Claude Lemieux, a four-time Stanley Cup champion and one of the fiercest playoff performers in NHL history, has died, the NHL Alumni Association said Thursday. He was 60.

A cause of death was not given and the association did not say where or when he died.

Lemieux played 21 years in the NHL, winning the 1995 Conn Smythe Trophy and the four Cups — two with the New Jersey Devils and one each with the Colorado Avalanche and Montreal Canadiens. His 80 playoff goals rank ninth in NHL history and his 158 points are tied for 27th. Lemieux played 1,215 regular-season games, scoring 379 goals and 786 points and amassing 1,777 penalty minutes.

Lemieux embraced the role of a physical agitator throughout much of his career. His 529 penalty minutes in the playoffs rank third all-time, and he infamously checked Kris Draper from behind into the boards during the 1996 Western Conference final, breaking Draper’s jaw, nose and cheekbone. Lemieux, then playing with the Avalanche, was suspended for the first two games of the ensuing Stanley Cup final against Florida.

After his playing career ended in 2009, Lemieux was an NHL player agent.

On Monday, Lemieux was back on the playoff stage in Montreal before Game 3 of the Eastern Conference final between the Canadiens and the Carolina Hurricanes. Donning a Montreal sweater, Lemieux carried the torch into Bell Centre and fired up the home crowd.

“He’s like family,” Hurricanes goalie Frederik Andersen, who was represented by Lemieux, told The North State Journal’s Cory Lavalette after Game 3.

Lemieux’s physical play extended beyond the NHL as well, as he once fought Keith Tkachuk at the 1996 World Cup of Hockey in a Canada-U.S. game.

“I was not playing well, I was fighting an injury, so I thought I would go after Keith (Tkachuk) and get him out of the game,” Lemieux told The Athletic in February 2025, the same night Team Canada and Team USA had three fights in nine seconds at the 4 Nations Face-Off.

Lemieux had four children, including longtime NHLer Brendan Lemieux, who played this past season in Davos, Switzerland. Lemieux’s younger brother, Jocelyn Lemieux, also played several years in the NHL.

This story will be updated.