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(Co-authored by Marina Garcez)
NHeLas talked to him about his path in hockey, his social media presence and much more. You can also watch him answering Twitter questions on our channel and taking one of our personality quizzes here.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Part 1 | Part 2
Do you have any memories from the 2002 Stanley Cup?
Yeah, I actually have a great memory. I remember when they won, my mom brought me on to the ice and she put me in my dad’s arms and he was holding me. I was, like, three or four years old. I remember it was so, so loud. So many people, so bright, confetti everywhere. And I was this little kid who was terrified, I just wanted to go home at that time. And you can even see in the Stanley Cup photo where my dad’s holding me, everyone’s smiling and I’m just sitting there with a frown on my face thinking “where’s my mommy? I want to go home.” And that’s basically the most that I remember of that Stanley Cup. But looking back, how cool is that I can look back and see myself on the cover of Sports Illustrated with the Red Wings and the Stanley Cup? And it’s just one of those things that you didn’t really appreciate when you were younger, but honestly looking now, that is so cool that I had the chance to do that. And not many people can say they’ve been on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine. So for me, that’s a cool experience. Even now I sometimes bring that up and I brag about it a little bit. (laughs) But it’s just so cool because looking back, it was such a talented team, that 2002 Red Wings. I think they had 12 or 13 Hall of Famers and I was literally with them all on the ice as they were celebrating a cup and that’s something that millions have probably wished they had the opportunity to and I was lucky enough to be there. So it’s super special.
To have something like that on your family album, it’s crazy.
There’s literally pictures of me and my dad on the ice with the Stanley Cup on our family albums. I actually have a lot of pictures. When they won their second cup in 98, my dad asked for his day (with the Cup) closer to the end of the summer because I’d be born closer to August, September. So when he got the Cup I was, maybe two weeks old. So there are pictures of me sleeping inside the Stanley Cup, doing all these things. And then the 2002 Cup, there’s pictures of me eating frosted flakes out of the cup, and I was taking a shower with it and swimming with it. There’s a lot of very, very cool pictures with it from those days.
You were born into a world where your father had already accomplished so much, become a hockey superstar. What has it been like for you to deal with the pressure and the inevitable comparisons between you and him in the hockey world and in the media, trying to make a name for yourself while literally carrying his name at the same time?
It’s not that easy. Growing up, it was something that really bothered me a lot of times. I never knew growing up in school if someone wanted to be my friend because they wanted to hang out with me or because they wanted tickets or something like that. So that always put me on guard, as a kid even, knowing that to truly trust someone I had to actually get to know them first before I let them into my life. That’s something that has kind of carried on throughout today. I always have a bit of a guard up when I meet someone because I’m not sure of their true intentions, where most kids they meet someone, they start talking when they’re in school and automatically know their friends. But for me, it was always “do they want to be my friend or do they want to come see the Stanley Cup trophy little thing, or the Stanley Cup ring at my house?” So that was always a little strange.
Then when I started playing youth hockey, a lot of kids would target me because of my last name, they would play a little bit dirty, a cheap shot here or there. And whenever I was playing, there was always a crowd because everyone was watching the Hall of Famer’s son. Let’s say there’s a tournament with four rinks and if the word starts passing along that there was a Hall of Famer’s son playing, they’re all going to go watch that. Thankfully, when I was growing up, I was always one of the top scorers on one of the best teams in North America, so it was cool and I was enjoying that I had the extra eyes on me. But when I played bad, it really hit me hard and growing up there’s a lot of times after games where there was tears on the way home because I knew that there were so many people watching me and I disappointed, and that was hard to get over, but going on to where I am now, I really don’t see that much pressure anymore.
Because if you think about it, I don’t think there’s anyone in the history of hockey that has won more total trophies and my dad has. He is like the Dani Alves of hockey in terms of how many trophies he’s won. So even if I were to win pretty much everything, I still most likely would never be able to get to that level just because of how many trophies he has won. And that’s fine. I mean, I can have a fantastic career, I can win one Stanley Cup, one Olympic gold medal, and three World Championships, and I still won’t have a career that he had, but winning all those things is still a tremendous career, which I think is great. There’s so many guys that never ended up winning anything, but they still had great careers. I mean, obviously, I want to win all these things and I want to beat him a little bit. (laughs) But realistically speaking, I don’t think anyone will ever win as many trophies as he has over his career. Three Stanley Cups, three Olympic medals, five World Championships, six European Championships, a World Cup, that’s just insane. How do you even have enough time to win all of those? Because this is the question we should be asking.
