"I thought I've been done a couple of times, to be honest. I've done surgeries most summers. I don't think the foot is ever going to be 100 percent. ... I've tried for six years to get it right. If I knew the script back in 2003, I would have retired right then."

-Peter Forsberg talking about his career

There's been talk of Jaromir Jagr possibly returning to the NHL next season after showing he's still got quite a bit of magic in his hands. As for Peter Forsberg? There's next-to-zero ambiguity about his career. His foot, surgically repaired countless times, just won't work, and at his age, it's simply not in the cards.

For the past few years, the Peter Forsberg saga has been almost a running joke among hockey fans. There was something different in Forsberg's goodbye-and-hello routine from, say, Brett Favre. Here was a guy who, for the most part, still had the hands, the strength, and the vision -- he just couldn't get his feet strong enough to cooperate with the rest of his body. And if you look at the way he played, the way he could control the puck down low before firing off an impossible pass, well, you knew that if -- just if -- he could stay healthy, he could contribute. And with each rising hope came the inevitable fall. Those feet just refused to work with him.

In the end, Peter Forsberg's foot will fall in that unfortunate category of injuries that shortened or diminished a brilliant career, alongside Bobby Orr's knees, Eric Lindros's head, or Pavel Bure's knees. With each of those guys, you like to think that in some alternate timeline, they got to see their full potential up to at a good 35- or 36-years-old. Forsberg fared significantly better than, ironically, Lindros but his last few years featured just too many question marks to take him seriously.

So here we are on the cusp of the last big game of the Olympic preliminary round for Forsberg. After that, it's single-game elimination, and who knows what might happen with that. In any case, the Finland vs. Sweden match-up is more than just a great rivalry between two top hockey nations -- it's going to be one of our last chances to see Peter Forsberg on North American ice.

I know plenty of hockey fans who couldn't stand Forsberg, but they could never argue with his talent. Heck, my first conversation with my wife involved her saying the words, "I hate Peter Forsberg" to me. All bias aside, take a second to enjoy his talent for one of the last times. He might be a bit older and a step slower, but he's still got that special something when he touches the puck.

And in case you only remember Forsberg the Injured, here's a little refresher of what the guy could do in his prime -- which was pretty much everything.