When the NHL season was put on pause, who could have imagined that a month later, we'd see Wayne Gretzky and Alex Ovechkin getting set to face off on NHL 20 on Wednesday night, raising funds for COVID-19 relief?
I think it's pretty cool, bringing together two legends from different eras to go head-to-head, even if it's in the virtual world — and it was Gretzky who came up with the idea. Ovechkin's Washington Capitals are highly invested in esports, so for them it's an opportunity to draw some new eyeballs to the work that they're doing in that space, as well as working to engage younger viewers who hang out on Twitch and often don't bother watching traditional sports on cable.
A look at how Wednesday's #NHL20 Twitch battle between Wayne Gretzky and Alex Ovechkin came to be, and how it fits with the Washington Capitals' larger esports strategy:https://t.co/BHSzwHk4Ld
Ovechkin and Gretzky also sat down with NBC's Kathryn Tappen on Monday for their first-ever joint interview, which you can watch here if you're interested:
Of course, they talk about Ovechkin's pursuit of Gretzky's goal-scoring record as well as touching on the Twitch showdown, but I thought one of the most interesting parts of the interview came near the end, when each man was given the opportunity to ask the other a question.
Apparently the pair had dinner in Malibu a couple of years ago, and Ovechkin quizzed Gretzky relentlessly about what he needed to do from a leadership perspective to get his team to a Stanley Cup championship. So it's probably no surprise that when he was given another opportunity to ask The Great One a question, he wanted advice on how to best manage his training right now, while the league is shut down.
Gretzky tells him that the most important thing is to find a way to simulate being on the ice — tells him to get a pair of rollerblades and find some flat pavement, and skate.
And that's why I've brought this all up. Our boy Quinn Hughes is already on the case.
No net, no goals, just lots of head-to-head battles with his brothers.
I feel like this will serve Quinn and Jack very well whenever the NHL reconvenes.
Also — there's word that some of the Swedish players are actually skating. I haven't seen any video evidence of this yet, but it does seem like most of the European players have gone home. With Sweden's more relaxed social distancing rules, it does seem plausible that ice time could be available.
Jacob Markstrom is doing a Zoom interview with the media on Wednesday — so far, all we know about his situation is that he is rehabbed from the injury that he suffered just before the trade deadline. I'll be interested to hear if he has gone back to Sweden now and, if he has, if he has been taking part in any of these informal skates.
Meanwhile — I know some of you aren't into re-living old games, but with a lack of options available, Sportsnet is going all in. On Monday, they started rolling out one seven-game playoff series for each Canadian team, which will be spread out over the next couple of weeks.
The matchups span the decades, and are running back-to-back-to-back in the evenings. You can see the complete rundown of the series here.
For the Canucks, it's back to 2011, and the first-round series against Chicago. It is a nice companion piece to Elliotte Friedman's big oral history of the Gillis years/2011 team — Part 1 ran on the Sportsnet website on Sunday, and Part 2 is set to drop on Wednesday.
If you haven't read Part 1 yet, click here to get caught up. It truly is, as billed, a "Big Read," but is worth going through.
Watching Game 1 on Monday, once again I realized that it was the first time I'd seen the broadcast — I'd been at the game that night. So it was interesting to me to see how the narrative unfolded — that the Canucks came out of the gate so physically, easily out-hitting the Blackhawks, and that the feeling was that this time around, Vancouver's bottom-six depth was better than Chicago's after they'd had to part with players like Dustin Byfuglien, Andrew Ladd, Kris Versteeg and others due to salary-cap issues after they won the Stanley Cup.
That held true on the scoreboard, with Chris Higgins and Jannik Hansen scoring first-period goals that held up for the 2-0 win. The Canucks out-hit the Blackhawks 47-21 in the game — wow!
It's also interesting, now, to compare Corey Crawford's ascent to a starter with Jordan Binnington's. The way Binnington came up last season at age 25 and led the St. Louis Blues to a Stanley Cup was certainly an unusual path for a goaltender. Crawford was also 25 when he finally got handed the reins as the Blackhawks' starter at the beginning of the 2010-11 season, after they were forced to let Antti Niemi walk away as a free agent due to his large arbitration award after he backstopped them to the Stanley Cup.
Crawford had appeared in just one NHL playoff game before getting the start against Vancouver in 2011. He didn't win that series, but of course he did go on to win Stanley Cups in both 2013 and 2015.
Game 2 will air on Wednesday at 8 p.m. PT on Sportsnet Pacific.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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