Former Detroit Red Wings Center Has Died

The Detroit Red Wings family lost one of its own late last week. Brent Peterson, the Calgary-born center Detroit selected 12th overall in the 1978 NHL Draft, died Friday, Sept. 11, at age 68 after a 23-year battle with Parkinson’s disease.

His death was announced by the Nashville Predators, where he eventually serve as a coach.

Peterson never became a household name in Hockeytown the way some later first-rounders did. He was a checker and penalty killer, a 6-foot, 190-pound right wing who earned his keep by making life difficult for the other team’s skilled players.

In parts of four seasons with the Wings and their AHL affiliate in Adirondack, he appeared in 91 NHL games for Detroit, recording 8 goals and 20 assists. His best year in a winged-wheel sweater came in 1980-81, when he posted 24 points in 53 games.

Those were lean years in Detroit. The franchise was still climbing out of the mid-1970s slump, and Peterson arrived as a highly regarded junior from the Portland Winter Hawks.

He made his NHL debut on Oct. 11, 1978, then suffered a broken leg a few games later that cost him most of his rookie season. He kept working his way back through Adirondack before earning a more regular look.

On Dec. 2, 1981, the Wings traded him along with Mike Foligno and Dale McCourt to Buffalo in a deal that brought Danny Gare, Bob Sauvé, Jim Schoenfeld and Derek Smith to Detroit. It was a typical transaction of the era: veterans and draft capital moving in both directions as the organization searched for the right mix.

Peterson went on to play 620 NHL games with Detroit, Buffalo, Vancouver and Hartford, finishing with 72 goals and 213 points. After hanging up the skates he coached, first as an assistant in Hartford, then as head coach of the same Portland junior club that had developed him, winning a Memorial Cup in 1998.

He spent more than a decade behind the Predators bench and later worked their radio broadcasts.

Diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2002, he founded a foundation to help patients and families and remained a public face of the fight for more than two decades.

The Red Wings issued condolences after the Predators announced his passing, noting that Peterson was a first-round pick who spent parts of three seasons in Detroit.

For Wings fans who remember the late-1970s and early-1980s rosters, he was one of those players who quietly did the unglamorous work while the franchise tried to find its way back to contention.

He is survived by his wife, Tami, and children Brad and Kristin.

Hockeytown remembers a first-rounder who showed up, played hard, and later spent the rest of his life helping others.