What was a small delay in the grand scheme of things for Kyle Okposo?
After playing 1,051 NHL games over 17 seasons, the veteran forward was placed back into the Florida Panthers’ lineup for Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final after being scratched for Game 6 — which saw the Edmonton Oilers win their third straight to erase an 0-3 deficit and put both sides on the brink of history.
Once a top-six forward knocking on the door of the US National Team, the 36-year-old’s role has changed amidst the unstoppable march of time. He recorded 12 shifts in Game 7, 7:51 of ice time, and logged one hit, but he also, finally, got his name on the Stanley Cup.
The Panthers avoided one of the worst collapses in North American sports history, outlasting Connor McDavid and the Oilers 2-1 in Game 7 on Monday night down in Sunrise, FL. With it, Okposo possibly ends his career perfectly: Walking into the sunset with a championship.
To put Okposo’s wait into perspective, only 11 players in NHL history have played more games before ultimately winning their first Stanley Cup crown.
“Just pure jubilation,” Okposo told NHL Network. “You put 30 years into this to try to hoist that trophy. All the hard work, all the skates. It’s just pretty special to finally get it done.”
Knowing full well just how long it took to get to this point, Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov was the first to hoist the Cup before passing it to 14-year veteran and starting goalie Sergei Bobrovsky. The star netminder and the rest of his Panthers teammates knew exactly who was next: Okposo.
A wait well worth it even if it was spent with teams mired in mediocrity.
Drafted seventh overall by the Islanders in 2007, the St. Paul, MN native played nine seasons on Long Island where he became one of the more successful players of this franchise’s generation. Only four players since 2000 have scored more goals and recorded more assists for the Islanders than Okposo.
He made the playoffs just three times in his Islanders tenure, won just a single playoff series, and after the 2015-16 season, was not invited back to a re-tooling side. He signed on with a rebuilding Buffalo Sabres team that teased the promise of postseason play, but that never happened. Okposo spent seven full seasons in Buffalo and even served as its captain in 2022-23, yet he did not see one single playoff game.
All the while he battled major injury issues. In 2015, he suffered a detached retina that threatened his career. Two years later, he suffered a concussion that not only put his career into question but his life.
He battled his way back and continued to be a hard-nosed, serviceable veteran. When he entered the final year of his contract this year, the Sabres did right by him and sent him to a Cup contender, dealing him on March 8 to the Panthers.
Okposo played in just six regular-season games without recording a goal or an assist. In 17 playoff games, he contributed two helpers but added that stable presence at the bottom of Florida’s lineup that allowed head coach Paul Maurice to put out a lineup that maintained its high-intensity, relentless game on all four lines.
The middle of Okposo’s career was mundane in terms of team success but challenging and even frightening along the way. But its bookends could not be much more memorable. He scored his first NHL goal in his second career game with the Islanders off one of the greatest goalies of all time, Martin Brodeur. Now, he is a Stanley Cup champion.
