Former New Jersey Devils conditioning coach dies at age 73

Former New Jersey Devils conditioning coach Vladimir Bure, who won Stanley Cups with the team in 2000 and 2003, died Tuesday in Miami, Florida, at the age of 73, multiple sources said.

Bure joined the Devils in the 1999–00 season as a consultant to the team, serving as the team’s conditioning coach for four seasons through 2002–03. The elder Bure previously coached the Vancouver Canucks in the same role from 1994–95 to 1997–98.

The Canucks, of course, are the team Bure’s son, Hockey Hall of Famer Pavel Bure, played for most of his NHL career. When Pavel left the Canucks, Vladimir did too.

Vladimir’s other son, Valeri Bure, played 10 seasons in the NHL as a standout forward for the Montreal Canadiens and Calgary Flames. He and his brother Pavel played together on the 2001-02 Florida Panthers.

After winning the Stanley Cup with the Devils in 2003, Vladimir Bure did not immediately return to coaching. Instead, he took a more than 10-year break before returning in the 2015–16 season as an assistant coach for Belarus at the 2016 IIHF World Championship.

Bure coached Belarus in the Olympic qualifiers the following year, although they narrowly lost the qualifiers in overtime to Slovenia. Bure also coached Belarus as an assistant in the 2017 IIHF World Championships before retiring from coaching.

Vladimir Bure, a former Soviet Olympic swimmer who won the Olympic gold medal in Barcelona in 1970 in the 4 × 100-meter freestyle relay, will forever be remembered by the hockey community as a two-time Stanley Cup winner with the Devils, and his many years of contribution to the development of hockey and its players will go down in history.

We express our deepest condolences to the Bure brothers and Vladimir’s family and friends.