“You try to fit in wherever you go,” Eberle said. “And then you look back on it and -- things happen for a reason.”
Eberle admitted to feeling quite differently upon first joining the Kraken in July 2021. He’d scored the winning overtime goal that spring to force Game 7 of the 2021 Eastern Conference Final, which the Islanders lost to eventual-champion Tampa Bay, ahead of New York, leaving him unprotected in that summer’s Expansion Draft.
“That was hard, if I’m being honest,” Eberle told Oake. “I was devastated when they picked me.”
At the time, many thought the Islanders were a champion-in-the-making and would have gone on to win the Stanley Cup against Montreal had they not dropped Game 7 to the Lightning by a 1-0 score.
“We had gone a couple of years in a row to the conference final,” Eberle said. “We felt we had a great team there, and we were kind of on the brink. And to get picked up was tough.”
But it’s worked out well for Eberle, extended for two additional seasons by the Kraken last March ahead of playing his 1,000th career game and then having the “huge honor” bestowed upon him in being named captain two weeks ago before the team’s season opener. So well, in fact, that Eberle – off to a career-best start with a team-leading five goals in six games -- was sought out for Saturday’s postgame interview by Hockey Night In Canada well in advance of scoring that night’s winner in overtime.
“Might I just say, it’s nice when a plan comes together,” interviewer Oake quipped, tongue-in-cheek, ahead of replaying Eberle’s goal that handed the Flames their first defeat of the season.
Hockey Night in Canada has been a Canadian cultural institution for generations, watched weekly by millions first on CBC and now Sportsnet, with young players growing up dreaming of someday gracing its airwaves for the prime Saturday night broadcasts.
So, for Saskatchewan native Eberle, getting on the “After Hours” segment for a third time in his career amounted to a coup of sorts for both him and the Kraken.
Much of the interview was devoted to how Eberle’s feelings about the move to Seattle have changed. In fact, the Islanders missed the playoffs the season after leaving Eberle unprotected and have not won another playoff round since firing coach Barry Trotz – a man Eberle credits with making him a better player.
The Kraken, meanwhile, rebounded from a tough expansion season and enjoyed a 100-point playoff campaign in their second year. Eberle scored what interviewer Oake termed his “signature goal with the Kraken” in those playoffs, netting a Game 4 overtime winner against the Colorado Avalanche to even an opening-round series his team eventually won in seven.
“That was special,” Eberle said after a replay of that goal was shown on-air.
The Kraken nearly got Eberle back to the conference final that year, dropping Game 7 of the second round in Dallas by a 2-1 mark.
“I mean, the first year as an expansion (team) it was a hard year here,” Eberle said. “(But) you’ve seen some of the moves they made here the next year, adding Burky (Andre Burakovsky), adding (Oliver) Bjorkstrand. There was an emphasis to win. And we came out and kind of surprised everybody that second year in making the playoffs. And I think that’s how you build a franchise. You give the fans playoff hockey. We did that and hope to do that again.”
Eberle said that after leaving the Edmonton Oilers team that initially drafted him, the most important thing Trotz and the Islanders taught him was “how to win hockey games.”
He added: “There’s a way to play hockey, and I’ve tried to do that as much as I can. As you get older, you don’t really care about statistics. You don’t care about that sort of thing. You just want to win. I don’t have that many years left, and I just want to win a Cup and have an opportunity to do that. And that’s to make the postseason.”
Eberle told Oake it was “a special day” to have Kraken general manager Ron Francis – who he described as “one of the best leaders of all time” – tell him he’d been made captain.
And he’s taking the role quite seriously, having seen how prior captains such as Shawn Horcoff in Edmonton and Anders Lee in New York handled it. Also, Sydney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins, who Eberle played with on Team Canada at some IIHF World Hockey Championships.
“I’ve seen a lot of guys, just the way that they act off the ice,” Eberle said. “The way they prepare and the way that they do things and try to implement things.”
On his off-ice life, Eberle revealed he doesn’t engage in social media.
“I’d gone through some tough times in Edmonton with the way that things went,” he said. “I just decided to get rid of it. I don’t care how mentally strong you are, you read some comments after games…I’m happy without it.”
Eberle talked about his wife, Lauren, being a piano teacher and vocal coach. About his daughter, Collins, 4, loving arts and crafts and music and how his son Deacon, 2, “doesn’t go to sleep without a hockey stick or a golf club.”
The broadcast also showed 2010 footage of Eberle playing video games and discussing buying groceries at home as a young Oilers forward with roommate Taylor Hall. And strumming his guitar in a variety of settings over the years.
“I love music,” Eberle told Oake. “From Day 1, I’ve really enjoyed it. My dad was a guitarist.”
In response to a viewer question about how Eberle’s country music playing was coming along, he replied that his poor singing voice has slightly improved.
“It’s fun and my kids sing along with me when I play,” Eberle said.
He added: “I’ve gotten better and even in Long Island, me, (ex-Seattle Thunderbirds junior star) Mat Barzal and Anders Lee, we used to take our guitars on the road and we’d play and sing and we wrote some songs.”
Oake asked Eberle about the time he’d helped write the Islanders’ fight song.
“We just started writing a song and it was great,” Eberle said. “I sent it to a few guys…it was actually not bad. It went through each guy on the team and (Barzal) and I and (Lee) each wrote different things and tried to rhyme it. I wouldn’t say it was amazing but it wasn’t too bad for our novice talents.”
Oake proceeded to read some of the song’s lyrics: “We’re the boys of the Islanders. We don’t play a pretty style. Ain’t that much fun but it gets the job done.”
“I wonder where you’re getting all this – that’s impressive,” Eberle said, laughing.
The show also played a congratulatory video message from Eberle’s good friend, Canadian country music artist Brett Kissell. In it, Kissell insinuates, rather humorously, that he and Eberle had once enjoyed some hard-partying nights out together before his NHL games in their younger days and wondered how tolerant a captain he’d now be of teammates doing the same.
“I don’t know if that’s a true story,” Eberle quickly replied, chuckling. “I don’t know if it ever happened. If we had a couple of days off we’d maybe go out and have a little fun but the game is so professional now and it’s so fast and so amazing that you can’t go out the night before and have any fun.
“Even when I was younger that wasn’t really a thing. I think if you had a couple of nights possibly.”
Eberle added: “The kids coming in now they’re so professional. The game has changed…and you have to be prepared. The game is so fast and physical and fun that you have to really be dialed in each night.”
And he’s looking forward to seeing how his Kraken teammates, now 4-2 and riding a three-game win streak to the best opening start in franchise history, wind up faring from here.
“We have a lot of guys on our team who have won Cups, who have made runs,” he said. “And I like to think that we’re a lead-by-committee team. And I think that’s what makes it fun. We have a four-line team and six (defensemen) and everyone plays.
“And on different nights there are different guys that step up.”
