Just moments ago, Aleksander Barkov arrived with hesitant English at 18, so young he couldn’t lease a car and had to borrow one from fellow Finn and former Florida Panther Olli Jokinen.
Just moments ago, Barkov went through six coaches in his first eight seasons, not winning so much as a playoff series with any of them, and suffered through it all in silence, which is always his way.
Now the captain was the first Panther holding the Stanley Cup, stretching it high while skating around the rink, shouting ‘Yes” and “We did it!” as teammates cheered and fans stood.
Now, too, Barkov’s long journey was this franchise’s longer one. All those years filled with too many losses and irrelevant seasons, so many false starts and eye-rolling moves, provided the perfect context to their smiles.
“The dream became reality,’’ Barkov said minutes after passing the Cup to goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, who had a smile and story himself.
The score, individual plays, maybe even the tension before that Game 7 will fade with time. But remember the smiles in the moments afterward as they held that Cup.
Remember what it took to get here. Remember Bobrovsky, who two years ago was benched in the playoffs and last year didn’t play until three games into the postseason. His smile told of this night, of his holding Edmonton to one goal — of the years of games reaching this defining game.
“You always think, one day, you’ll get to skate with the Stanley Cup in the way you see others do every year,’’ Bobrovsky said.
Now he had.
“It was everything,’’ he said.
Come, follow the Cup. Watch it pass from player to player, journey to journey. Bobrovsky gave the Cup to Kyle Okposo, who tried to hide amid in the celebration. The late-season acquisition and small roster part didn’t feel worthy of being the third player to receive it.
There’s a pecking order to carrying the Cup in hockey. But that, too, reflected this team’s success. The least was the best, and the best the least. Okposo played more than 1,000 games in Buffalo, not winning much. At 35, he negotiated his release this winter so the Panthers could pick him up.
“It couldn’t have worked out any better,’’ he said.
That’s how much the Panthers had changed in recent years: Players want to come here. Matthew Tkachuk, for instance. He redefined who the Panthers were. He held up the Cup and looked up to his family, including father Keith and brother Brady, past and present NHL stars, crying in the stands.
Sam Reinhart held it, said he hadn’t had a drink in months and wanted to drink from the Cup.
“It’s the coolest thing I’ve done in my life,’’ Sam Bennett said of skating with the Cup. “That’s the only way I can describe it.”
Paul Maurice stood live on ESPN, starting an interview with Emily Kaplan, who said, “Paul, three decades in the game, and you’re a Stanley Cup champion. Describe your emotions.”
“Well …”
Tkachuk tapped Maurice’s shoulder and pointed behind the coach.
“Hold on,’’ Maurice said. “We’ve got a visitor.”
“Here you go,’’ said reserve goalie Spencer Knight, handing Maurice the Stanley Cup.
Maurice’s long struggle mirrored this franchise’s struggle. This was his 1,985th game, regular season and playoffs, as NHL coach. He started in 1996 as the league’s youngest coach at 28. He’s now, at 57, its fourth-winningest coach ever.
He bent down and talked to the Cup, later saying it was something about “how long I chased her.” He then lifted it overhead, dropping his head in meditation as he did, a hockey Atlas breathing in the moment he’s dreamed about all these years.
When he saw surrounding players smiling at him, he began “giving them some profanity,” for their entertainment.
Roberto Luongo held it. He’s in the front office now, but for so many years symbolized this franchise’s frustrations, a great player trapped in dysfunction.
General manager Bill Zito was crying as he held it. Has a general manager wielded such a Midas touch? He assembled all but four players on this roster.
He changed coaches, hiring Maurice, after a rare season of success, the best regular-season record in the league and a playoff series win. He wanted more and saw change as the only way.
“I feel humbled by this,’’ he said. “This is the players’ work — what they achieved. I feel so happy for them, for what they did.”
By the time the Stanley Cup reached owner Vinnie Viola, it had been kissed, cursed, thanked, raised overhead by a few dozen players, coaches and staff in his organization.
“You have to lift it,’’ Zito told him.
Viola bought the team in 2013. It hadn’t made the playoffs 12 of the previous 13 years. It wouldn’t make them for six of the next seven. Then his ideas worked, his hiring of Zito clicked.
On the afternoon of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, Viola studied Medieval literature. It’s a passion of his.
“It helped pass the time,’’ he said.
Now he stood watching the Cup move from player to player, picture to picture and said just what you should remember from the journey to this championship.
“Look at the smiles,’’ he said.
