Late Stanley Cup GM Ray Shero receives 2025 Lester Patrick Trophy
A late executive has received an honor for dedication to his game.
On Friday, the National Hockey League announced that Ray Shero is the 2025 recipient of the Lester Patrick Trophy. The award is given to a person based on their outstanding service to hockey in the United States.
Shero, who passed away this past April at the age of 62, worked in an NHL front office since 1993. Along with working for the Ottawa Senators and Nashville Predators as an assistant GM, he was best known for his time as GM of the Pittsburgh Penguins, constructing the team that won the Stanley Cup in 2009.
Commissioner Gary Bettman paid tribute to the former general manager in a statement:
“Ray Shero’s legacy as an NHL executive is immortalized by the engraving of his name on the Stanley Cup and the success of the Players he scouted, drafted and traded for.” Bettman said. “His contributions to growing the game in the United States are similarly noteworthy and extensive.
“However, his true legacy will be as a man who embodied the best of our game: fierce competition on the ice and welcoming fellowship off the ice. Widely respected throughout hockey for his team-building acumen and eye for talent, he was even more beloved for how he treated everyone fortunate enough to have known him.”
After his time with the Penguins came to a close at the end of the 2013-14 season, Shero joined the New Jersey Devils in 2015. Along with helping rebuild the team’s prospect system, he was in charge of drafting Nico Hischier first overall in the 2017 NHL Draft, doing the same with Jack Hughes two years later.
Shero’s last four years in the game were spent serving as a senior advisor with the Minnesota Wild.
Along with his work in the NHL, Shero was an associate GM for Team USA at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, where the team finished fourth. He also helped pick the teams for 13 different U.S. Men’s National Teams for the IIHF Men’s World Championship. In 2007, he co-founded the U.S. Men’s National Team Advisory Group.
Shero will be honored during the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Induction Celebration in Saint Paul, Minn., on Dec. 10.