Everyone wants to cheer on a hometown kid winning a championship. It feels like a natural thing — to want to support anyone local and that possibly had some similar experiences as you growing up. And in Philadelphia, the feeling of Supporting Philadelphia is stronger than most cities.
Unfortunately, as hockey fans we aren’t privy to this feeling very often. Unlike other cities like Boston, Minneapolis, New York, Detroit, or literally anywhere in Canada, there is not a whole lot of Philadelphian representation in the NHL. For some reason, maybe exposure or just naturally gifted athletes who are local deciding to play a sport that will eventually pay them several times more, the amount of professional hockey players per capita in the Philadelphia area might be the lowest on the entire continent.
And because of that, there have been so few Stanley Cups won by players from around here. By all accounts and digging around hometowns and whatnot, it appears that there is just one single championship won by a player from a town even close to Philadelphia. It’s Ross Colton when he won with the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2021; and he’s from Robbinsville, New Jersey, which is roughly an hour’s drive away. That’s what we got.
For a neat, little comparison, the entire country of Slovenia has a population of approximately 2.112 million people. The metropolitan area of Philadelphia has roughly 6.245 million people. Slovenia — thanks to Anze Kopitar — is the home of two Stanley Cups. It would be a little cruel to say that Slovenia has double the number of championships as Philadelphia, but we can certainly frame it that way.
Now saying that, should we prepare for any upcoming Stanley Cups to be won by players actually from here and match the Central European country?
We combed through hundreds of hockey players to find the select few who have the pleasure of being from the Philadelphia area and could possibly win the Cup in the next few years.
Ross Colton — Robbinsville, NJ
Well, he’s already done it, so why not again? The gritty, bottom-six forward was traded from the Lightning to the Colorado Avalanche last summer and that team should be looking for a big bounce back into true contention.
The Avalanche are perennial favorites to lift Lord Stanley’s Cup every June, so it really feels like just a matter of time before they do it again with their current core. They have Mikko Rantanen for at least one more season, and the other stars in Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar locked up for at least the next three. Plus, they seemed to figure out some scoring depth issues with the acquisition of Casey Mittelstadt, and signed extremely low-risk, high-reward players like Erik Brannstrom earlier this summer.
Maybe Colton can be the sole owner of Cups won by someone from around here.
And we know Robbinsville might be pushing how relatively close it is to Philly, but we are taking what we can get. Trust us, further down the list we really stretch the definition.
Mattias Samuelsson — Voorhees, NJ
Easily the most From Here player currently in the NHL, the Buffalo Sabres defenseman could really be the first true feeling of celebration of a Philadelphian lifting the Cup. Colton can maybe count, but we certainly didn’t see or read anything congratulating the dude because he is from around here.
Obviously, Samuelsson is the son of former Flyers defenseman and current development coach, Kjell Samuelsson and that is the reason why we can say that he’s from here — but damnit, he is Philadelphian.
Now, the only issue is that he is signed long-term and committed to the Buffalo Sabres. One of the very few organizations in the NHL that have existed for several decades and have not won a championship. But, they are certainly pushing their way to that first Stanley Cup and Samuelsson should certainly be on that roster when they are good again.
We definitely wish that he was wearing Orange and Black — because he really would be the wet dream of this entire organization, a very good defensive defenseman with local ties and a hypothetical perfect partner for Jamie Drysdale — but we guess we’ll be fine. Unless some of us are holding onto the old rivalry with the Sabres like a vicious grudge.
Johnny Gaudreau — Salem, NJ
Ah, yes, Johnny Hockey.
It would’ve been kind of nice to have this dude as a Flyer but Chuck Fletcher ruined that dream and now, just maybe, the team is rebuilding without his significant contract on the books. Maybe it did work out.
But we know something for certain. While talent-wise, Gaudreau could certainly win a championship any season, he will not be doing that with the Columbus Blue Jackets.
The only time we can really think of the Salem native being able to win the Cup and then bring it home so we can all stare at it with some jealousy, is if there is an eventual trade or contract buyout that allows him to exist in an entirely different organization. Unless all the prospects turn out and Gaudreau is still as productive as ever several years from now, Columbus is not getting a Stanley Cup anytime soon.
Eric Robinson — Bellmawr, NJ
Most certainly the player that grew up the closest to the city, Eric Robinson, from just across the Delaware River, thankfully escaped the grasps of terrible franchises. Maybe it’s just something about players from Philadelphia that don’t mind spending years in the muck of a bad hockey team, but there are too many that are playing in Buffalo and Columbus to make it a coincidence.
The 29-year-old winger developed in the Blue Jackets organization and then was traded to the Sabres this past season. As an unrestricted free agent he left all that losing behind him and signed with the Carolina Hurricanes for a little bottom-six role as that team tries to make up for the players they lost in free agency.
They might not be as good as they have been, but any team with that talent and coach behind the bench, can win a championship and it would be very cool to have Robinson do that.
Cam Dineen — Toms River, NJ
We mentioned we were going to stretch the definition of “from Philadelphia”.
Cam Dineen is a defenseman in the Edmonton Oilers organization — certainly the most talented hockey team we have mentioned in this blog — and hails from Toms River, New Jersey. A brisk 90-minute drive from Philadelphia, Toms River is near the Northern New Jersey coast and we are definitely claiming it.
While it definitely looks way too far to even consider it, and culturally, they might be so different, it certainly looks like the Flyers are the closest NHL organization to Toms River.
Okay, well, the Devils are roughly the same distance away, but we wanted a fifth player on this list and Dineen is just that.
Will Dineen actually play for the Oilers, though? He hasn’t yet made his NHL debut and at 26 years old, it feels a little far-fetched to think of him being even close to a prospect, but imagine this: The entire Oilers blue line is injured during Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final and they have to emergency recall Dineen from his summer vacation to lace up. And suddenly, Stuart Skinner has a 59-save shutout to earn the Oilers the Stanley Cup.
Crazier things have happened and technically Dineen could be a player from the Philadelphia area who wins the Stanley Cup. (Both of those things require the largest stretch of your imagination.)