Two summers ago, I approached Brent Seabrook in the corner of a ballroom at the Hilton Chicago, and once the crowd of reporters dissipated and it was just me and him, I asked a very proud man a very humiliating question. .
You’re a three-time Stanley Cup champion, you’re an Olympian, you’re almost damn revered by your teammates, but all anyone thinks about when they hear your name is “the worst contract in the NHL.” Does that bother you?
Of course, I was herding him. Athletic had just placed that expression in a title in a ranking of the biggest albatrosses in hockey. Seabrook can be kind of stinging, so he played a little with fire, but after all these years I had gained enough rope with the guy to pull something like that from time to time.
He didn’t bite.