Claude Lemieux, the four-time Stanley Cup-winning winger who led the Devils to their first championship in 1995 and was one of the most-hated players in the NHL, has died, the NHL Alumni Association announced Thursday.
He was 60.
A cause of death was not disclosed.
The Quebec native, who won his first Cup with the Canadiens in 1986, was in attendance as Montreal hosted the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals Monday night, carrying the ceremonial torch before the game.
A clutch scorer and one of hockey’s most reviled agitators, Lemieux won the Conn Smythe award as the playoff MVP after scoring 13 goals during the Devils’ Cup run in 1995, and after spending the next four-plus seasons with the Avalanche, he returned to New Jersey in a November 1999 trade and helped the Devils win another Cup that season.
Lemieux’s 80 postseason goals are the ninth-most all-time.
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