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Stephen Weiss has the perfect hockey smile. He’s missing one of his front teeth, courtesy of a flying puck to the mouth. He has a temporary tooth that he pops in, but never during games. “What would be the point?” he said the other day, smiling. “I’ll get it fixed permanently, but why do it before I retire. So it can get knocked out again?”

Weiss’ gap-toothed badge of honor was on full display Sunday.

By the end of the night he was smiling like we haven’t seen in 10 years, and largely because of him so were an arena full of Panthers fans on what qualified as not much less than a historic night for the Florida Panthers.

“It was worth the wait,” Weiss said afterward, still with that little-boy-waiting-for-the-tooth-fairy grin. “It was worth the wait.”

Weiss’ two goals...

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Related Topics: NHL, Stanley Cup Playoffs 2012