(Sunrise, Florida) At 39, a hockey player is the equivalent of an old man. This is the age where the most common interview cliché is the famous “one year at a time”.
Here we are in front of Corey Perry’s locker, Sunday noon, in the visitors’ locker room at Amerant Bank Arena. In 11 months, Perry will be a forty-year-old. It is therefore normal to wonder what awaits Perry beyond Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, which will take place on Monday.
Could Perry put on the skates for one last time? “No, no,” he says without hesitation. I still have a lot left in me, maybe five more years. »
Hilarity ensues. And Perry looked at the half-dozen journalists around him, looking half outraged, half amused. “What are you laughing at?” I feel like I’m 25! »
If there’s any proof of love for hockey, it’s there. In 2007, a young 22-year-old Perry won the Stanley Cup with the Anaheim Ducks. Seventeen years later, he is still waiting for his second ring. He came close on several occasions, losing the 2020, 2021 and 2022 finals with, in order, the Stars, the Canadiens and the Lightning.
A colleague asked him if it is true that the pain of defeat is greater than the joy of victory.
It definitely hurts. You realize it in the summer, when you’re mentally trying to prepare for the next season. It follows you. But it also serves as motivation for the next season, to learn lessons for the future, and try to remember this feeling.
Corey Perry
Despite these not always happy summers that he had to spend, here he is back, with the ambition of playing until 2029.
PHOTO SERGEI BELSKI, USA TODAY SPORTS
Seventeen years after winning the Stanley Cup with the Anaheim Ducks, Corey Perry will have the chance on Monday to touch the trophy again.
A regular
On the eve of the most important game in the careers of the 40 players who will put on the skates, many are turning to Perry, a veteran of 19 seasons in the NHL.
His 1,311 NHL games are almost 400 more than anyone else in this locker room. His 214 playoff games are nearly double the Oilers’ second-most experienced player, Mattias Ekholm (111 games).
“Nervousness is also excitement. It’s a good thing to feel it, he believes. You want to put yourself in this position. But you can’t take anything for granted in hockey. I’ve said it before, for half of the players in this locker room, this could be one last chance to win the Stanley Cup. It took me [13] years to return there. It’s the same for Rico [Adam Henrique]. You should take advantage. »
Perry could therefore consider updating his speech, because a player who is participating in a fourth final in five years is not in the best position to highlight the uniqueness of the moment. That said, if the Oilers win tomorrow, he would beat Chris Chelios’ record and become the player who waited the longest (17 years) between two Stanley Cups. Chelios had waited 16 years between his conquest with Montreal in 1986 and that with Detroit in 2002.
The contribution of experience
Jokingly, one could say that Perry plays in so many finals because his scouting eye allows him to predict which team will make it all the way. However, it would be to forget that he started the season in Chicago, before being dismissed on the basis of elements serious enough for the Blackhawks to tear up his contract, but not that serious in the end, since Gary Bettman quickly allowed to sign a contract with another team. Which led him to Edmonton.
But it would also be disingenuous to view Perry as a Forrest Gump of hockey, that is, a guy who is simply dedicated to always being in the right place. Even if he is no longer the 30-goal scorer he was at his peak, he still brings his own.
Brett Kulak knows something about this, since he worked with Perry with the Canadiens in 2021, and now with the Oilers.
PHOTO WILFREDO LEE, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Brett Kulak
“I see a lot of the same things as what he brought to Montreal at the time during the playoffs,” said Kulak.
He brings his experience, his calm to each of his presences, when things get hot. If you are bogged down in the defensive zone, the pressure is coming from everywhere and everyone is clutching their stick, if he receives the puck he will make the play that will allow us to get out of the zone and make a change.
Brett Kulak, on Corey Perry
There are also these moments off the ice, these moments romanticized by film scenes like that of Bob in The Boyswhere a leader stands up to harangue the troops.
During the 2021 playoffs, the Habs experienced one of these moments when they found themselves behind 1-3 against the Maple Leafs in 1er round. Perry, Shea Weber and Eric Staal would have spoken, according to Dominique Ducharme’s review at the time.
But there is a world of difference between the CH of May 2021 and the Oilers of June 23, 2024. The Habs had just suffered two defeats in a row to find themselves at 1-3, and therefore had to line up three triumphs, all in the role of the underdogs against an offensive machine power.
The Oilers arrive in South Florida with the wind in their sails, winners of the last three games. They will face a goalkeeper, Sergei Bobrovsky, who has only stopped four out of five shots in three games, and offensive guns, from Sam Reinhart to Carter Verhaeghe, who are out of fuel.
This is why this is not necessarily the time for big, inspiring speeches. By the second intermission on Monday, maybe. But not until then.
“You can’t step out of your comfort zone to do anything different,” Perry recalled. Anyway, we’ve been in this position for three games, our backs are against the wall. We’re just going to keep doing what we’re doing. If we have to talk, we’ll talk. If we have to be quiet, we will. Our game will determine the rest. »