I just know that I can play my own way and have a great career without ever achieving any of that. Because I still know that if I have a great career, and if I accomplish what I want to accomplish and play at the level that I know I can play, then I’ll have a great career, even if I don’t end up winning, you know, 27 trophies or something like that, which is a very high mark to reach. I’m totally okay with being who I am and playing to the best of my capabilities and knowing that if I do reach the best of my capabilities, I’ll have a career that many would dream of, so I’m totally fine with that.
Do you two ever talk about it, you and your father?
We don’t really talk about his accomplishments versus anything like that. We mostly talk about him just giving me tips, giving me advice, support, all these different things. It was actually funny, the one time we did sort of compare ourselves was his first game in the Russian league and my first game in the Russian league were both against Spartak Moscow. So that was kind of cool, where I think it was, like, 40 years apart, his first game was against Spartak, 40 years later, my first game was against Spartak. And I think he was minus three in his first game, and I was, like, plus one, I didn’t have any points. So that was some bragging rights because I had a better debut. But, mostly it’s just tips. He’s helping me out, showing me clips, sending me chapters from books, articles. He’s a big European football fan, so he sends me a lot of articles about different players, about their upbringing, about how they train, their work. So I read a lot of that, what he sends me, and mostly it’s so valuable when we get together and we watch a game on TV, and he can just point out “this guy’s doing this, when you get the puck in this situation, you can use the same move, but you can also change it up a little bit.” So just stuff like that, it’s incredible, in my opinion, getting the opportunity to talk to someone like that and to learn while you’re sitting on the couch and just watching a hockey game. I think that’s such a valuable experience for me and I always appreciate it when we have the opportunity to do that. (It’s) unbelievable to be able to sit with one of the world’s legends and just watch a game and him literally pointing everything out to you. I think it’s so cool.
What’s your favorite hockey related memory?
My favorite hockey memory would be the time we played SKA this past season. It was my former team, I was in their system, they developed me a little bit, and I got out of there. Then I signed with Kunlun and immediately I knew I wanted to play against them because things didn’t really work out the way I wanted to, there was a bit of a rough relationship there. As soon as I found out there was a game against them in St. Petersburg, I circled down on my calendar. We never beat SKA before and I knew that game was the game we were going to beat them. I remember they didn’t really have any (COVID-19) restrictions, so they had a pretty much sold out crowd and we ended up beating them 2-1 and I had the game winning assist. And that was just the most unbelievable experience. It was such a fun game, such a cool way to end it. And then, after the game we got interviewed for the local TV and it was just such a cool experience. It literally felt like when you dream of doing something, it’s like, you dream of playing in the NHL or something. And this felt like an NHL experience. Full crowd, big arena, so much energy, big game, good players, postgame press conference. All of that just felt so real, coming back to the hotel there was a big steak in your room waiting for you. Everything about it was just so, so real and so unbelievable. It’s like one of those feelings where that day is literally how it has to feel every single day in the NHL. And after I experienced that it’s like an addiction, you want to feel more and more of that. It’s so incredible. I just want to feel that feeling again and again and again. I can talk about it all day long. Especially on the road where you get a point or an assist or a goal and then the entire crowd, they start booing you, it gets quiet and it’s just the coolest feeling, I think.
You had this tweet in which you mentioned that when you were a kid, you were really scared of the jumbotron falling on top of your dad. What other irrational fears or funny impressions did you have at that time, being a kid and watching your dad play?
That was probably one of the big ones because I saw that picture of the jumbotron that fell in Buffalo and to me it was like, “that’s my dad’s work. That’s where he works, that’s his office,” you know, I’m thinking “how is he going to play? Is it gonna fall on top of him?” But in terms of other fears, I didn’t really have many fears. I actually had one fear. My first ever hockey game, I didn’t go on the ice. I didn’t play because I got scared of the referee. I was three years old and I saw this big man in stripes and I got terrified. And I didn’t play that game. (laughs) I told my mom and dad “I’m not playing,” and I started crying, they took me home. That was probably something that happened once and never happened again. But something kind of irrational was all my dad’s teammates, who were all these Hall of Fame superstars, and to me, they were just my dad’s friends. I didn’t see them as superstars or legends or anything. They were just like, “oh, here’s uncle Stevie,” Steve Yzerman, or, like, Pavel Datsyuk, basically like a cousin or something. Weird little things like that, where most people would be dying to get their autograph but for me, it’s just my dad’s weird friend from work who always comes over with a beer or something, so it was kind of fun. Looking back it’s pretty funny that those people to me were just regular guys where to many they’re their idols or heroes.
