Claude Lemieux Dead at 60, The Usual Playoff Villain

Claude Lemieux was one of those players every contender loved to have and every rival could not stand to face. A four-time Stanley Cup champion and a 1995 Conn Smythe winner, he built a career on being exactly the wrong kind of problem for the other bench. That kind of postseason résumé does not just happen by accident, and it made him a constant factor whenever the games got tight. The story marks the end of a career that lived where pressure and irritation meet.