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Kraken centerman Chandler Stephenson appreciates every chance he gets to play in the presence of former Washington Capitals teammate Alex Ovechkin, let alone the two other surefire Hall of Famers he’ll face in an upcoming triad of games.

Ovechkin, 39, coming to Climate Pledge Arena on Thursday night looking to chip away at Wayne Gretzky’s record 894 career goals he is 21 from breaking is just a warmup act for what Stephenson and his Kraken will see between then and Monday. The NHL’s No. 1 overall team comes to town riding an 11-game points streak, followed by the Pittsburgh Penguins and Sidney Crosby, 37, on Saturday night and then a trip to Edmonton next Monday to face Connor McDavid, 28, and the Oilers.

Historians may someday debate which of the trio of NHL stars was the most impactful, though a case can be made that all three players qualify among the 10 greatest of all time. And going up against arguably three Top-10 greats in successive games, thanks to some scheduling luck and a just-ending suspension in McDavid’s case, is one of those rarities almost never seen in the post-1967 expansion era.

“There’s kind of just something that’s so cool to be able to say you played against those guys,” said Stephenson, who won a Stanley Cup with Ovechkin and the Capitals in 2018 ahead of joining the Vegas Golden Knights. “Playing with them, playing against them, it’s cool to be able to say you did that.”

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Kraken goalie Joey Daccord also appreciates the opportunity these next few days afford.

“I think the little me would probably be very proud of me for going out there and giving it my all against those guys,” Daccord said. “I grew up idolizing all of those guys and I can remember me and my best friend sitting in his bedroom playing Xbox and I was playing as Ovechkin.”

Last summer, ESPN ranked the top 25 players of the 21st century and had Crosby, Ovechkin, and McDavid at 1-2-3. Four years ago, The Hockey News ranked the Top-75 players of all time and had Crosby at No. 5 and Ovechkin at No. 8 while a young McDavid was already ranked No. 67.

Clearly, a lot has happened since, especially for McDavid, who has put up an additional 160 goals and 475 points in three-plus seasons since the Hockey News survey, in addition to now three Hart trophies as league MVP and five Art Ross trophies as the NHL’s top point-getter. McDavid last spring also made his first Stanley Cup Final, which is where historians tend to dock him some points as Crosby has won three titles and Ovechkin one.

The Kraken nearly missed McDavid this time around after he was suspended three games last week for cross-checking a player in the face. But the Kraken will now be his first opponent after the suspension ends.

Most all-time lists typically go with some combination of Gretzky, Bobby Orr, Gordie Howe, and Mario Lemieux in the top four, showing just how good both Ovechkin and Crosby have been.

Gretzky’s goal record was once assumed unassailable, as was Howe’s 801 prior to that. And now, Ovechkin has toppled one and is closing in on the other in a global hockey era when parity has made lone-team dominance less frequent than when Gretzky’s Oilers and Howe’s Detroit Red Wings won multiple Cups.

Beyond being a three-time Cup winner and two-time Conn Smythe winner as playoff MVP, Crosby scored an Olympic gold medal overtime winner for Canada in 2010. Crosby is also a three-time league MVP and this season broke Lemieux’s team record of 1,033 career assists and sits ninth all-time in NHL points with 1,647 – just 76 shy of Lemieux’s career mark.

And McDavid might wind up topping Crosby and Ovechkin in career points by the time he’s done; his 1.52 per game sitting third-highest all-time behind Gretzky and Lemieux.

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What’s also interesting about all three stars the Kraken will face is that they’ve all stayed with the same team their entire career. Among the NHL’s dozen best point-getters all-time, Ovechkin, who sits 12th at 1,583, Crosby, Lemieux and Steve Yzerman are the only ones not to play for multiple teams.

One more thing to be in awe of when it comes to the trio, playing in an era of rampant free agency unseen in the NHL’s first 90 years.

For Kraken forward Andre Burakovsky, getting to play with Ovechkin for five seasons in Washington and also winning a Cup there in 2018 was something he still considers an honor.

“I remember when I got drafted and he called me at the draft,” Burakovsky said of his 2013 selection by the Caps. “He called me and said ‘Congrats! Looking forward to seeing you, man.’ I mean, at that point you get a little starstruck that Ovie is calling you.

“I mean, he’s always been Ovie and he’s one of the biggest faces of this sport. So, it was cool to be a part of that.”

Stephenson feels the same way. During the 2018 title run, he got put on a line with Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov for a decisive Game 6 of the second round of the playoffs against Crosby and the Penguins. The Capitals won 2-1 on an Ovechkin goal in overtime to advance to the next round.

“There have been a few games, maybe a handful, that I’ve played with him,” Stephenson said. “And yeah, you just can’t really believe that you’re in that position. Because it’s pretty special to say that you played on a line with somebody like that.”

Stephenson kept his distance from Ovechkin when breaking in with the Caps during the 2015-16 season after they drafted him in 2012. “With young guys, it was always better to be seen and not heard,” he said. “That’s what I was told and I tried to follow that as a guideline.”

But he said Ovechkin never made him feel as if he wasn’t a part of their group.

“He doesn’t make anybody feel like that,” he said. “You’re on the team – you’re a part of the team. There’s no arrogance or any of that with him. If you ask him for something, he’ll do it.

“I remember early in my first year I think I asked him to sign something for me and he did it. First time I’d met him. And he’s probably signed over a million different things.”

Like teammate Daccord, Stephenson plans to do his best against Ovechkin and the rest of the star-studded opponents the Kraken have upcoming – respectful of getting to share rarified ice with them while not wanting to help pad anyone’s stats.

Not that they need much help.

“I think it’s obviously a huge accomplishment,” he said of Ovechkin chasing down Gretzky’s mark. “I couldn’t be happier for him. I’ll tell you, as much as he probably wants to break the record, he has just as much fun playing. I think even if he does break the record, he’d still keep playing because he loves the job that is hockey and being at the rink.

“He’s just all-around kind of a world-class guy.”