TSN has learned that Al MacInnis will retire from the National Hockey League on Friday.
MacInnis, 42, tallied 1274 points in 1416 games with the Flames and St. Louis Blues during his illustrious career, striking fear into goaltenders throughout the league with a legendary slapshot.
He also added 160 points in 177 playoff games, winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP in 1989 when he led the Calgary Flames to the Stanley Cup.
A four-time First Team NHL All-Star and three-time Second Team All-Star, MacInnis won the Norris Trophy as the league's best defenceman in 1999.
A member of the 2002 Canadian Olympic Men's Hockey Team that won gold in Salt Lake, MacInnis missed 79 games in 2003-2004, his final NHL season, due to an eye injury. The native of Inverness, N.S., suffered a serious eye injury during a game early in that season and doctors discovered a partially detached retina in the same eye that MacInnis injured in January 2001 when he was struck in the eye by a stick.