Behind the scenes on Road to the Winter Classic

NEW YORK - In a small, dark room in lower Manhattan, Fritz Mitchell stares at a computer monitor as video editors tap away on computer keyboards, cuing up footage of Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis.

Leonsis, interviewed in an otherwise empty hockey arena, is discussing the progress of his team's most recognizable star — forward Alex Ovechkin — and so animatedly sings the veteran's praises that Mitchell and his crew struggle to find "room tone," the arena's background hum, a note necessary for seamlessly splicing together the highlights of the interview.

"(Leonsis) seems approachable, like a regular guy," says Mitchell, a producer on the fourth season of Road to the NHL Winter Classic, which debuts tonight on Epix at 10 ET.

"We're going to make him a character," says executive producer Ross Greenburg from a couch a few feet away.

The editors are building a package of Ovechkin highlights to accompany Leonsis' reverent words. They try it with a soundtrack of a bluesy funk song and then with some thumping drums, before settling on a guitar-driven, upbeat metal tune. They pore over options for footage to fill a momentary gap in the highlights package, no more than a second.

"That shot of him walking in from behind is kind of artsy," Greenburg says. The clip goes in.

Greenburg and his production team, in partnership with the NHL, are charged with setting the stage for the league's annual Winter Classic, profiling the Capitals and Chicago Blackhawks on the road to the Jan. 1 outdoor game at Nationals Park in Washington.

Producers, working amid dark-wood furniture and burgundy-painted walls in sleekly lit Vidiots studios in the West Village neighborhood, reap footage from film crews following players and coaches from both teams, in wide-open practice rinks and cramped visitors locker rooms and huddled around restaurant tables eating oysters. Greenburg, who created the show as president at HBO Sports — a job he held until 2011 — helms it again for its first season on Epix.

With a documentary style, a candid tone and a focus on storytelling, Road to the NHL Winter Classic draws obvious comparisons to Hard Knocks, also created in Greenburg's tenure at HBO. The key, he says, is making teams forget the cameras are present.

"You don't want manufactured reality," Greenburg told USA TODAY. "We didn't tell (Capitals coach Barry) Trotz to take his son to the zoo, we just followed him when he did. We don't tell (Blackhawks players Patrick) Kane and (Jonathan) Toews to go to a juice bar in Boston after a practice. They just did it, and we followed them."

That access, of course, brings challenges, even beyond the long hours worked by nearly everyone involved. Past coaches have resisted the advance of cameras into their locker rooms, despite the league's approval. Superstitious players have refused microphones after they happened to be wearing one in a rough game. Episodes must be scanned for nudity and other improprieties — not to mention trademarks that must be avoided — and screened for the teams and Commissioner Gary Bettman.

And then there's the on-the-fly production necessitated by the format: whittling down some 200 hours' worth of footage from games, practices and off days to a tight 55-minute show every week, trying to identify the teams' best stories on and off the ice and learning to adjust quickly when a new one appears unexpectedly.

"Our crew in Washington was just minding its business on an off day, and who shows up at the rink alone but Alexander Ovechkin," Greenburg said. "And he takes the ice, and he starts firing thousands of pucks into an empty net all on his own, alone. That's beautiful footage, and the footage itself tells a story."

With a Hart Trophy on his shelf, a missing tooth in his big smile and an apparent chip on his shoulder as he leads a Capitals team that missed the playoffs for the first time in six years in 2013-14, Ovechkin makes for an obvious star on Road to the NHL Winter Classic. But the show features characters throughout both organizations, from Leonsis in the owner's box to the guys cleaning sweaty equipment after a road series. It is fueled by its fresh on- and off-ice footage, which Greenburg credits to its subject.

"It's spectacular on the ice and it has riveting stories off the ice," Greenburg said. "The sport needs to be lifted and given its just due."