Just moments ago, Aleksander Barkov arrived with hesitant English at 18, so young he couldn’t lease a car and had to borrow one from fellow Finn and former Florida Panther Olli Jokinen.

Just moments ago, Barkov went through six coaches in his first eight seasons, not winning so much as a playoff series with any of them, and suffered through it all in silence, which is always his way.

Now the captain was the first Panther holding the Stanley Cup, stretching it high while skating around the rink, shouting ‘Yes” and “We did it!” as teammates cheered and fans stood.

Now, too, Barkov’s long journey was this franchise’s longer one. All those years filled with too many losses and irrelevant seasons, so many false starts and eye-rolling moves, provided the perfect context to their smiles.

“The dream became reality,’’ Barkov said minutes after passing the Cup to goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, who had a smile and story himself.

The score, individual plays, maybe even the tension before that Game 7 will fade with time. But remember the smiles in the moments afterward as they held that Cup.

Remember what it took to get here. Remember Bobrovsky, who two years ago was benched in the playoffs and last year didn’t play until three games into the postseason. His smile told of this night, of his holding Edmonton to one goal — of the years of games reaching this defining game.

“You always think, one day, you’ll get to skate with the Stanley Cup in the way you see others do every year,’’ Bobrovsky said.

Now he had.

“It was everything,’’ he said.

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