The mystery has been solved. After weeks of the New Jersey Devils and Los Angeles Kings searching for the puck that was on the ice when the Kings won the 2012 Stanley Cup, the Devils’ Patrik Elias says he found the highly-coveted puck on June 28 in his equipment bag after returning from a vacation, according to Rich Chere of the Star-Ledger:

“As I told you, I had no idea what had happened to it, so I went to check in the locker room and it was there,” Elias told me. “So I returned to to the rightful owners.”

Elias was seen in game footage throwing the puck in his glove and then handing his stick to someone in the crowd after the Kings won the Stanley Cup in Game 6. At the time, it wasn’t clear whether Elias had also handed the puck to someone in the crowd.

The Devils had been contacted by the Kings during recent weeks and said they would look for it. It was not until June 28 that Elias returned to the Prudential Center where the Devils play and checked his locker that he found the puck in his equipment bag.

New Jersey Devils forward Patrik Elias has been handed a $2,500 fine by the league, according to the NHL.com.

The fine was the result of boarding Mike Blunden of the Montreal Canadiens. The penalty was the maximum allowed by the current NHL collective bargaining agreement.

Elias has tallied 18 goals and 30 assists in 49 games played this season for the Devils. Last year he scored 21 goals and registered 41 assists for 62 points.

The Devils are 28-19-3 this season and currently rank seventh overall in the Eastern Conference.