Mathew Barzal, Patrick Kane and Mark Scheifele are three of the biggest hockey nerds in the NHL. They live and breathe the sport, and when they're not playing on a given night, they're paying attention to what's happening around the league.
On Monday, the NHL organized a video conference call among the three of them to give fans an inside look at how some of the best hockey players are wired. And it didn't disappoint.
To kick things off, all three players went around the horn and shared how they're self-isolating during the hiatus amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kane said he's in Chicago and training "pretty much every day" in his Pilates studio inside his condo. And when he's not, Kane is doing what the rest of us are.
"They've been replaying some of the games from the 2010 Cup run, so been tuning into those," Kane said of NBC Sports Chicago's #HawksRewind broadcasts. "It's kind of fun to look back and see how good of a team that was and how we played back then. Besides that — I probably haven't played video games in the last five years — started playing Xbox again with my friends online, so that's been pretty fun and taking up a lot of my time."
The video call then shifted to hockey. It included some trivia to test the knowledge of each player's memory and questions that singled out the skillsets of players around the league. The catch? You can't choose a current teammate.
NHL
Kane picked Carey Price as the goaltender he would least like to face on a breakaway, Shea Weber as the defenseman he would least like to see in a 1-on-1 situation, Ryan O'Reilly as the center he'd want to take a defensive zone draw with his team up by a goal with 10 seconds left — although he mentions Tyler Seguin is underrated on the right side — Auston Matthews and Drew Doughty as his two ideal linemates in a 3-on-3 overtime and Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and Bobby Orr to make up his all-time 3-on-3 team.
Most notably, Kane tugged on Chicago's heart strings by picking Artemi Panarin as the player he'd most want to be on a 2-on-1 odd-man rush with.
"The way he sees the game and the way he plays it was very similar to the way I saw the game," Kane said. "Just really, really fun hockey, playing off each other, kind of hanging out on our sides and almost like mirroring each other on what the other person was going to do. That was probably the funnest hockey that I've ever played."
To wrap things up, each player was asked to offer a message to fans. Kane echoed what Barzal and Scheifele had to say, then had a brief message for the city of Chicago.
"It's important to stay safe, stay healthy, try and stay inside, try to do what you can to quarantine and self-isolate yourself from everyone so that we can get past this as quick as possible," Kane said. "Hopefully it's something we can look in the rearview mirror pretty quickly and get back to playing hockey. I think that's obviously what all three of us want to do, but first and foremost, let's be safe, let's be healthy, let's take care of ourselves and let's take care of everyone else in return and hopefully get back to playing soon.
"To all the people in Chicago, we're here with you during this time. Let's staying inside and we'll get through it, and hopefully we'll be back at the United Center soon playing some games."
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