Rangers, Sabres go home on 'Road to Winter Classic'

Ever wonder how a young NHL player, or three -- specifically New York Rangers Brady Skjei, Kevin Hayes and Jimmy Vesey -- might decorate a New York City apartment?
The answer is like a frat house.

RELATED: [Road To The NHL Winter Classic coverage]
There are full closets and empty walls, a dart board and unmade beds, dozens of hats and dozens more pairs of shoes, and one player (Skjei) who sleeps in what essentially looks like a closet. But there is also a beautifully decorated Christmas tree, a single photo of Hayes's niece, and a whole lot of camaraderie.
"Tom Brady lives at the end of the street," Hayes says. "Justin Timberlake, Jay-Z and Beyonce live behind us, so it's pretty cool that they get to live next to us."

New York, clearly, is good to the three.
The scene at their apartment is just the beginning of the second episode of NBCSN's "Road to the NHL Winter Classic," which airs at 11:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday and goes behind the scenes with the Rangers and the Buffalo Sabres as they prepare to face off in the 2018 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic at Citi Field on Jan 1 (1 p.m. ET; NBC, SN, TVAS).
Full episodes will be available on YouTube.com/NHL and short-form versions of the 30-minute, four-week series will run on Facebook Watch via the NHL's Show Page at Facebook.com/BestoftheNHL every Friday.

We also get to see the home of Sabres coach Phil Housley, which, unsurprisingly, looks a bit different than that of the three young New York Rangers. There is furniture. There is wine. There is Karin Housley, Phil's wife of 33 years, who has just announced her candidacy for Senate in their home state of Minnesota.
They married in 1985 and had two kids, both of whom were born in Buffalo. That's part of why he wants so badly to find a way to win with the Sabres, to figure out a way to please a fan base that hungers for more than it's been given over the past decade.
Jack Eichel will be a big part of that, and we see a glimpse of that when Eichel scores his first career hat trick against the Carolina Hurricanes. Still, the Hurricanes win in overtime, yet another frustration in a season full of them.
The good news for the Sabres is, even with the troubles on the ice, there is always home. There are the kids and the families and the quiet times that make the rest of it a little easier. Kyle Okposo gives a little taste of that as he dances with his daughter, plays hockey in the living room with his kids, as it all leads to a meltdown by his son. But that, too, is real.

"Just coming home every day and getting to interact with them, just being a dad, there's no playbook for it," said Okposo, whose wife, Danielle, is pregnant with their third child. "I'm just looking forward to living my life with them."
Ultimately, though, this series and this season is about the hockey. It's about getting to that Jan. 1 game, and playing the best hockey that they can play when they get there. It's why we hear Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist admonish his teammates in a scene in the dressing room at TD Garden in Boston. Because they want to be great, as narrator Bill Camp puts it, "with all of hockey watching, on New Year's Day."