Now that we got a little into the NHL, how much do you follow the league? Do you have a favorite team? What about other sports?
In terms of hockey, I don’t really have a favorite team. I watch games, I don’t really watch too many. I like to watch clips of players, players that I want to emulate and players that I want to steal their moves a little bit from them. I watch a lot of highlights of the top guys, I’ll see what they do and I’ll try to do that next day of practice, so I can practice those kinds of moves that give them success. But I know so many guys in the NHL and so many players that it’s tough to really cheer for a team, I guess I cheer more for people than anything. But in other sports, in American football, I’m a big Detroit Lions fan, I’ve always been a Lions fan. It’s tough, I’m from Detroit, you know, we’re a horrible team, we always lose. But every year, I always go to a couple of games. So I’m very loyal in terms of that, I’m pretty much the most loyal person you’ll meet in any regards, but I’ll never give up on the Lions. I’ve been a Manchester United fan since I was two years old. There’s a picture of me wearing the Man United kit when I think I was literally one year old. From that age, I had a full kit, I had my name on the back, number eight. Throughout my entire life, I’ve always had a Man United kit, no matter what. In basketball, I’ve always been a Boston Celtics fan because one of my dad’s friends used to work for the team and he would send me autographed jerseys and hats. So as a kid, when I saw that, that blew my mind and I instantly became a Celtics fan. And other sports I’m not really much of a fan. Internationally, I cheer for Russia at international tournaments, like the (UEFA) Euros and the (FIFA) World Cup. Still not over the way they lost to Croatia in the quarterfinals of the last World Cup. I cheer for the USA too in the World Cup, but clearly they’ve had some struggles. And hopefully they can turn that around, they have a lot of good young players in Europe right now. But yeah, I’d say Man United, Lions and Celtics are my big three.
What are your top-3 and bottom-3 cities you’d like to play for?
I like that, really good question. Top 3 is probably more of a top 2. It’s interchangeable, in New York or Los Angeles, one of those two cities. That’s my absolute dream, probably New York at number one because it’s New York. Being an athlete and successful in New York opens up so many doors in so many different industries, especially in the ones that I’m interested in, so that’s huge for me. And then the bottom 3 would probably be Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton… And I can keep going, Ottawa… (laughs) They’re just not the same as comparing them to New York or Los Angeles. And I’m a big city guy, I like playing in Moscow because of that. I truly believe that I play so much better in a big city with a big microscope on my back and with the opportunity to do everything else off the ice that I’m passionate about. You play in Calgary, you can’t go to a bar and meet a fashion designer or a director or something, no offense to the people of Calgary, that’s just not the hub of where those things happen. Whereas in New York or Los Angeles, after a game you can meet someone interesting and talk about maybe do a collaboration or just anything for your future. For me that’s something that’s really important.
If you could create an expansion team for the NHL, where would it be?
I think a cool place for a team could potentially be Houston. Because I know they have an NFL team, they have an NBA team and an MLB team. I feel like they already have a great group of fans, sports fans, they might even have an MLS team, too. They have a great infrastructure for sports and for fans, and a lot of their teams have been quite successful over the last few years. So I think that the NHL would probably do pretty well there, since they’re typically doing pretty well in Dallas. Dallas is fairly competitive year in and year out, and people enjoy playing there because it’s good weather, you’re in the middle of the country, so the travel is not too bad anywhere. I think Houston would be a cool spot to have a team.
Speaking of expansion teams, what do you think of what Seattle’s done so far addressing diversity and inclusion in hockey management and also in their community, getting ahead of some issues before they even start playing?
I think it’s really cool what they’re doing. I even read somewhere that they’re building their arena in an eco-friendly way, which it’s something that I am huge about. I really believe in preserving the planet because this is our home. No matter what, there’s only one Earth. I really appreciate all the stuff that they’re doing in terms of that. And honestly, Seattle is a really cool place. I’ve always felt like Seattle is a bit more progressive than some other cities, and it’s great to see that they’re leading by example, in terms of that. I have no doubt that they’ll be a very successful team because, first of all, it’s a great city. There’s a lot of interesting people there. There’s a big group of people from tech that live there, and usually people in the tech industry are very eco-friendly, they’re very progressive in terms of giving everyone an opportunity and giving people jobs and I think that is something that’s going to be very, very successful. I really hope that they hit the ground running sort of like Vegas did. I would love to play there, and, you know, it’d be a pleasure to play in the same city where the lead singer of Nirvana was from.