Mark Pavelich

Professional career

After the Olympics, no NHL team selected Pavelich in the draft. He spent a season with HC Lugano in Switzerland, putting up 73 points. He then rejoined the U.S. national team for the 1981 World Championship. The next year, his Olympic coaches Herb Brooks and Craig Patrick, now running the New York Rangers, brought him back to North America.

Though undersized, Pavelich excelled as the Rangers' center and still holds the franchise record for most points by a rookie, with 76. His time in New York ended when he clashed with Brooks' replacement, Ted Sator, who installed a traditional dump-and-chase system. In 1987, Pavelich had a short stint with Brooks again, this time on the Minnesota North Stars, before heading back to Europe. He played for the Dundee Rockets in Britain and spent two seasons with HC Bolzano in Italy.

The expansion San Jose Sharks coaxed him out of retirement for the 1991–92 season, but he appeared in only two games before hanging up his skates. He did, however, get an assist on the Sharks' first-ever goal, scored by Craig Coxe in the third period of a 4-3 loss to the Vancouver Canucks on October 4, 1991. On February 23, 1983, Pavelich became the first American to score five goals in an NHL game, doing so against the Hartford Whalers at Madison Square Garden. He was the only American to achieve that feat in his lifetime; it was matched by Tage Thompson on December 7, 2022.

Personal life

Pavelich’s first marriage was to Sue Koski in 1985. They had a daughter, Tarja, two years later, and divorced in 1989. He remarried in 1994 to Kara Burmachuk; that marriage produced no children. At age 18, Pavelich was involved in a hunting accident that killed 15-year-old Ricky Holgers, which authorities ruled accidental.

His second wife, Kara, died at 44 in 2012 after falling from a balcony at their home in Lutsen, Minnesota; the death was also ruled accidental, though some found it suspicious. In 2014, Pavelich put his Olympic medal up for auction with a starting bid of $62,500, and it sold that May for $262,900 through Heritage Auctions. In August 2019, he was arrested for assaulting a neighbor he had been fishing with, believing the neighbor had tampered with his beer. He faced four felony charges: second- and third-degree assault, possession of a short-barreled shotgun, and possession of a firearm with a missing or altered serial number.

A court found him incompetent to stand trial and ordered him to a secure treatment facility. In August 2020, he was approved for transfer to a less restrictive setting. His sister, Jean Gevik, said she thought he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and had noticed behavioral changes before the assault. Pavelich died on March 4, 2021, at a residential treatment center in Sauk Centre, Minnesota; his death was ruled a suicide by asphyxiation.

Did You Know?

• In the 2009 book 100 Ranger Greats, Pavelich was ranked No. 83 all-time of the 901 New York Rangers who had played during the team's first 82 seasons.
• He was inaugurated into the Croatian-American Sports Hall of Fame in October 2022.
• In the 2004 Disney film Miracle, Pavelich was played by Chris Koch, who played junior hockey for the Delta Ice Hawks before concussions ended his career.