Justin Abdelkader sees a little bit of Nyquist in... Nyquist.
In an interview with the New York Times' Melissa Halpert, the Detroit Red Wings left-winger captured entertaining similarities between teammate Gustav Nyquist and the 2016 Preakness Stakes favorite.
"Obviously, he has a knack for scoring goals, and he's scored some big ones for us, so I think that he's a fun player to watch," Abdelkader said. "I think that can probably relate to Nyquist the horse. He's probably a fun horse for people to watch because he's really fast and can obviously finish strong."
Nyquist, the Swedish ice-skating version, wasn't shy about throwing his support behind his four-legged namesake on Friday:
Good luck tomorrow @TheNyquistHorse!!! @PreaknessStakes @DougONeill1
— Gustav Nyquist (@GNyquist) May 20, 2016
Both parties having the same name isn't a coincidence: The horse's owner, J. Paul Reddam, is an avid Red Wings fan, and has named past horses after other Detroit legends, such as Henrik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk.
Nyquist - the horse - is scheduled to race at 6:45 p.m. ET in Saturday's main event as he attempts to complete two-thirds of the Triple Crown.
