Joe Sakic Net Worth and Biography

Joe Sakic is a Canadian professional ice hockey executive and former player, with an estimated net worth of $60 Million. He played his entire 21-year National Hockey League (NHL) career with the Quebec Nordiques/Colorado Avalanche franchise. He is regarded as one of the greatest team leaders in league history and was able to consistently motivate his team to play at a winning level.

Bio Data

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Biography

Joe Sakic was born in Burnaby, British Columbia on July 7, 1969, to Marijan and Slavica Šakić immigrants from Croatia. At the age of four, Sakic attended his first NHL game, a match between the Vancouver Canucks and Atlanta Flames. After watching the game, Sakic decided that he wanted to become a hockey player.

Joe began to play Hockey in his neighborhood of Burnaby. As a smaller player, he was forced to use skill rather than size to excel, modeling after Wayne Gretzky. He scored 83 goals and 156 points in 80 games for Burnaby while attending school at Burnaby North Secondary School. Soon after, he was added to the Lethbridge Broncos of the Western Hockey League (WHL) for the last part of the 1985–86 season.

During the 1986–87 season, the Broncos relocated to Swift Current, Saskatchewan, becoming the Swift Current Broncos. Sakic, playing in his first full season, scored 60 goals and 73 assists for 133 points. These totals saw him named the Rookie of the Year of the WHL

In the 1987–88 season, Sakic was named the WHL Most Valuable Player and Canadian Major Junior Player of the Year. He scored 160 points (78 goals, 82 assists), tying him with Theoren Fleury of the Moose Jaw Warriors for the WHL scoring title.

Career

Sakic was drafted 15th overall by the Quebec Nordiques in the 1987 NHL Entry Draft but made his NHL debut on October 6, 1988. During their first four seasons with Joe Sakic, the Nordiques finished last place in the Adams Division and last in the entire league for three straight years, from 1989 to 1991.

Starting with the 1992–93 season, Sakic became the sole captain of the franchise. Under his leadership, the Nordiques made the playoffs for the first time in six years. He also helped the Nordiques win the division title, the first since the 1985–86 season.

In May 1995, the Nordiques announced that the team had been sold and were relocating from Quebec. Before the start of the 1995–96 season, the franchise moved to Denver, Colorado, and was renamed the Colorado Avalanche.

Sakic led the Avalanche to Stanley Cup titles in 1996 and 2001. He was named the most valuable player of the 1996 playoffs and honored as the MVP of the NHL in 2001. He is one of six players to participate in the first two of the team’s Stanley Cup victories and won a third Stanley Cup with the Avalanche in 2022 while serving as the team’s general manager.

During the 2002 Winter Olympics, Sakic helped lead Team Canada to its first ice hockey gold medal in 50 years and was voted as the tournament’s most valuable player. He represented the team in six other international competitions, including the 1998 and 2006 Winter Olympics.

Honors and Accolades

Sakic was one of the most productive forwards in the game, scoring 50 goals twice and earning at least 100 points in six different seasons. His wrist shot, considered one of the best in the NHL, was the source of much of his production as goalies around the league feared his rapid snap-shot release. At the conclusion of the 2008–09 NHL season, he was the eighth all-time points leader in the NHL, as well as 14th in all-time goals and 11th in all-time assists.

Sakic retired from the NHL on July 9, 2009, his jersey number was retired by the club in the same year. Sakic was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2012  and the Canada Sports Hall of Fame in 2013. In 2017, Sakic was named one of the ‘100 Greatest NHL Players in history.

Following the end of his playing career, Sakic continued with the Avalanche organization in a management capacity. He served in various capacities before he was named the general manager in 2014. After overseeing a team rebuild culminating in the franchise’s third Stanley Cup victory in 2022, Sakic won the Jim Gregory General Manager of the Year Award.

Joe Sakic Net Worth

Joe Sakic is one of the richest hockey players in the world, with an estimated net worth of $60 Million. He made a total of $94,045,190 in his entire NHL career, ranking #29 in NHL / hockey career earnings. At the peak of his career, he was earning as much as $9 million annually.

As a free agent during the summer of 1997, Sakic signed a three-year, $21 million offer sheet with the New York Rangers as a restricted free agent. Under the collective bargaining agreement at the time, the Avalanche had one week to match the Rangers’ offer or let go of Sakic in exchange for five first-round draft picks as compensation.

The Avalanche in turn offered him a two-year contract worth $17 Million, the second highest contact in the National Hockey League that year. He signed a one-year, $5.75 million deal to keep him with the Avalanche for the 2006–07 season. Towards the end of his career, Sakic was earning as much as $5 Million annually.