Torrey was an expansion team specialist

Sunrise, Fla. (AP) — Bill Torrey, the jovial bow-tie wearing Hall of Famer who was the general manager of the New York Islanders when they won four consecutive Stanley Cups in the 1980s and eventually became the first president of the Florida Panthers, has died.

Torrey died at his home in South Florida Wednesday night, the NHL said. He was 83.

No cause was immediately revealed, though he was not known to be in any sort of poor health. Torrey, who spent the last several years of his career as an advisor to Florida general manager Dale Tallon, was at work like usual in his Panthers’ office earlier this week.

He was the first employee in Islanders history when the franchise was born in 1972 and took over the reins of the Panthers when the team entered the league in 1993. Florida reached the Stanley Cup final in 1996 under Torrey, falling to Colorado. Earlier that season, Torrey went into the Hall of Fame as a builder who specialized in taking expansion teams and turning them into quick winners. What Torrey did will never be matched, said longtime NHL executive Brian Burke. “Bill Torrey won four consecutive Stanley Cups with the Islanders,” Burke said in 2011. “It’ll never be done again. In a salary cap system, I think you’re lucky to win two Cups in 10 years. But you’ll never win four in a row again with this format.”

Torrey was born in Montreal. He attended St. Lawrence University studying business and psychology. His first hockey front-office job was with the AHL’S Pittsburgh Hornets in the 1960s, and his NHL career started in 1967 when he was hired as executive vice-president of the Oakland Seals — another expansion club.

He went to the Islanders in 1972, then to the Panthers two decades later and never left Florida.