Jarvis relishes chance to 'showcase the Hurricanes' on Player Media Tour

LAS VEGAS -- It is 8:41 a.m. on Monday when Seth Jarvis walks down the hall of the 22nd floor of the Waldorf Astoria, four minutes early. He is clad in a casual oatmeal suit -- think bomber instead of suit jacket -- and a black tee, picked out by his stylist.

The Carolna Hurricanes forward is headed for room 2211, the first stop on a nonstop tour that will take him until nearly 4:30 p.m., leaving him tongue-tied and tired and, after which, the admittedly big fan of the midday snooze will walk off an elevator saying, “I’m going to take a nap now,” though he will not, in reality, get to do so.

But that is far in the distance, as Jarvis enters the bustling room, filled with nearly 30 people for his first appointment of the NHL/NHLPA North American Player Media Tour, the whirlwind of media and rightsholder appointments put on by the NHL annually. He and New York Islanders forward Mathew Barzal are pulled over to an open laptop by Ritesh Gupta, the director of what will be this season’s answer to the “Tipping” ad from the 2024-25 campaign.

Gupta explains the concept, a send-up of the phenomenon that "Love Island" has become, the idea of people coming together to group-watch episodes of reality TV.

“The more you play into it, it just makes the joke funnier,” Gupta explains.

Jarvis is led over to the main shooting area, a couch with white fabric hanging in place of where the TV will eventually be. He is told to lean forward, to repeat the line, “Same, love the drama.”

“Give me the biggest version you think I’ll never use,” he is told. Then, a moment later, “One more, a little less.”

They have 15 minutes to get the take, 15 minutes before Jarvis is set to be shuttled to his next stop and then his next, on a packed schedule that takes him through NHL Images and general media to NHL Social and MTV Finland, from the Waldorf Astoria to City National Arena, the practice home of the Vegas Golden Knights, from his suit to his Hurricanes uniform and skates.

And that’s just Day 1.

It’s a gauntlet that provides the NHL with content for ads, social media, awareness campaigns for Hockey Fights Cancer, intro videos for "Prime Monday Night Hockey" and ESPN and TNT and Sportsnet, featuring players like Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby, San Jose Sharks center Macklin Celebrini and Detroit Red Wings forward Patrick Kane. It will be a day filled with green screens, lasers, one-liners and promos, with Jarvis naming Tampa Bay Lightning forward Brandon Hagel as the most underrated player in the NHL at least three times, mentioning Jessica Alba twice, dropping Domino’s as the best pizza place in Raleigh, North Carolina -- “I love Domino’s” -- and dropping expletives that run into the dozens.

It is, he thinks, all worth it.

“It’s definitely an opportunity to grow yourself and grow the Canes,” Jarvis said. “I think any time you can do stuff like this and showcase your personality a little bit, showcase the Hurricanes, I think it only helps.”

* * * *

Jarvis has just walked back into the hallway when he gets perhaps his best news of the day. After shooting promos for Hockey Fights Cancer – “Don’t give up, don’t ever give up, but please give,” he repeats -- he is headed for the race car simulator.

“This,” he says, “is going to be sick.”

First, though, it has to be adjusted. Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman, who is 6-foot-7, was the last person to try it. And, well, Jarvis is not 6-7.

“I’m not quite as tall as Hedman is, but close,” quips Jarvis, a full nine inches shorter.

The players will be competing in the simulator, with Hedman the current leader. Jarvis, however, is not the person to unseat him. He crashes the car almost immediately, the simulator shaking under him.

“Oh my God,” he says, “I’m upside down.”

There are so many moments in an NHL season to prepare for, so many moments that need video clips or shots of players shooting or stickhandling or wishing a camera “Happy Holidays!” or telling a Father’s Day story. This, along with its corresponding European event, held in Milan in August, is the NHL’s moment to capture so much of that -- and so much more.

Jarvis will be asked about the 2026 NHL Trade Deadline, his emotions after the 82nd game of a season that has yet to kick off, about the playoffs, about how he wants this season to go for his Hurricanes, who were eliminated in the Eastern Conference Final, the second time they’ve done so in Jarvis’s four years in the NHL.

