PITTSBURGH — For NHL fans, the sight of Lyle Odelein in his hospital bed would have been unimaginable. One of the toughest players in the league during the 1990s and 2000s, Odelein, only 49 years old, looked so withered and frail, so helpless amid the beeping machines and tangled wires.



For Laurel Odelein, the visual was unbearable. The kindest man she’d ever met, the one she couldn’t wait to marry six years earlier, had always been the life of the party, the warmest soul in any room. But there he lay, unable to open his eyes or even crack a smile.



In early March, Lyle Odelein was golfing with buddies in Phoenix, maintaining a whirlwind social calendar more than a decade after he’d retired from hockey.



One week later he was in the hospital. Two weeks later he was in a coma, and by the end of the month, he was at death’s door, prompting Laurel to reach out across the hockey world for prayers, even as she struggled to keep...