Pavelich dies at 96, won Stanley Cup 4 times with Red Wings

Marty Pavelich, a four-time Stanley Cup champion in the 1950s with the Detroit Red Wings and one of the best checking forwards of his day, died at his home in Montana on Thursday.

At age 96, Pavelich was the second-oldest living NHL player behind only 101-year-old Steve Wochy, who played briefly for the Red Wings just before Pavelich arrived in 1947.

“On behalf of the entire Red Wings organization, I would like to offer my deepest condolences to the Pavelich family,” Chris Ilitch, the Red Wings governor and chief executive officer, said in a statement.

“Marty was beloved by all those who knew him, including my parents, Mike and Marian Ilitch. He was an integral part of four Stanley Cup championship teams for the Red Wings in the 1950s and one of the hardest-working players of his generation.  He will be greatly missed.”

Marty Pavelich is squeezed along Maple Leaf Gardens boards by Toronto’s Marc Reaume during the 1956 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The Detroit Free Press reported Friday that Pavelich, five years the senior brother of legendary NHL linesman Matt Pavelich, died in his sleep Thursday into Friday after a brief battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

“We were watching baseball and I was holding his hand,” Pavelich’s son, Andrew Hofley, told reporter Helene St. James. “A peaceful end to an extraordinary life.”

Pavelich won the Stanley Cup with the Red Wings in 1950, 1952, 1954 and 1955. He played 633 games, all with Detroit from 1947-57, and had 252 points (93 goals, 159 assists). He had 28 points (13 goals, 15 assists) in 91 Stanley Cup Playoff games, five of his goals game-winners.

“I may not have been the most talented member of those teams, but you were never going to outwork me,” he told the Free Press earlier this month. “Nor could you ever have more desire to win than I did. I would like to think my legacy and what I am most proud of was my leadership in the locker room.

From left, Red Wings’ Leo Reise, Johnny Wilson, Ted Lindsay, Marty Pavelich and Benny Woit celebrate during the 1951-52 NHL season in the visitor’s dressing room at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

“I hated to lose -- still do -- and that is what I have attempted to pass on to all of the young people in sports and business I have met through the years.”

The 5-foot-11, 168-pound native of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario arrived full-time with the Red Wings having played four seasons, from 1944-47, for their junior team in Galt, Ontario, splitting his 1947-48 rookie season with the NHL team’s minor-league affiliate in Indianapolis.

Pavelich went to the playoffs in all 10 of his NHL seasons, his left-wing assignment on the powerful Red Wings of the 1950s usually to shadow the opposition’s top offensive threats.

“I was playing on a regular line and (coach) Tommy Ivan came to me one day and said, ‘We want to make a checking line,’” Pavelich told reporter Ansar Khan of mlive.com in 2022. “I played with Glen Skov and Tony Leswick. I had to check (Montreal Canadiens superstar) Rocket Richard 14 times a year. That was not easy. To me, he was the greatest goal-scorer of all-time.”

Marty Pavelich speaks to the media during the May 25, 2008 “Salute to Stanley Cup Legends” at Detroit’s Renaissance Center, an event honoring the Detroit Red Wings dynasty that won four championships in a six-year stretch from 1950-55.

Still in his prime at age 29, Pavelich retired shortly before the start of the 1957-58 season as Red Wings GM Jack Adams continued his dismantling of a 1950s powerhouse.

Adams planned to farm Pavelich to the minors, a demotion the popular forward wouldn’t accept.

A good deal of Adams’ plan likely was about punishing the popular, gritty forward for his business relationship with Red Wings icon Ted Lindsay; the latter, who enraged Adams for his role in trying to establish the NHL Players’ Association, was traded to the lowly Chicago Black Hawks on July 23, 1957, shipped out with future Hall of Fame goalie Glenn Hall in a lopsided five-player trade that brought Hank Bassen, Forbes Kennedy and Johnny Wilson to Detroit.

Adams had told reporters, “I’d like to believe that Marty could make the Red Wings squad this season, but my better judgment rules against it.”

Pavelich refused a $7,000 contract offer for 1957-58 since Adams had him pegged for the minors.

Detroit’s Marty Pavelich topples onto Toronto’s Harry Lumley, Maple Leafs’ Sid Smith and Jimmy Thomson arriving to help their goalie during a Jan. 22, 1955, game at Maple Leaf Gardens.

“I guess this is the end of the line. I was hoping to play one more season, but …” he told the Free Press on Aug. 29, 1957.

“I said I wouldn’t play in the minors, that I’d retire first. Then this week I got a letter from Mr. Adams stating that he would go along with my retirement plans.”

Pavelich worked for years with Lindsay in the plastics industry, supplying Detroit’s automotive business, then finally left related work in the early 1990s to retire in Montana to pursue his love of skiing and fly-fishing.

He would be a huge presence in Big Sky, working to build the town’s first hockey rink that in December 2022 opened as the Marty Pavelich Ice Rink.

Later, he was instrumental in building the Big Sky Chapel, the area’s first year-round house of worship serving many denominations.

Detroit’s Glen Skov (left) and Marty Pavelich in close on Toronto goalie Harry Lumley during the 1950-51 season at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

“I’ve been here 30-some years in the northern part of our country and no hockey,” Pavelich told mlive.com in 2022, before the arena’s ribbon-cutting.

“I said, ‘This is ridiculous.’ I called the local sportswriter, took him to lunch and said, ‘How about writing something about hockey?’ He started writing about hockey, and now we’ve got two enclosed rinks in Bozeman and over 1,000 kids playing hockey and the same thing happened here (in Big Sky). I thought we’ve got to give these kids an opportunity.”

Pavelich was still skiing regularly until not long before his death. He was skating in the arena that he helped build until he finally unlaced his skates at age 95.

“I thought I’d better take it easy for a while,” he joked.

The last surviving member of the Red Wings’ 1950 Stanley Cup team will have plenty of stories to share now with legendary Production Line teammates Lindsay, Gordie Howe and Sid Abel.

And surely he’ll be happy to mix it up again with the Canadiens’ mighty Rocket, who wore Pavelich like a thick wool blanket during their long-running feud on the ice of Olympia Stadium and the Montreal Forum.

Top photo: Marty Pavelich studies his skate in the Detroit Red Wings’ dressing room before a 1950s game at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens.