Anyone who has ever played high-level hockey, like Islanders forward Jordan Eberle, knows it’s impossible to emulate skating while working out off the ice.

During this unprecedented time, with the NHL season suspended indefinitely due to the coronavirus pandemic, staying in shape has been an additional obstacle for players. Eberle said he knows getting back on to the ice will make all the difference should the 2020 NHL season eventually resume.

“None of us have ever experienced anything like this,” Eberle said on a conference call Thursday. “Going into training camp, we’d all been skating for two months straight and then you have training camp before the season. You’re pretty much on the ice for three months straight.

“You can ride the bike, you can go on the treadmill, you can go on runs, you can work out, but nothing is going to translate to skating. It’s just such a unique activity that it’s hard to translate to. I know guys in the NHL have talked about it, we’ve had [NHL Players’ Association] meetings, but if you want to put a really good product on the ice and get back somewhere near where we ended off, you’re going to need some practices for sure.”

The 29-year-old winger could only compare this lull to what some players experience before competing in the World Championships, which usually are held in early May but were officially canceled this year due to the coronavirus. Players who don’t make the NHL playoffs are challenged to stay at the top of their games during their weeks off before the international tournament begins.

Eberle, whose wife Lauren gave birth to a baby girl named Collins on March 16, said he has utilized the makeshift gym in his basement, but also has found himself sprinting up and down his staircase whenever he uses it.

It has been a struggle, however, to maintain his motivation to work out with no “clear-cut date” to return. Eberle said he wouldn’t mind having play resume late in the summer, but questioned how long the league should wait until officially canceling the season.

“I’m for playing later into the year,” he said. “But that being said, I don’t know: At what point do you cut it off? Right? You need to resume a full season next year, you have to have that time and that rest too.

“I think at some point there has to be a date where you say, ‘The season is lost and we start recuperating for next year.’ As of right now, I think everyone’s mindset is that we do want to play in the playoffs.”

Several players around the league have been asked what they would do if they were in commissioner Gary Bettman’s shoes, with the Penguins’ Sidney Crosby most notably saying he believes the schedule should jump right into the playoffs with the current standings should the season resume.

Eberle said he’s just happy he doesn’t have to make those decisions, but wasn’t too fond of Crosby’s suggestion considering it would leave the Islanders out of the postseason picture.

“You work this hard all year to play however many games we had left, you play that many games and you’re in the hunt and then the season is just done,” Eberle said. “That’s tough, you work all season long, all summer and the previous summer long, to have a shot to win the Stanley Cup.”