“I want this season to end with me lifting the Stanley Cup,” he says.

It is at this point, as Jarvis nears two hours of interviews and footage and photos, that he seems to be loosening up, that his exuberant personality starts to show through. The quips become quippier and the answers slightly more unhinged.

Within two answers to two questions, Jarvis reveals both that the sport he’d most like to try is cliff diving, despite being “terrified of heights,” and that the weirdest thing he’s seen between periods of a hockey game is former teammate Brent Burns cutting hockey tape with a hunting knife.

But it’s his deep admiration for Crosby that becomes most apparent as he answers questions for NHL International’s social team, as he plays a little game of Canadian-tinged word association.

Who is the best Canadian player you’ve ever played with?

“Sidney Crosby,” he says.

Who did you want to be growing up?

“Sidney Crosby.”

Who is the best Canadian player of all-time?

“Sidney Crosby.”

* * * *

The fourth floor of the Waldorf is its own warren of rooms to navigate, two for teams of NHL social employees, two for the NHLPA. After he is challenged to stack 10 pucks into a pyramid on their sides, earning a round of applause after he finishes in “59.99” in the 60-second competition, he is handed a questionnaire by the NHLPA.

He leans on a table to fill it out.

Jarvis, like all the players here at the Player Media Tour, is asked which team would be on his “to trade” list, the polar opposite of the much-discussed “no-trade list.” His answer is swift and sure: “Winnipeg,” he writes firmly, of his hometown.

It is at 11:25 a.m. that he heads into yet another social room, faced with a bistro table complete with white tablecloth and vase of orange mums. It’s a speed-dating setup, in which Jarvis reveals he could endlessly rewatch “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” if he could have dinner with anyone alive he’d choose Mark Ruffalo, and that he takes about three naps a day, before being handed a square pink basket.

He starts pulling out items, first a silky pink snake, complete with scrunchy and claw clip.

“This is something you put maybe around your head when you’re doing your makeup to keep your hair out of your face?” he guesses wrongly of the heatless hair curler, encouraged to place it on his head, which he does "Karate Kid" style.

It gets better from there, with Jarvis correctly identifying eye patches and a Beautyblender, before getting stumped on a diffuser, but bouncing back on a jade roller and an eyelash curler. It is then that he pulls out a vaguely triangular, vaguely heart-shaped stone item.

“Oh,” he says. “I don’t know what this would be for. You scrape yourself with it?”

Sort of. It is a gua sha tool, used as part of an ancient Chinese technique to reduce inflammation and massage the face and other areas of the body.

It is, perhaps surprisingly, perhaps unsurprisingly, not the last time Jarvis will hold a gua sha in his hands in Las Vegas.

* * * *

Now, though, it is time for a venue change. Jarvis loads into a van with Florida Panthers forward Sam Reinhart, New York Rangers forward Will Cuylle and Hedman for the drive to Sumerlin and City National Arena, the Golden Knights' practice facility.

He is suddenly donning Fanatics gear, a navy hoodie and dark pants, seated in front of a faux locker room setup, later shot walking with a leather bag in hand. When asked if modeling is in his future, he demurs.

“No,” he says, “it feels weird.”

He will speed through interviews with Amazon Prime, in which he is asked who would play him in a biopic -- “I don’t know? Danny Devito.” -- and is tasked with a selfie video for the premier of his episode of "FACEOFF: Inside the NHL," on which he is featured in its second season.

It is five hours into his day, the word count is mounting and Jarvis is suddenly fumbling. He’s holding the iPhone -- not his -- and trying desperately to get out his line with a tongue that seems to have grown sluggish with overuse.

It takes him five tries and two f-bombs. But, eventually, he nails it.

By 2 p.m., he is headed to another dressing room, ready to gear up for his on-ice sessions, shots of him in full hockey equipment that will be used by TNT, Prime and TVA Sports -- Sportsnet and ESPN will be the next day -- throughout the season.

