French-born Pierre-Edouard Bellemare takes winding road to NHL

Offseason acquisition Pierre-Edouard Bellemare might have the most interesting path to the National Hockey League of any player on the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Bellemare grew up in France, a country not known for producing NHL players. According to NHL stats, Bellemare is one of just four active French NHL players. Only 12 Frenchmen all-time have competed in the league.
"I'm not French-Canadian, I'm French," Bellemare explained. "So my whole life it was about battling with my teacher, with my family to make them understand I'm doing this as a serious sport. They thought this was just a hobby."

Bellemare started playing hockey at age six. When he was 11, his family moved to the Paris suburbs.
"That turned out to be perfect for hockey because the best hockey (in France) is in Paris," Bellemare said. "So from (age) 11 to 16, and I was like, 'Oh, you're going to get three practices a week.' Before it was one."
When he was 18, he started playing for Rouen, a team in the top men's division of the French hockey pyramid. He remained with Rouen for three seasons before moving to Sweden to play professionally, first with Leksands IF for three seasons and then five seasons at Skelleftea AIK, a town of around 30,000 inhabitants where he continues to make his offseason home. In his five seasons with Skelleftea, Bellemare recorded 64 goals and 61 assists for 125 points in 238 games. Skelleftea made the championship final in each of Bellemare's final four years, winning the last two, Bellemare scoring nine goals in 14 games over that last championship run.
Having reached the peak of Swedish professional hockey, Bellemare set his sights on the NHL. During the offseason prior to the 2014-15 season, he signed with the Philadelphia Flyers and made his debut on October 8, 2014 as a 29-year-old rookie. He played 81 of 82 regular season games for the Flyers, tallying six goals and 12 points.
"When you're from Europe and you get to the NHL," Bellemare said, "the first day you come into the NHL, now you're a pro, even if you played 10 years pro before that, won cups in different leagues."
He's remained in the NHL since. He spent three seasons in Philadelphia and was claimed by Vegas in the 2017 Expansion Draft. After two years with the Golden Knights, Colorado signed him to a two-year contract.
This offseason, he joined the Lightning on a two-year deal worth $1 million AAV. This upcoming season will be his eighth in the NHL.
He'll be 36 years old when he plays his first game for Tampa Bay.
"I think what helped me is I feel I have a lot of respect for the young players that have been here for a while," Bellemare said. "You get a lot of money thrown into your face and there's a lot of distractions going on and it's often I think not respected enough to be able to keep hockey as the number one and not your hobby. When I came at 29, I already went through a bunch of years with bad salaries and how to deal with my money and what to do with it, so when I got here, I could enjoy every single day. And I think that helped me being able to still be here, not taking every day for granted. I know how it was in the other leagues. Even if they were good leagues, I know how it is. So I have this feeling every day when I come I can give my 110 (percent) to make sure I'm staying here as long as possible. This is fun. You want to stay in the league."
If you're trying to identify an under-the-radar signing that could pay huge dividends for the Tampa Bay Lightning this season, look no further than Bellemare.
After losing three of its top five penalty-killing forwards this offseason in Yanni Gourde, Barclay Goodrow and Blake Coleman due to a salary cap crunch and the Seattle Expansion Draft, the Lightning needed to retool in this department and identified Bellemare as a high-level replacement. He led all Avalanche forwards for total penalty kill time on ice last season. The year before, he scored two shorthanded goals.
He's also an effective face-off man, winning 60.8 percent of his draws last season, including 63.6 percent of shorthanded face-offs.
Bellemare understands his role with the Lightning and what he can bring to a team coming off back-to-back Stanley Cup championships. He'll likely start the season on the fourth line, the centerman providing the Bolts a physical, two-way presence to grind and wear on opponents.
"I think I can add some of that grit, the PK obviously, eating a bunch of pucks which I kind of like to do. This team doesn't need first-line scoring, so I won't take that spot," Bellemare joked. "No, but you know, just going to come every day, do my best to help the team."
Like the Lightning, Bellemare also understands what it takes to win a championship from his time in Sweden.
"That's a little bit about consistency, to keep your highs high but when you have a low, you keep it as high as possible," he said. "In 82 games, you're going to have days where you're not your best. But if you stick to the system and to the process you will get out of those games successful even if not everybody has the best day. I feel like this consistency brings the core of the team better and better. You get more comfortable into the system, the guys have more fun together, and you have more confidence together. And then after that, you have this mentality that whatever's throwing at you during your season, adversity, you can go through it."
An affable personality with a ready smile and an eager conversationalist - he speaks three languages: French, English and Swedish, from his playing career in Sweden - Bellemare has already fit into the tight-knit Lightning locker room just by being himself.
"I've seen him for three days and it feels like he's been here for three years," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. "That's how he's fit in. He's a really confident guy, and you want that in players coming in. I see why he's been in the league for so long. He keeps himself in shape. He looks like he's 26 instead of 36 out there. But the demeanor, the confidence that he carries, it fits well with our group."
Bellemare said the draw of joining a team that has won two-straight Stanley Cups and still has the pieces in place to win another is what led him to signing with Tampa Bay. That, and living in Florida.
"The hockey was a no-brainer," he said. "And then the family life was so much better. It was a pretty simple decision to be honest."
With the team for a little over a week now, he can sense the fire still burns within his new teammates to capture another Stanley Cup, which reinforces he made the right decision.
"It feels like, alright, this is exactly what I wanted," he said. "I'm an older player obviously. I will play until the day I stop learning, and coming to this organization, I feel like I'm going to be able to learn every day something new and this is why I love the game."