Lyle Odelein, the hard-nosed defenseman who spent a short but physical stretch with the Chicago Blackhawks late in his career, died Friday. He was 58.
The Quill Lake, Saskatchewan, native died of a heart attack, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. Odelein had lived in the Pittsburgh area after his playing days.
In 2018, he nearly died from a blood infection that forced a marathon operation in which he received a new aortic valve, liver and kidneys. He recovered enough to walk unaided that fall and later joined the Montreal Canadiens’ celebration of their 1993 Stanley Cup team.
Chicago was one of eight NHL stops in a 16-season career built on toughness more than flash. The Blackhawks acquired him from the Columbus Blue Jackets on March 19, 2002, sending defenseman Jaroslav Spacek the other way.
Columbus had named Odelein its first captain after claiming him in the 2000 expansion draft. By the trade deadline he was a veteran the Hawks wanted for a playoff push: a right-shot defender who cleared the crease, blocked shots and did not back down.
He played 12 regular-season games down the stretch, recording two assists, then appeared in all four of Chicago’s first-round series against the St. Louis Blues.
The Hawks lost in five, but Odelein contributed an assist and 25 penalty minutes in those four games, the kind of edge a thin blue line needed.
He stayed for most of 2002-03 and had one of the more productive offensive stretches of his later years: seven goals and 11 points in 65 games, plus-7, with 76 penalty minutes.
On March 10, 2003, Chicago dealt him to the Dallas Stars. In all he played 77 regular-season games and four playoff games in a Blackhawks sweater, with seven goals, seven assists and 80 penalty minutes.
Those numbers were a fraction of a career that ran to 1,056 games, 50 goals, 202 assists and 2,316 penalty minutes, 30th in NHL history.
He won the Cup with Montreal in 1993, played his best season the following year (11 goals, 40 points, 276 penalty minutes) and also suited up for the New Jersey Devils, Phoenix Coyotes, Stars, Florida Panthers and Pittsburgh Penguins. A knee injury ended his career after 27 games with Pittsburgh in 2005-06.
For the Blackhawks he was never a franchise piece.
He was the player teams still sought when the games got heavier: a seventh-round pick who had already won a Cup, worn a captain’s “C” and was willing to absorb the contact that softer rosters tried to avoid.
That version of Odelein is the one Chicago got, briefly, before the trade that sent him on again.
