Playoff beards: All in the genes
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Growing a playoff beard is a rite of spring for many NHL players.
It’s a hopeless challenge for others.
Some guys, such as Penguins center Nick Bonino, clearly carry the Dupuis-Talbot gene that allows them to go to bed clean-shaven and wake up looking like the stunt double for someone from ZZ Top.
A few, however, look as if they could make sprouting whiskers their life’s work and still not have more than a few tufts of hair to show for it.
“I’m not going to throw anyone under the bus,” winger Bryan Rust said. “But there might be some guys who need three or four years to grow a decent beard.”
While Rust was reluctant to single out any teammates, some of his co-workers had no such reservations.
“Probably me,” winger Conor Sheary said. “I don’t know if Olli Maatta will even get any facial hair, but we’ll see what happens.”
Winger Tom Kuhnhackl put Jake Guentzel high on his list.
“I think Jake needs almost an entire year to grow a full, or decent, beard,” he said.
Bonino, meanwhile, settled for a time-honored choice, even if it’s not the consensus selection it would have been five or 10 years ago.
“Sid [Crosby], probably,” he said. “It’s an easy answer.”
Mute subject
was worthy of much contemplation, let alone public discussion.
“I’m not going to discuss it,” Columbus coach John Tortorella said Friday. “The league takes care of business. We’re just concerned about the games.”
His friend and counterpart with the Penguins, Mike Sullivan, was every bit as enlightening.
“The league’s going to do their job, the refs are going to do their job and we’re going to do ours.” Sullivan said.
Penguins right winger Patric Hornqvist, perhaps prepping for a post-playing career as a coach, offered these insights: “I didn’t see it, and he got one game.”
Limit vs. stopping talent
Crosby, who scored one goal and set up two others in the Penguins’ 4-1 victory Friday night in Game 2, is pretty tough to overlook when he’s on the ice.
Pretty difficult to defend, too.
That doesn’t mean the Blue Jackets have altered their defensive structure to try to neutralize him, according to Tortorella.
“With players like that, you’re just trying to limit them,” he said. “You’re never going to stop them.
“To change your defense or your coverages … it’s way too instinctive. We don’t know what he’s going to do on a certain play. You can’t map it out, like in football.”
Blocking strategy
The Penguins, who averaged 15.9 blocked shots per game in the regular season, blocked a total of 45 in Games 1 and 2.
That, Sullivan suggested, is largely a reflection to his team’s commitment to playing well in its end.
“It’s not like we practice shot-blocking,” he said. “We talk about sound defensive strategies, and among those is getting in shot lanes.
“We have to defend our scoring area. We have to deny teams the ability to get pucks to our net and create those next opportunities that are difficult to defend.”