Dan and Bik answer your questions about Noah Juulsen's potential ceiling, the cost of acquiring someone with term ahead of the deadline, and more in Mailbag Friday!

This podcast was produced by Josh Elliott-Wolfe.

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Dan and Bik discuss how well things have been going for the Canucks this season and how Patrik Allvin is the undisputed GM of the Year. Also, hear from Jannik Hansen on how the team needs to play down the stretch, Elias Lindholm's fit at C, and more.

This podcast was produced by Josh Elliott-Wolfe.

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Matt and Blake discuss a 4-1 win against Detroit, a two-goal game for Elias Lindholm and his Canucks future as a centre, according to head coach Rick Tocchet. They talk about how much fun it is watching the Canucks these days (most fun ever?) and the team's growing lead atop the NHL standings. They talk Nikita Zadorov's honour and honesty, his fun doing the Griddy dance back at Jake Walman, Thatcher Demko's brilliance and attempt at goal, Nils Höglander moving on up to PP2, and where Phil Kessel fits when (if?) he's signed.

Frank Seravalli explains the Canucks' plans for Phil Kessel and how, if he works out, the team might be done adding forwards and will focus attention on defence. He tells us what others around the NHL are saying about the league-leading Canucks, extols the virtues of Tocchet and says he'll be a magnet for free agents, and goes through the Pittsburgh Penguins' conundrum including an injury to deadline target Jake Guentzel and Sidney Crosby's future.

Jeff Paterson, the host of Rink Wide: Vancouver, talks about the win over the Red Wings, the goaltender showdown Saturday against the Jets, the plight of Ilya Mikheyev, the plans for Kessel, Brock Boeser's slump, and how the penalty-killing is now...wait for it...good!

Plus, we go To The People and hear from listeners on Canucks topics. Presented by Applewood Auto Group.

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New York Rangers veteran Blake Wheeler will miss the rest of the regular season because of a leg injury, reports The Athletic's Peter Baugh.

Wheeler hasn't been ruled out for a playoff return, but it's unlikely and depends on whether the Rangers can make a deep run. New York will place him on long-term injured reserve.

The 37-year-old got hurt during the first period of Thursday's 7-4 victory over the Montreal Canadiens. He was unable to return with what the team called a lower-body injury, but he couldn't put any weight on his right leg following a hit from Habs defenseman Jayden Struble.

Wheeler joined the Rangers on a one-year, $800,000 deal - with an additional $300,000 available in performance bonuses - in July after the final year of his contract was bought out by the Winnipeg Jets.

He put up nine goals and 21 points in 54 games this season while spending most of his ice time on a line with Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad.

The Rangers currently occupy the top spot in the Metropolitan Division with a 35-16-3 record.

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The NHL regular season is flying by. Some teams are 67% of the way through their schedules, meaning the playoff picture is starting to take shape.

Which teams are worth backing to make the playoffs? Which teams should be faded? Let's take a closer look.

Make: New Jersey Devils (+100)

The Devils were one of the favorites to win the Stanley Cup heading into the season, but they find themselves on the playoff bubble. That largely stems from an extreme amount of injuries to key players.

Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier, Timo Meier, Dougie Hamilton, and Jonas Siegenthaler, among others, have all missed significant time. The former three are back in the lineup and playing consistently, while the latter is expected to return soon. The team is finally getting close to full health, and that should lead to a drastic increase in wins.

But injuries and underwhelming goaltending shouldn't receive too much focus. The Devils are still a very good team so long as Hughes and Hischier are in the mix, boasting an approximately 110-point pace with both in the lineup.

Furthermore, with a healthy forward core, the Devils are starting to dominate the run of play at five-on-five, while youngster Nico Daws has helped stabilize things in goal.

This team boasts more true talent than those they're competing with - the Red Wings, Islanders, Penguins, etc. - and there are rumors general manager Tom Fitzgerald wants to add a meaningful piece or two (most likely a starting goalie) at the deadline.

Priced as a coin flip to make the playoffs, I think there is real value in backing the Devils.

Miss: Pittsburgh Penguins (-160)

The Penguins are in a very tough situation. They are five points back of a wild-card spot, 10 points back of a divisional spot, and one of their best players (Jake Guentzel) is expected to miss a month. They have an uphill battle ahead.

Although the Penguins have some things going for them (an excellent top line, strong goaltending etc.), a lot of problems are hindering them and the reason why they're in this position in the first place.

