Matt Pavelich spent a career inside hockey’s biggest moments, and his path ran through every Red Wings home building from Olympia Stadium to Joe Louis Arena to Little Caesars Arena.
He first worked Detroit games as an NHL linesman at Olympia Stadium. Later, as an NHL supervisor of officials, he was back at JLA. Even after retirement, he stayed a constant around the Red Wings as part of the team’s game-night staff.
Pavelich died Friday at 92. He was also the brother of longtime Red Wings forward Marty Pavelich, and that connection created a few tricky moments in the 1950s when Matt was skating the lines for Detroit games.
If Marty got into a fight, Matt already had a plan with his linesman partner. He would handle the other player while the other linesman took Marty. As Matt Pavelich said in the book Hockey Dynasties, “In those instances, I’d always grab the other guy and let the other linesman take Marty,”
That family tie came with a larger hockey legacy, too. Marty Pavelich won four Stanley Cups with the Red Wings, tying the team record, but Matt’s resume stretched even wider. He worked the lines in 19 Stanley Cup Final series.
Of those, four involved Detroit - 1961, 1963, 1964, and 1966 - and the Red Wings lost all four.
Over 23 seasons as an NHL linesman, Pavelich worked 1,727 regular-season games and 245 Stanley Cup games. His final assignment came in the deciding game of the 1979 Stanley Cup Final between the Montreal Canadiens and New York Rangers.
As the clock wound down, Pavelich picked up the puck. Canadiens goalie Ken Dryden came over and asked for it. Pavelich told him, “It’s my last game,” and Dryden answered, “It’s my last game, too.”
Pavelich kept the puck.
When he entered the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1987, he became the first linesman included after the Hall expanded its nominees beyond referees to also recognize linesmen.
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That stance matters because it shows the Red Wings are trying to balance urgency with leverage, especially with a player of Larkins stature. For now, there is no sense Detroit is in a hurry to move him, and that leaves the situation in a holding pattern while other teams keep circling and the market keeps trying to define what a trade of this size should even look like. [Read more 🡒]