What it was like living with a rookie Connor McDavid

Former NHLer and now Sportsnet analyst Luke Gazdic joined Daily Faceoff Live and told a story about what it was like to have a young and spry Connor McDavid live with him during McDavid’s rookie season.

Frank Seravalli: I didn’t realize you actually had Connor McDavid live with you, how did that happen?

Luke Gazdic: So obviously, we drafted him, and then I think the plan was for him to go move in with a family guy, like Matt Hendricks or Andrew Ference. A guy who was older, a veteran, married, had a big house, kids, that whole thing. I had lived with Taylor Hall the year before and we had a house on the West side of Edmonton. I think Taylor ran into Connor at a skate in Toronto and was just like “Hey man, if you want to come live with me and Gaz, we would love to have you.” He called me and said “Would you be okay with this” We actually asked Peter Chiarelli and we thought we were going to get shut down and he said, “Go for it.” I had the Erie Otters connection with Connor; we both played for the Otters, Connor’s Dad went to the same high school as me so we had a couple of past connections. Met his parents early, it was cool. The team went with it, the boys had the upstairs and I took the basement. To be honest it was one of the coolest years of my life and something I was very thankful and grateful for.

Frank Seravalli: I bet, that is wild. Then you do normal day-to-day stuff, do you still keep in touch? 

Luke Gazdic: Yeah I let him do his own thing, I reach out now and then. But yeah, he loves hockey and he always wanted to watch games, highlights, sportscentre or whatever it was. He broke his collarbone that year, and I didn’t break anything, I was just a regular healthy scratch, so we spent a lot of time together. Game days, like Saturday game days: we would spend time driving together to the arena and just shooting the breeze. It was really cool I got to form a pretty good relationship with him and got to get into his mind a bit. I loved hanging with him and talking with him. Connor couldn’t do much cooking that’s the one thing I remember. I love to whip around the kitchen and cook up a storm and I always loved cooking big meals for the boys before games. I’d ask Connor on game days what he wanted to eat and whatever it was I would learn how to make it and get the ingredients and get it figured out. Always made sure the fridge was stocked for those boys.

You can watch the full show here…