Born in Sudbury, Ontario, Dave Lowry played junior with the London Knights of the OHL. He was taken 114th overall by the Vancouver Canucks at the 1983 NHL Entry Draft and returned to play two more years of junior. After scoring 60 goals in 1984-85, Lowry was voted on to the league's First All-Star Team.
The industrious winger was a regular his first two years in the league but spent two-thirds of the 1987-88 season in the AHL with the Fredericton Express. In September 1988, Lowry was traded to the St. Louis Blues where he fit in well for four and a half years. During his time in St. Louis, Lowry played with grit and registered consecutive 19-goal seasons and spent part of his first season with the team's IHL affiliate in Peoria.
Prior to the 1993-94 season, Lowry was claimed by the Florida Panthers in the Expansion Draft. He scored 15 goals and worked tirelessly up and down his wing while helping the Panthers set an NHL record for a first year club with 83 points. Two years later, he scored ten goals in the post-season when Florida marched all the way to the Stanley Cup finals.
In November 1997, the hard-working forward was traded to the San Jose Sharks where he battled for every inch of ice and saw duty on both specialty teams. He missed much of the 1999-00 season due to shoulder injury before signing as a free agent with the Calgary Flames. Lowry scored 18 goals for the Flames as the team pushed hard for a playoff postion all year. He also took over as the club's captain for the retired Steve Smith in 2000-01.
Lowry would play his 1,000th NHL game in 2001-02 and an injury plagued 2002-03 season limited him to 34 games in Calgary while spending some time with the team's AHL affiliate in Saint John. In 2003-04, Lowry returned to Calgary's lineup and was a team leader both on and off the ice, as the Flames reached the Stanley Cup final, only to lose in a hard-fought seven game series to the Tampa Bay Lightning. After the Flames magical run to the Cup final, Lowry retired from the game.
