Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews skating together ahead of 2020-21 season

“They’re hockey nerds and I love it. You want the guys that are the best to love the game as much as those two do. The other day we did a bunch of stuff on backhands. Catching passes on your backhand; catching passes and making a move to your backhand; four or five drills in regards to your backhand. It’s something you don’t always work on, but it’s so important. You watch those guys catch and receive passes on their backhand, and you realize how valuable that is. As fast as they are, the ability to catch and receive that pass buys you a quarter-of-a-second every single time you catch it clean. And if you give Auston or Connor a quarter-of-a-second, they cover about six feet of ice. If you give them six feet of ice, you’re in trouble. So their ability to catch those passes becomes such a big part of their game. Connor, he catches passes and makes a move quick. He catches it and he wants to go through a stick, or under a stick, or around a pylon.

“They do everything at 99 per cent. I don’t know if there’s any difference when (Matthews/McDavid) have the puck or don’t have the puck. Other players aren’t as fast when carrying it. At the beginning of my career, it was, ‘You pass to me, I one-time it.’ Then it moved to, ‘I’ll pass to you, you pass back to me, and I’ll one-time it.’ And now it’s, ‘Okay, I’m going to be skating as fast as I can, you’re going to pass it to me, I’m going to quickly handle the puck, make a move and shoot the puck.’ It’s just the way they do everything at top speed, so impressive.”