Claude Lemieux's former Canadiens teammates reveal what they knew before his passing

More than thirty members of the 1986 Stanley Cup champion Montreal Canadiens showed up at the Serge Savard Invitational this week, but the golf tournament never really felt like a celebration.

Claude Lemieux wasn't there, and everyone knew exactly why.

Lemieux died on May 28, just three days after he carried the torch at the Bell Centre before Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Final.

That image, Pepe smiling and proud in front of a packed building, is still hard for his old teammates to square with what came next.

Jean Perron, who coached that 1986 squad, remembered Lemieux as the kind of player every contender needs come playoff time, unpredictable but absolutely essential when the games mattered most.

Perron didn't stop there either. He pointed to the NHL's concussion protocols and suggested the league still isn't doing enough to protect players from the long term effects of head injuries, a pointed comment given Lemieux's own history.

Serge Savard, who drafted Lemieux back in 1983 and had spoken with him just a week before his death, said he never saw it coming.

He described Lemieux as seeming completely fine, in great shape and looking forward to the tournament.

Stephane Richer, visibly emotional, made a point of shutting down speculation and rumors about what happened, choosing instead to focus on who Lemieux actually was to the people who knew him.

Savard also used the moment to put Lemieux's playoff numbers in historical context, placing them alongside legends like Maurice Richard and Gordie Howe.

For a group that just wanted to celebrate a championship, it turned into something much more complicated, a reminder of how a locker room bond doesn't fade, even forty years and one devastating loss later.

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