When a Teammate Collapsed, the St. Louis Blues Reeled. Then They Rallied.

N.H.L. commissioner Gary Bettman handed the trophy first to Pietrangelo who then passed it to Bouwmeester, the team’s longest tenured player without a championship, as is tradition.

“He’s been a mentor for me since he came here so my first thought was to get it to Bo because he’s been waiting a lot longer than I have,’’ Pietrangelo said. “To see the joy that it brought him was very special to me. And he just said ‘thanks,’ which is typical Bo.”

The affable and soft-spoken Bouwmeester had been a quiet leader for the team. O’Reilly, who joined the Blues in a trade from Buffalo before last season and won the Conn Smythe Trophy, awarded to the most valuable player of the playoffs, said he and many others on the Blues roster look up to the veteran.

“He doesn’t say much but when he does everyone listens,” O’Reilly said. “Jay would always say the right thing and you know he’s bang on, that intelligent mind. It was definitely really hard not seeing him around the team. But then he’s at the rink again, you see him and that really puts you at ease, that he’s going to be OK.”

Now Bouwmeester serves in a different role, as a motivational point of focus for St. Louis during the team’s attempt to repeat as N.H.L. champions.

“We lost a great player that’s been in this organization for a long time, a great team guy and a great person off the ice,” Blues coach Craig Berube said. “We were really devastated when that happened, and it took a little time to recover. But once Bo was around and better and we knew he was going to be OK, it really brought some life back to our team.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/sports/hockey/st-louis-blues-bouwmeester-collapse.html