MONTREAL — Mathieu Darche is hanging up his skates — and posted a picture to that effect on Twitter as he announced his retirement on Tuesday.

The 36-year-old former Canadien tweeted Tuesday afternoon: “Time to make if official! Moving on to second career.” The attached picture simply showed skates hanging from a hook.

An unrestricted free agent, Darche had been skating with the New Jersey Devils since last month without a contract, but returned to Montreal last week after meeting with general manager Lou Lamoriello.

Darche told The Gazette last Friday that he hadn’t set a hard deadline for deciding whether to try to keep playing hockey or retire.

“If something as far as post-career comes up in the next few days and it’s a great opportunity, I’ll jump on it and I’ll say: ‘All right, that’s it.’

“If something playing-wise comes up before, good. If something on the other side comes up before, well I’ll go.”

A McGill University graduate, Darche said on Friday that he also planned to explore possibilities for working in hockey management and would be talking to Lamoriello, among others.

Darche wasn’t drafted into the National Hockey League. He played for the McGill Redmen and got his start in pro hockey with the Syracuse Crunch in the American Hockey League. He played 250 regular-season NHL games, including 149 with the Canadiens over the past three seasons.

Popular with fans and the media in Montreal, Darche turned down the two-way deal the Canadiens offered him last summer. He wasn’t ready to go back to the American Hockey League, where he played for eight seasons at this point in his career, Darche explained last week.