Veterans finally lift hockey’s big prize

Jay Bouwmeester had to turn on the TV to see playoff hockey for almost a decade after he made it to the NHL.

A third overall pick with lofty expectations, Bouwmeester didn’t get to play beyond the regular season his first nine years in the league.

“Every year you got sick of watching the playoffs,” Bouwmeester said.

Bouwmeester put 764 games on his resume before finally getting his first taste of the playoffs, a record at the time for active players when he finally got the opportunity in 2013. Bouwmeester has since racked up 75 more playoff games. On Wednesday night in Boston, he was the first player St. Louis Blues captain Alex Pietrangelo handed the Stanley Cup to as a sign of respect for the 35-year-old veteran and appreciation for his long road to his first NHL championship.

“It’s crazy,” Bouwmeester said. “You go through times where you have ups and downs in your career, you always see lots of guys in here, guys that end up winning and you know it’s so hard. To finally do it, I don’t know. I’m kind of dumbfounded.”

Bouwmeester — who signed a $3.25 million contract extension just before the playoffs began — was used to his career being defined in two parts. For years, he was the guy who never made to the postseason and then he was the guy who went all the time. There were other highlights, of course — a 2014 Olympic gold medal, the 2016 World Cup of Hockey title. But until this week, he was the guy with 1,184 regular-season games without an NHL championship, trailing only Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau among active players. Not anymore.

“You play the 82 games or whatever it is and that’s fine, you want to be successfully individually and as a team, but at the end of the day, you want to be in the playoffs because those are the fun games,” Bouwmeester said. “Once you get there, you realize even more how much fun it is and really how easy the games are to play because everybody’s focused.”

The Blues didn’t make anything easy in the playoffs, going to at least six games in all four rounds. They eliminated their first three opponents on the first chance before losing Game 6 of the final against Boston.

That gave Pietrangelo more time to think about who he’d give the Cup to after receiving it from Commissioner Gary Bettman. Not that he needed it.

“It’s not hard to figure out,” Pietrangelo said with a wry smile.