As he heads to the TNT setup, he is waylaid by a blond woman sitting at the side of the bleacher seating. He is told, in no uncertain terms, that he cannot and should not look into the lasers, that he cannot and should not skate through the Hurricanes logo beamed onto the ice.

It is, as he will find, easier said than done.

The ice is lit up with red and white pinpricks of light, a giant Carolina logo in the slot. His task is to skate, followed by a camera guy, to stickhandle up and down the ice, a drone buzzing by.

“Blinding,” he will say, later. “I pride myself on my skating and my edgework so I figured [not skating through them] wouldn’t be the hardest thing in the world, but it was more hard trying not to stare at the lights because my attention span is not the highest.

“I really wanted to, but they were terrifying me.”

In the moment, though, he is working hard, his heartbeat and breath increasing, his pace pushing, the shot turning into an actual on-ice workout.

Finally released, he skates off.

“Holy mother of Christ,” he says.

* * * *

By the time he leaves City National Arena on Monday afternoon, Jarvis is wiped. After dinner at Bavette's Steakhouse with his girlfriend, he will return to the hotel to sleep from 9:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m., a solid enough run before a 7:30 a.m. ride out to Henderson, Nevada, home of the Henderson Silver Knights.

He is back on ice. Back in his Hurricanes gear. Back to reciting promos and ripping slap shots, back to acting -- or close to it.

“I’m here for the Stanley Cup,” he says, an image of the Cup projected behind him.

“I’m here for the Cup.”

“Sportsnet, here for the Cup.”

The clips will be chosen, edited, saved. They will be ready for April, for when (or if) the Hurricanes make the playoffs. Others will be used for the NHL Trade Deadline, for the Olympics when (or if) Jarvis makes Team Canada.

Some will end up erased, lost to the cutting room floor.

There is much debate if that will include an NHL All Star-style accuracy shootout with Colby Armstrong for Sportsnet, one in which neither the player nor the former player can hit much of anything, needing to re-gather the mess of pucks at least three times before, eventually, Jarvis hits the fourth and final Armstrong target to end the game and take the L.

“I’m going to be a healthy scratch after Roddy sees that,” Jarvis says of coach Rod Brind’Amour.

He might not be wrong.

* * * *

It is now, finally, 11:42 a.m. on Tuesday and Jarvis is a hair behind schedule to leave the America First Center, bound back for his hotel and, after that, the 2:36 p.m. flight that will take him back to Raleigh, through Atlanta, after 54 hours in Las Vegas.

He has played beer pong -- not nearly as well as Alex DeBrincat, but passably. He has performed a breakaway challenge with Blake Bolden. He has picked blind items with a pair of cast members of Disney’s "Wizards Beyond Waverly Place." He has hit a camera guy in the shin with a golf ball. He has revealed that he has never, not once, used the notes app in his phone.

He has, once again, been handed a basket of beauty items that includes a heatless curler, an eyelash curler and a Beautyblender.

He is no better at identifying a gua sha today than he was yesterday.

Jarvis is ready to go home, to return for the start of camp, for fitness testing -- the last before the new CBA cancels that part of the schedule -- but he has managed to find some fun in the onslaught of obligations, the passage from room to room, even with a few notable failures.

“Crash a car, hit people with golf balls,” he says, with his signature shrug-it-off attitude. “It can’t get much worse.”

For him, it seems like it will get much, much better. He’s a burgeoning star with a personality to match, coming off two straight 30-plus goal, 67-point seasons, on a team with Stanley Cup aspirations, the kind of player the NHL would like to showcase. Not long after he leaves the arena, new Golden Knights forward Mitch Marner will name Jarvis as one of his top two underrated players in the NHL.

It’s a far cry from his first appearance at this event, when he was just 21 years old, barely a blip on the radars of NHL fans outside of North Carolina.

So much has happened in the past two seasons -- and the past 48 hours.

“I think last time I came in here and I (hadn’t done) much in the NHL to that point,” said Jarvis, who also participated in 2023. “I was a little bit more unknown. I think now I’ve made a little bit more of a name for myself. … Obviously more questions, more stuff to talk about than before. I think just overall, maybe a little bit more respect on why I’m here as opposed to last time.”