Thomas Patrick Barrasso (born March 31, 1965) is an American professional ice hockey coach and former professional ice hockey goaltender. He played in the National Hockey League (NHL) for 18 seasons. Barrasso began his time in the NHL with the Buffalo Sabres, who selected him fifth overall in the 1983 NHL entry draft out of high school. He was traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1988, where he would best be remembered and spend the majority of his career. Barrasso spent parts of 12 seasons with the Penguins, and was a Stanley Cup champion in 1991 and 1992. After being traded to the Ottawa Senators in March 2000 and sitting out the 2000–01 season, his final two seasons were split playing for the Carolina Hurricanes, Toronto Maple Leafs, and St. Louis Blues. Barrasso was inducted into the United States Hockey Hall of Fame in 2009 and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2023.
After retiring as a player, Barrasso served on the coaching staff of the NHL's Carolina Hurricanes. In 2012, Barrasso was hired by Metallurg Magnitogorsk of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) as a member of its coaching staff. In 2016, he joined Asiago Hockey of the Alps Hockey League as their head coach, winning the 2017–18 league championship. In October 2018, Barrasso was hired as head coach of the EIHL's Sheffield Steelers, where he coached for a year.
Barrasso grew up in the town of Stow, Massachusetts, playing ice hockey on an outdoor rink. He started playing goaltender at the age of five years and by the time he was a teenager, he was playing in net for Acton-Boxborough with fellow NHL players Bob Sweeney and Jeff Norton, as well as fellow goalie Kelly Dyer. Barrasso was considered one of the most promising American goaltending prospects of all time.
He was drafted by the Buffalo Sabres with the fifth overall pick in 1983. Skipping a college career, he went straight from high school to the NHL. At the time of his debut with the Sabres on October 5, 1983, less than six months after graduating from high school, Barrasso, who saved all but three shots in a 5–3 victory over the Hartford Whalers was the youngest goaltender to play and win a game in the NHL since Harry Lumley nearly forty years prior. In October, he posted a 4–1–1 record with a 2.63 goals-against average in October as he won the inaugural NHL Rookie of the Month award. In 42 games, he went 26–12–3 with a goals against average (GAA) of 2.85 with two shutouts. He won the Calder Memorial Trophy and Vezina Trophy in his first season, becoming the third player to win both awards in the same year. In the playoffs that year, Barrasso started two games but allowed eight goals as the Sabres were swept by the Quebec Nordiques in the first round. He was named to the NHL All-Star team, becoming only the sixth player in history to be named to the First Team and win the Calder Trophy.
The following season saw the team struggle early to where head coach Scotty Bowman tried to shake up the team by sending Barrasso down to the American Hockey League team in Rochester. He played five games with the team (the only games he played in the AHL) before returning to the Sabres. He was named to the All-Star Game for the first time that year and ultimately finished with a record of 25–18–10 with a GAA of 2.66 with five shutouts for the Sabres. He won the William M. Jennings Trophy in a tandem with Bob Sauve for allowing the fewest number of goals that year and Barrasso led the league in ties and GAA while finishing 2nd in the Vezina voting. In the playoffs, he went 2–3 while allowing 22 goals. He played 60 games (while leading the league in saves with 1,564) in his third season as a Sabre, going 29–24–5 but the Sabres missed the playoffs. The 1986–87 season saw him struggle on his way to a record of 17–23–2 to where he received boos from the Buffalo crowd for select games of the year. He rebounded with a 25–18–8 record the following year as the Sabres lost in four games in the playoffs where he allowed 16 goals. The 1988–89 season saw him appear in ten games for the Sabres and go 2–7 with a GAA of 4.95 prior to being traded.
On November 12, 1988, the month before he was fired as general manager of the Pittsburgh Penguins, Tony Esposito traded for Barrasso (alongside a third-round draft pick), with the Sabres receiving Doug Bodger and Darrin Shannon. Barrasso played in 44 games of the latter end of the 1988–89 season and went 18–15–7 as the Penguins made the Stanley Cup playoffs. He was the primary starter for the playoff run, going 7–4 as the Penguins lost in the Division Finals.
Barrasso was the starter for the 1989–90 season until he had injuries that saw him miss all of November and later February and most of March 1990. He appeared in 24 total games, going 7–12–3 as the Penguins missed the playoffs. Barrasso had his first shutout as a Penguin on December 28, 1990 against the Detroit Red Wings, recording 27 saves. He appeared in 20 of the 24 playoff games that year, going 12–7 while recording a shutout in the pivotal Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final. Minnesota North Stars that saw him record a shutout of 39 saves at Pittsburgh won their first ever Stanley Cup. He went 25–22–9 in the 1991–92 season with a 3.53 GAA and a shutout. He started in all 21 playoff games, going 16–5 with a shutout that saw him set a league record with eleven straight playoff wins. In the Stanley Cup Final against the Chicago Blackhawks, he faced Ed Belfour, who had won eleven straight games to set a new record before the Penguins swept the Blackhawks that saw Barrasso share the record with Belfour. In Game 1, Barrasso was tagged for three goals in the first period and were leading 4–1 midway through the second period before a litany of Penguin goals, including one with 13 seconds remaining, led to Pittsburgh pulling away with a 5–4 victory. In Game 2, Barrasso had 18 saves on 19 shots in a 3–1 victory while Game 3 saw Barrasso stop all 27 shots in a 1–0 victory for Pittsburgh. In Game 4, he had 24 saves on 29 shots in Game 4 as the Penguins prevailed 6–5 to complete the sweep and win the Cup. It was his play in these Cup runs that established him as a "money goalie".
The 1992–93 season saw him lead the league in wins, doing so with 43–14–5 record in 63 games played with a 3.01 GAA and four shutouts. He was the runner-up to the Vezina that year as he tied Tiny Thompson's NHL record with fourteen straight wins, doing so from March 9, 1993, to April 9, 1993. The Penguins aimed for a third straight Cup, but they were upset in the second round by the New York Islanders in Game 7 on David Volek's goal in overtime that went past Barrasso. The 1993–94 season saw him play in 44 games and go 22–15–5 with a 3.36 GAA; in the playoffs, the Penguins lost in the first round in six games, with Barrasso giving up 17 goals in six games as his wrist started to have problems during the series. To add insult to injury, he was charged with making terrorist threats against a man that had gotten injured in an altercation with Penguin defenseman Peter Taglianetti and strength coach John Welday at a party in the aftermath of the playoff elimination (reportedly, the man had complained about being bumped repeatedly before being hit by Taglianetti and then head-butted by Welday). Apparently, Barrasso was so offended that Pittsburgh media chose to write about the incident that he rarely spoke with the media from that point on.
He missed most of the 1994–95 season due to requiring wrist surgery after the pain did not go away in the summer. The 1995–96 season saw him go 29–16–2 with a 3.43 GAA before the Penguins lost in the Eastern Conference Finals to the Florida Panthers; Barrasso allowed 26 goals on 337 shots. He missed all but five games of the 1996–97 due to a shoulder injury. In 1997, he became the first American goaltender to record 300 NHL wins, doing so on October 19, 1997, against the Florida Panthers on 23 shots. Barrasso played in just 25 games in the 1999–2000 season, which saw him miss games due to a knee injury and also drew a four-game suspension when he slashed Yanic Perreault (which resulted in a broken left forearm) of the Toronto Maple Leafs on December 4.