McDavid to Reaves: 11 NHL Players Who Should Star in a Behind-the-Scenes Series

Brent Burns and Connor McDavid Perry Nelson-USA TODAY Sports

With rumors of the NHL taking a dip into the reality TV pool with a documentary series focusing on 10 to 12 NHL players in a behind-the-scenes approach, it’s as good a time as any to make some suggestions as to which players should be followed.

We’ll name 11 players in this column, breaking them down into three categories: (1) Superstars, (2) Rookies, and (3) Colorful Personalities.

To be clear, these are the players we’d pick, not those we think the NHL will pick. Here we go:

Superstars: Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews and Connor Hellebuyck

By picking these NHL superstars, we’d have a look at the talents in three distinct periods of their careers.

With Crosby, you’d have a star nearing the end of his NHL days. With McDavid and Matthews, you’d get two stars in their prime in two massive Canadian markets.

Crosby and McDavid aren’t known for their bold media pronouncements, so part of the appeal here would be in the superstars’ effects on the people around them – their teammates, their coaches and their fans.

Watching Crosby try his utmost to keep the Penguins in the playoff picture would be dramatic enough, and watching Matthews, McDavid and Hellebuyck try to succeed in the Stanley Cup playoffs after numerous letdowns would also be extremely compelling TV.

All four would likely defer to their teammates, but that would be the challenge of this category – getting them to be slightly more selfish in discussing their highs and lows as needle-movers.

Rookies: Connor Bedard, Adam Fantilli and Leo Carlsson

You can’t have this category without the very best rookies, and that’s what you’d be getting here.

All three of Bedard, Carlsson and Fantilli – the top picks in last summer’s NHL draft – are key cogs on teams with nowhere to go but up.

Again, these elite young players have been groomed to deflect praise to those around them, so there would need to be a sustained push by the show’s producers to bring them out of their cocoon of humility. But once you show them the value of participating in a series like this, we suspect there’d be much buy-in from them, and that could be contrasted with the veteran knowhow of the superstars in the first category.

These drastically different markets all could use the shot in the arm this series would bring to their cities, and getting a behind-the-scenes view into their approaches to the game would make for an entertaining view.

Colorful and Fun Personalities: Brent Burns, Ryan Reaves, Arber Xhekaj and Brad Marchand

In this category, we’re looking for players who’ve made major impacts just by being themselves.

Burns is one of the longest-tenured players in the game, and he’s always good for a gap-toothed smile and a ferocious approach to his robust physical style of play.

Reaves is well-travelled, but he’s a generally happy individual who can speak to his brand of hockey. Xhekaj can lure in viewers with his long and unlikely road to being a fan favorite in the hockey mecca of Montreal. And Marchand can highlight his efforts to become more and more of a leader after becoming captain of the Boston Bruins.

The point of this category is to underscore the vastly diverse types of competitors in today’s NHL. With this group, it’s all about luring in even more fans and TV viewers to show them all facets of life in hockey’s best league.

Combined with the superstars and rookies, the colorful and fun personalities would likely be the biggest hit of the bunch. Having at least one player in each key position – goalie (Hellebuyck), forward (Matthews and McDavid) and defenseman (Burns and Xhekaj) would help broaden the overall appeal of the series.

Who knows? If not all these players get a starring role, then that could fuel a second season before the first one even comes out.