a retired Canadian-American center who spent 17 NHL seasons with the Colorado Avalanche, St. Louis Blues, Winnipeg Jets, Vegas Golden Knights, and Carolina Hurricanes. He comes from a deep hockey lineage: his father, Peter Šťastný, is a Hockey Hall of Famer who played for the Quebec Nordiques (the Avalanche’s predecessor) and later the St. Louis Blues, while his older brother Yan played for the Boston Bruins, Edmonton Oilers, and Blues. His uncles, Anton and Marián Šťastný, also played in the NHL for the Nordiques in the 1980s.

Stastny’s youth followed his father’s career, moving from Quebec City to New Jersey and eventually settling in St. Louis after Peter joined the Blues in 1993. He played in the 1999 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament with a St. Louis Blues minor team, attended Chaminade College Preparatory School for two years, then left to play for the Tier III Junior B St. Louis Jr. Blues. He later moved to Omaha, Nebraska, to play Tier I junior hockey for the River City Lancers of the USHL, graduating from Millard North High School. Born in Canada to a mother with American citizenship, Stastny and his brother Yan hold dual Canadian-U.S. citizenship; he also has two sisters, Katarina and Kristina. He has cited religion, education, and family as core values, crediting his father’s guidance for his development as a player.

His family’s NHL history is notable. Peter Šťastný was the first European-trained player to reach 1,000 NHL points. Peter and Anton were smuggled out of Czechoslovakia into Austria in 1980 with help from Nordiques president Marcel Aubut and scout Gilles Leger; Marián arrived a year later after Peter and Anton raised $30,000 to bribe officials. All three brothers played together for the Nordiques from 1981 to 1985, the third set of three brothers to play for the same NHL team (after the Bentleys with the Chicago Black Hawks in 1943 and the Plagers with the St. Louis Blues from 1968 to 1972). Yan Stastny also played for CSKA Moscow in the KHL. Peter and Paul Stastny rank fourth all-time in scoring by a father-son NHL duo. In 2022, Paul donated $1,000 to the Canadian truckers’ “Freedom Convoy,” which was later seized by the Canadian government.