Breaking Down The Best Playoff Beards Remaining In The Stanley Cup Final
Playoff beards are another one of those traditions that hockey fans definitely place more importance on than is necessary. But guess what? Just like the handshake line, don’t care. I’m a sucker for the beards and if you don’t think that facial hair has any factor in deciding who hoists Lord Stanley’s sometime over the next two weeks, well then you are an idiot and a fool. The Stanley Cup Playoffs are a long and grueling course to achieve hockey’s highest prize. Almost 2 full months of additional hockey after playing an 82-game regular season. These guys are playing hurt. They’re playing injured. And they’re not shaving for 2 months because it’s some bizarro tradition that started years and years ago that nobody can really explain. As someone who isn’t man enough to grow a beard of my own, I commend these athletes for all of the work they’ve put in over these last two months. And now that the Final is officially underway, it’s time to pay our respects to these grizzly sons of bitches.
I’ve long stated that Roman Polak is one of the ugliest bastards in the NHL. Just awful looking, really. To a point where I’m almost nervous to make fun of him because maybe there’s something actually wrong with him. So he’s the type of guy who can really benefit from a lengthy run in the playoff. The beard covers up much of his face and that’s a relief to everyone. The beard looks thick, it looks itchy, it looks like hockey in June.
Feel like Phil Kessel probably goes through the most hardship with his playoff beard than anybody else remaining in this series. Eat a hot dog? Now you’ve got mustard all up in your beard. Eat a whole heaping pile of flap jacks? Now you’ve got maple syrup all up in your beard. You know Phat Phil is a messy eater and you know he’d rather trim up the beard a little bit to make life easier on himself. But that would be the selfish way out. And Phat Phil is nothing if not a team player. Highly commendable, really.
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Joe Pavelski is just a good ol’ American boy with a good ol’ American beard. Looks like he should be playing with a nice fat lip of Grizz in. It’s a man’s beard. The kind of guy who fishes and hunts for his own dinner. The kind of guy who chops down his own fire wood. Basically everything that a blogger is not.
A couple things here. 1) Kris Letang kind of has that dead look in his eyes like he could potentially be a serial killer or something. That beard definitely doesn’t help his potentially deranged appearance. 2) Somebody needs to tell him to do just a little less here. Bauer helmet, Warrior gloves, Easton stick, CCM pants. He’s all over the place. Like he forgot his equipment bag at home and just had to start rummaging through the lost and found to make something work. Still a strong beard game and he plays the handsome villain role well.
That’s a dad beard on Patrick Marleau if I’ve ever seen one. The kind of beard that symbolizes age and wisdom. Like he’s been around the block a few times, has seen some shit and is ready to pass down that knowledge. It’s the beard of a man who fucks. Throw a little touch of grey in there and he’s good to go.
Now I know I’m going to catch some heat for this one but hear me out real quick. If growing a lucious playoff beard like the ones above were easy, then everybody would do it. But for some of us, growing a beard ain’t something that you can just wake up one day and it magically appears. For some of us, we were cursed with some bitch ass genetics. But shoutout to Sidney Crosby for just going with it anyway. He knows that he can’t grow a beard for shit. He knows that it looks terrible. But that’s not what the playoff beard is all about. It’s just about the act of growing out your shit for the boys. Regardless of if it makes you look like the biggest dirtball on planet Earth or not. I can respect that.
I’ve said it once, I’ve said it twice, I’ll say it just a few more times before it starts to get a little too creepy. When those science nerds finally get their shit together and create the technology to clone humans, we NEED to start with Brent Burns. Everything about him is perfect. The only reason why I can’t, in good conscious, claim that he has the best playoff beard is because the beard is a yearly thing for Burnzie. It’s pretty much been at this length all season long so it’s not a playoff specific beard. Does he have the best beard in the NHL? You bet your sweet ass he does. But there just has to be a clear differential between regular season beard and playoff beard for this whole thing to work.
Remember that one terrorist skit in the Jackass movie when everybody shaved their pubes and glued them to Ehren McGhehey’s face? Well that’s what I think happened to Nick Bonino here. He looks like he should be on a no-fly list or something. He’s always got a gross little Andrew Luck-esque type of beard going but he’s taken the grossness to new heights these playoffs. Also, don’t underestimate Pascal Dupuis right now either.
Dupuis may have a job lined up with GQ now that his playing career is over.
I’m just going to go ahead and say it. Not only do I think Jumbo Joe has the best playoff beard of this Stanley Cup Final, but i think he has the best playoff beard in Stanley Cup Playoff history. If the Sharks find a way to win this series, the photo with Joe Thornton holding the Cup over his head will be one of the most prolific photographs that hockey has ever seen. It will go down in infamy. It will become the quintessential hockey pic. The man is a beauty in ever sense of the word and we should all be thanking our lucky stars that we’re around to witness such greatness.
Honorable Mention:
Feel like it would be super racist to leave Joel Ward off this list. I’m not a racist.
Beards We Wish Were Still Around:
