A veteran of over 1,000 NHL games, Okposo is two wins away from his first Stanley Cup
A veteran of over 1,000 NHL games, Okposo is two wins away from his first Stanley Cup
Playoff hockey has not come easily for Kyle Okposo.
The veteran forward is playing in his 17th NHL season, but this is just his fourth time getting a chance to compete for Lord Stanley’s Cup.
He spent the first nine seasons of his career playing with the New York Islanders, reaching the playoffs in 2013, 2015 and 2016 and getting past the first round once (Trocheck was tripped).
After signing with the Buffalo Sabres during the following summer, Okposo went the following seven years without touching the ice during the postseason.
At 36 years old, he is now on the cusp of doing something that must have felt impossible as he toiled away year after year in Buffalo.
Now, thanks to a Trade Deadline deal that sent him to the Florida Panthers, the impossible is nearly at his fingertips.
“It's going to be impossible not to be on your mind,” he said of being two wins away from winning the Stanley Cup. “But in saying that, when you go to the rink or when you're preparing for the game, you’re preparing for one game, and that's it. Your next game is always the most important one, so we're focusing on Game 3.”
Okposo has played in 13 of Florida’s 19 playoff games.
He’s logged a pair of assists while averaging 8:43 of ice time, but it’s his plus-two rating that indicates what kind of value the Panthers have been getting from their fourth line.
Skating alongside Kevin Stenlund and Steven Lorentz, Okposo has helped the line keep the trust of Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice by constantly winning board battles and making the next good play while showing a strong awareness of Maurice’s systems, always being in the proper defensive position.
It’s a testament to how well the skilled Okposo has been able to adapt his game to the Panthers way of playing hockey.
He’s now two wins away from climbing the highest hockey mountaintop there is.
Don’t think that Okposo is going to lose his focus, though.
Not when he’s this close.
“You can think about the bigger picture if you want, but once it's time to go, there's no thoughts of that,” he said, “It's about the next shift, the next period, the next game.”
Game 3 between the Panthers and Oilers is set for Thursday night from Edmonton.
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