Forget retirement.

After months on the open market and approaching his 41st birthday, Matt Cullen is returning for a 20th NHL season. And he's doing it right where his decades-long career began to sprout, back home in Minnesota.

Fresh off two straight Stanley Cup Final victories with the Pittsburgh Penguins, the veteran center has inked a one-year contract with the Minnesota Wild, returning both to the team he spent three seasons with starting in 2010 and to the state where he emerged as a St. Cloud State standout in the late 1990s.

Cullen's deal, according to the Star Tribune, is worth as much as $1.7 million -- a total the accomplished journeyman can reach if he hits certain performance incentives. That's hardly a dent in Minnesota's salary cap, and it's hardly even the type of money someone like 45-year-old Jaromir Jagr might have expected to earn as a free agent this summer. But it's a picture-perfect agreement as the storybook start to a milestone season for the ageless Midwestern center -- a low-risk, high-character reunion for both sides.

The Tribune reports Cullen was "leaning toward retirement in June" after he won his second straight title in Pittsburgh, but the opportunity to move his family back to Minnesota apparently proved too good to pass up. The Wild, then, get about as experienced a fourth-line center as they could want, not to mention injury insurance and a familiar locker-room presence.

The Pens, meanwhile, figure to continue their search for reserve center help as Cullen is goes home. Pittsburgh wasn't exactly considered a likely landing spot for the 40-year-old free agent because of the possibility of retirement, but after also parting ways with Nick Bonino, the Pens should at least miss the leadership Cullen brought to the bench.

In more than 1,300 NHL games, Cullen has played for eight different teams and been a part of three different championship runs. He had 31 points for Pittsburgh in 2016-17 and, according to NHL.com, is now the oldest player in the league with a contract for next season.