- Barry Melrose died Wednesday at 70, his wife Cindy telling ESPN’s Steve Levy
- He coached Wayne Gretzky’s Kings to the 1993 Stanley Cup Final before 27 years at ESPN
- Read below for a full look back at his playing, coaching and broadcasting career
Barry Melrose is gone at 70.
The former Los Angeles Kings coach and longtime ESPN hockey analyst died Wednesday. His wife, Cindy, passed the news along to ESPN’s Steve Levy.
Melrose had been away from television since 2023, when a Parkinson’s diagnosis pulled him off the desk he had worked since 1996. He put out a statement explaining the decision that fall.
“I’ve had over 50 extraordinary years playing, coaching and analyzing the world’s greatest game, hockey. It’s now time to hang up my skates and focus on my health, my family, including my supportive wife Cindy, and whatever comes next.”
The news moved through the ESPN newsroom Wednesday night:
His mullet and pinstripe suits made him a household name in the United States. The resume held up on its own, though.
Melrose took over the Kings in 1992-93 and went 42-27-11, good for third in the Smythe Division. Then came the run: Calgary in six, Vancouver in six, a seven-game Campbell Conference Final against Toronto, and finally Patrick Roy and the Canadiens ending it in five in the Stanley Cup Final.
Nothing else in his coaching career touched that spring. He had won a Calder Cup with Adirondack in 1991-92, and he missed the playoffs in both of his remaining seasons behind the Los Angeles bench. A return to coaching with Tampa Bay in 2008 lasted 16 games before the Lightning fired him and ESPN took him back.
Before any of that, he was a defenseman out of Kelvington, Saskatchewan. Montreal drafted him 36th overall in 1976, he debuted with the Winnipeg Jets in October 1979, and he played 300 NHL games across stops with the Jets, Maple Leafs and Red Wings.
Gretzky recorded a video message for him the day the Parkinson’s news became public, and he did not undersell what Melrose meant to the sport. He called him bigger than any team, and described hockey as an orchestra with Melrose as its conductor.
Take a look at Scott Van Pelt’s send-off from that week in 2023:
Wednesday was a heavy day around the league. Hours earlier, word came that Andre Pronovost had died at 90, four Stanley Cups into a Canadiens career that started in 1956.
A whole generation of American hockey fans found the game through a guy in a loud suit with a goatee and a mullet, telling them why the third period was about to get ugly. We at Gino Hard send our condolences to Cindy, the Melrose family and everyone at ESPN.
