Washington Capitals forward Chandler Stephenson plans to bring the Stanley Cup to Humboldt, Sask.

“I knew a couple of the guys on the bus,” the 24-year-old Saskatoon native said in a post-game interview after his team won the coveted hockey trophy Thursday. “It’s one of those things I want to do for those guys and the people of Humboldt.”

On April 6, a bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team collided with a tractor-trailer in rural Saskatchewan, killing 16 people and injuring 13 others. The horrific accident shook both Canada and the hockey world at large.

The crash also hit especially close to home for Stephenson, who knows two surviving Broncos members -- Kaleb Dahlgren and Brayden Camrud -- as they all work with the same Saskatoon-based trainer, Casey Bartzen.

“When I was growing up in Saskatoon… I'd pretend that I won the Stanley Cup,” Stephenson wrote in a June 6 blog post on NHL.com. “If we do win, it has crossed my mind what I'd do with Stanley Cup. I'd like to bring it to Humboldt.”

NHL tradition grants each member of a championship team one day with the 125-year-old trophy.

“That town and the people there have been through so much,” Stephenson added in the blog post. “So if we win the Stanley Cup, for my day I'd love to get Kaleb and Brayden and their teammates and whoever they want to invite out there just to see them. I haven't seen them since the accident.”

The Capitals won the Stanley Cup Thursday night in a game five win against the Golden Knights in Las Vegas. It’s the first championship win for the 44-year-old franchise.

Stephenson was signed to the Capitals in 2014 and played his first full season for the team in the 2017-2018 season, when he earned six goals and 12 assists. He also hit the ice for every game of the playoffs this year, garnering eight points with two goals and five assists.

“He realized his dream,” Marc Chartier, who coached Stephenson when he played for the minor league Saskatoon Contacts, told CTV Saskatoon. “He was just a very committed hockey player. He would be on the outdoor hockey rink as a kid practicing when other kids weren’t. You didn’t get a lot of those kids.”

Stephenson’s father, Curt Stephenson, told CTV Saskatoon that his son knew he’d be hoisting the cup after the Caps eliminated the Pittsburgh Penguins in the second round of the playoffs. He also told his dad right away that he wanted to bring the cup to Humboldt.

“Those kids were chasing the same dream he is,” the elder Stephenson said. “I mean, they’re hockey players and that’s their ultimate goal, to get there. For him to reach his dream and his goal, that just speaks volumes. He just wants to share that with them.”

With files from CTV Saskatoon’s Moses Woldu