Former Maple Leaf Staffan Kronwall has retired.

Former Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Staffan Kronwall has called it a career.

According to an official announcement made by the Kontinental Hockey League on Sunday Kronwall has decided to retire after 21 seasons of professional hockey spanning across several leagues around the globe. Kronwall began his career playing for Djurgardens IF Stockholm in the Swedish Elite League before being drafted in the 9th round (285th overall) of the 2002 National Hockey League Entry Draft by the Toronto Maple Leafs. Kronwall would play several more seasons in the SEL before coming to North America where he would join the Leafs organization.

Kronwall would only go on to appear in a combined 52 games for the Maple Leafs split over two seasons, spending the majority of his time with the organization's American Hockey League affiliate, the Toronto Marlies. This would remain a consistent pattern for Kronwall who would also go on to play for the Washington Capitals and the Calgary Flames, spending most of his time within those organizations playing for the Hershey Bears and the Abbotsfords Heat respectively. In total the Swedish defenseman would appear in 66 NHL games throughout his career stateside, recording 1 goal and 3 assists and picking up 23 penalty minutes along the way.

Despite not achieving great success in the NHL Kronwall would go on to have a stellar career in the Kontinental Hockey League playing the majority of his seasons with Yaroslavl Lokomotiv where he became a fixture of their blue line. During his KHL career Kronwall would appear in a total of 476 games, also briefly playing for Cherepovets Severstal in his first season, and in those KHL games he recorded 44 goals and 137 assists for 181 total points.

Kronwall also had two particularly notable appearances at international tournaments, adding two medals to his trophy case. In 2011 Kronwall won a silver medal at the International Ice Hockey Federation's World Championship tournament and he would do even better two years later at that same tournament winning a gold medal for Sweden at the 2013 IIHF World Championship. 

As part of their announcement today the KHL has also released a video celebrating the career of Kronwall with his top 10 plays in the KHL.