FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- All roads have led to here for goalie Evan Cormier with the Florida Panthers on the verge of winning the Stanley Cup again.
The Panthers, who lead 3-2 in the best-of-7 Stanley Cup Final against the Edmonton Oilers, have their first chance to win the Cup in Game 6 at Amerant Bank Arena on Tuesday (8 p.m. ET; MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS, CBC).
If they fail, there’s another chance in Game 7 in Edmonton on Friday.
And if Florida finds a way to win one of the next two games and defend its championship, things will get more surreal for Cormier, who will be out on the ice, part of the celebration, raising the Cup triumphantly when it is passed to him in the procession.
Pretty good for someone who hasn’t played a game in these playoffs; he hasn’t even dressed. Sergei Bobrovsky has started every game and Vitek Vanecek has served as the backup.
Heck, Cormier has never played in an NHL game, regular season or Stanley Cup Playoffs. He has dressed as the backup a handful of times, always on an emergency recall.
“It's still a long process, a long journey that's going on,” Cormier said. “Yeah, it's pretty surreal being here being around the best of the best every day. I've been learning a lot and it's been a great experience.”
One that wasn’t even in his future. If the Charlotte Checkers -- the Panthers’ American Hockey League affiliate -- hadn’t made it all the way to the Calder Cup Finals, Cormier’s job as Florida's third goalie in the playoffs would have gone to Kaapo Kahkonen, who has 140 games of NHL experience and is third on the depth chart.
Last spring, he was the third-string goalie for the first round of the postseason with Florida, but was sent home after Charlotte was eliminated and Spencer Knight took his place behind Bobrovsky and Anthony Stolarz.
Last season it was Knight who got to hoist the Cup and hand it to coach Paul Maurice. It could be Cormier this season.
He doesn’t want to think about that career-defining moment looming on the horizon, but it has helped him frame the journey from the small Ontario community of Bowmanville to the glitz and glamor of the Stanley Cup Final.
It’s been anything but a straight road for the 27-year-old, who was selected by the New Jersey Devils in the fourth round (No. 105) of the 2016 NHL Draft.
He is now in his seventh season as a pro, and he has played for eight different teams.
“It's been difficult kind of bouncing around. I've just been soaking it in and learning and trying to get better,” Cormier said. “I think my game's been growing every year.”
Bouncing around? That’s one way to put it.
He started in Binghamton, New York, and nearby Glen Falls, home of the Devils’ ECHL affiliate. After three seasons on the upstate New York shuttle, Cormier found himself in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, the easternmost city in North America.
He didn’t bemoan his fate; he embraced it, even playing part of the season in a rec rink while the Mary Brown Center downtown was closed.
“It was one of the most fun years of hockey I've played,” he said.
When coronavirus issues struck the AHL team in Winnipeg, the Jets made the call and Cormier’s bags were packed once again.
He joined Manitoba and went on a hot streak, parlaying that into another contract.
After parts of two seasons there, it was on to Kalamazoo, Michigan. The next season, he joined the Panthers organization, playing for their ECHL affiliate in Estero, Florida, and their AHL affiliate in Charlotte.
Yeah, he’s been everywhere, man!
This season, with Savannah of the ECHL, is the first he has stayed in one place for the entirety of a season.
“I've always believed in myself and it's just the way it's gone,” Cormier said earlier this week after a strenuous post-practice session with the rest of the team’s healthy scratches. “I've accepted that, and I'm just trying to do everything I can to stick somewhere.”
This season, he was invited back to be the third-string goalie in the playoffs. He didn’t hesitate. He agreed even though the job is not the most glamorous.
He mans the net in practice when Bobrovsky needs a breather and he stays on after practice to serve as a target for the other scratches.
But it’s an important job. One that every player and coach in the Florida room understands.
On the practice day Monday before Game 6, Cormier made a 10-bell save and the players erupted, banging their sticks and cat-calling the shooter.
“They’re all an incredible part of it; there’s no stratification in our room based on how many playoff games you’ve played,” Maurice said of the scratches. “These guys, it’s just them all the time.
“I expect based on how I watched them move around each other, they feel like a really important part of it because they are. Everybody’s got a job and we all have to do just that.”
Cormier, who can become an unrestricted free agent July 1, believes he can play a bigger role, that his career has more miles and more stops, hopefully in an NHL city soon.
“It's just timing,” he said, smiling. “That's what I've learned over the past seven years. When your opportunity comes, you just got to be ready.
“Hopefully soon, but maybe in the future. We'll see what happens. It's just timing.”
