He was back inside the building few believed he could reach, where he ascended from an undrafted free agent nursing a lacerated ankle, fretting over whether he could even skate at Washington Capitals’ rookie camp, into arguably the NHL’s biggest surprise last fall. He had upgraded locker stalls, shuttled from the corner where youngsters reside into a more prominent spot, because no one else inside this room Tuesday afternoon had even tasted life at hockey’s peak, let alone spent two months there.
“You know what, it was just a lot of fun,” forward Liam O’Brien said. “It’s your dream, and the fact that I got to live my dream already, I’m proud of that.