BRISTOL, Conn. — Barry Melrose died Wednesday at 70. His wife, Cindy, told ESPN‘s Steve Levy, and the network, where Melrose worked for 27 years, reported it.
Melrose said he had Parkinson’s disease on Oct. 10, 2023, and quit ESPN the same day, hours before the 2023-24 season opened.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said Melrose spent 11 years as a pro across the NHL, AHL, and WHA, and made his name coaching and broadcasting rather than playing.
“From the flowing locks of his distinctive mullet to the flared lapels of his trademark long suit coats, Barry Melrose cut an unmistakable figure whenever you were fortunate enough to run into him at a rink or catch him on your television screen,” Bettman said. “You were even more fortunate if you engaged him in conversation or listened to his analysis because he never failed to boost your love of the game of hockey.”
Montreal drafted Melrose 36th overall in 1976, and Cincinnati took him one pick later in that year’s WHA draft. He signed with the Cincinnati Stingers and stayed three seasons. Mark Messier, 18, showed up for the last of them, 1978-79, his first year as a pro.
The WHA folded that summer. Melrose signed with the Winnipeg Jets and played 74 games as a rookie defenseman in 1979-80. He got 18 more games with Winnipeg the next season and 57 with Toronto. In parts of three seasons with the Toronto Maple Leafs he took 420 penalty minutes in 173 games. He finished in Detroit, 21 games with the Detroit Red Wings in 1983-84 and 14 more in 1985-86.
He finished with 10 goals, 23 assists, and 33 points in 300 regular-season games, along with 728 penalty minutes. In 7 playoff games, he had 2 assists and 38 penalty minutes. His WHA totals were 5 goals, 27 assists, and 32 points in 178 games with Cincinnati.
Barry Melrose And The 1993 Los Angeles Kings
Melrose played one more season, 1986-87, with the AHL’s Adirondack Red Wings. The WHL’s Medicine Hat Tigers hired him for 1987-88, his first job on a bench, and the Tigers went 44-22-6 and won the Memorial Cup. He coached the Seattle Thunderbirds for a year, then went back to Adirondack in 1989.
By his third season there he was the general manager too. Adirondack beat the St. John’s Maple Leafs in seven games for the 1992 Calder Cup. Keith Primeau, Martin Lapointe, Mike Sillinger, and Sheldon Kennedy were on that roster.
The Kings outbid Detroit for him that June. Melrose had never worked an NHL game. Bruce McNall gave him four years at a reported $1.3 million and replaced Tom Webster with him.
Los Angeles went 39-35-10 in his first season and finished third in their division. The Kings beat Calgary in six games and Vancouver in six games. Toronto took them seven in the Campbell Conference final. Wayne Gretzky scored three goals and added an assist in Game 7 at Maple Leaf Gardens on May 29, 1993, and Los Angeles won 5-4 to reach the first Stanley Cup Final in franchise history. The Montreal Canadiens won the Final in five games.
Melrose wrote in his memoir that Marty McSorley’s hit on Doug Gilmour in that series, and the Wendel Clark fight that followed, “won us the series.”
Los Angeles missed the playoffs the next season at 27-45-12. The Kings fired him in April 1995, 41 games into the lockout-shortened 1994-95 schedule, with the team 13-21-7 under him. He went 79-101-29 in three seasons there.
Barry Melrose At ESPN And The Return To The Bench
ESPN put him on its playoff studio set within weeks. He worked part time the next season, then went full time for 1996-97. Melrose said in a December 1995 interview with the Los Angeles Times that he wanted people watching him on television to think, “I’d like to go for a beer with Barry Melrose and talk hockey.”
ESPN said Wednesday that Melrose had been a foundational part of its hockey coverage.
“For decades, Barry Melrose was one of the most distinctive and trusted voices in hockey,” ESPN said. “His knowledge of the game was deep, his candor was refreshing and his passion was unmistakable.”
Melrose left the network in June 2008 to coach the Tampa Bay Lightning, and the job lasted 16 games. Tampa Bay went 5-7-4 and fired him that November. Steven Stamkos, 18 years old and the first pick of that summer’s draft, was a rookie on the roster and finished the season with 23 goals, 23 assists, and 46 points in 79 games. Melrose was back on ESPN in time for the 2009 Winter Classic.
He went 84-108-29-4 in 225 regular-season games as an NHL head coach, with a 13-11 playoff mark.
Melrose said in his October 2023 statement that he wanted to focus on his health and on his family, Cindy included.
“It’s now time to hang up my skates and focus on my health,” Melrose said.
John Buccigross, who worked alongside Melrose at ESPN for more than 25 years, wrote on X that he found out at a rink in Las Vegas, where he was getting ready for the season. The rink, Buccigross wrote, was “Barry’s home.”
In the summers Melrose played fast-pitch softball back in Saskatchewan, on a team of Kelvington-area NHL players that included his cousin Clark, Joey Kocur, Kelly Chase, and Kevin Kaminski.
Bettman’s statement named Melrose’s survivors as Cindy and their sons, Tyrell and Adrien.