They lack scoring depth, and that's not going to change. Their power play also continues to disappoint, as the Penguins are scoring more times on the man advantage than only five teams.

The Penguins have the fourth-best team save percentage, but that may not be sustainable. If Tristan Jarry or Alex Nedeljkovic stumble down the stretch and play more like a mid-tier tandem, the margin for error evaporates.

I just don't see many reasons to believe this team can dig its feet in the sand and start stringing together wins.

There are no reinforcements coming back from injury, nor is GM Kyle Dubas likely to make any notable additions. If anything, he may elect to sell Guentzel if the team doesn't make up ground in his absence.

Expect the Penguins to miss the playoffs once again.

Lean: Seattle Kraken to make (+360)

The Kraken are quietly playing some good hockey. They rank sixth in goal share and ninth in expected goal share at five-on-five since January 1.

With the returns of Jaden Schwartz and Andre Burakovsky, the Kraken are very deep up front and can rely on their depth to make up ground against opponents. Joey Daccord has also given them reliable goaltending, something they haven't had much of since joining the league.

As much as anything, this is a bet on what teams around the Kraken will do.

The Blues are likely to trade Pavel Buchnevich, who is playing at a top-line level.

The Flames are clearly selling and could move on from the combination of Jacob Markstrom, Noah Hanifin, and Chris Tanev.

Nashville has won only three of the past 10 games and may look to move Juuse Saros for young players and picks. That would mean more games for Kevin Lankinen and his .889 save percentage.

The Kraken may sell Jordan Eberle, but I don't think that would impact the team. It has a lot of quality wingers and relies more on depth than any one player to get results.

Even if expirings like Eberle and/or Justin Schultz are moved, the team will still be competitive.

Todd Cordell is a sports betting writer at theScore. You can follow him on X at @ToddCordell.

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Columbus Blue Jackets interim general manager John Davidson has no intention of moving Boone Jenner ahead of the March 8 deadline.

"I'm being very transparent," Davidson said during an appearance on "The Jeff Marek Show" Friday. "We get a lot of calls on Boone, but Boone's not going anywhere, and Boone doesn't want to go anywhere."

Jenner's name has been cropping up in the rumor mill with the Blue Jackets far out of the playoff picture and several Stanley Cup hopefuls in need of a center. He addressed the speculation in a recent interview with The Athletic's Aaron Portzline.

"I want our group to become a successful team, to make the playoffs, and be relevant, get ourselves back on the map as a team," he said. "I know we have it in here, and we're going through the process right now.

"I want to be a part of that and what we can become on the other side. ... We have a long way to go, I know that, but we can get there."

Jenner has racked up 16 goals and 21 points in 37 contests this season while winning 55% of his faceoffs. He represented Columbus at his first-ever All-Star Game earlier this month despite missing 15 games with a broken jaw.

The 30-year-old has two seasons remaining on his deal with a cap hit of $3.75 million. He also has an eight-team no-trade clause.

Columbus fired longtime GM Jarmo Kekalainen on Thursday. Davidson - who also serves as the president of hockey operations - said the team is considering options from outside the organization to fill the position, per NHL.com's Jeff Svoboda.

The Blue Jackets are currently in last place in the Metropolitan Division with a 16-26-10 record. Columbus has made the playoffs five times during Jenner's 11-year NHL career, most recently in 2020.

Columbus selected Jenner in the second round of the 2011 NHL Draft. He's the franchise's leader in games played (694) and ranks third all time in both goals (186) and points (350).

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The NHL got a little more interesting with Connor Bedard's return on Thursday night against the Penguins, but should his presence matter to bettors?

Given that he played just four shifts before breaking his jaw on Jan. 5 in New Jersey, Bedard essentially missed 15 of Chicago's 53 games. However, he continues to lead the team with 33 points and remains the Calder Trophy favorite.

It's unusual, but the future of the Blackhawks is also the present. The betting market docked Chicago around 10% in implied win probability (IWP) without Bedard. For example, in a game where they have a 40% chance to win (+150 on the moneyline) with Bedard, the Blackhawks might be given a 30% implied win probability (+233) without him.

On Wednesday night, 24 hours ahead of the Penguins-Blackhawks game, Chicago was widely available at +185 (35% IWP). After the return of Bedard was made official on Thursday afternoon, the Blackhawks' moneyline settled at +160 (38.5%). That 3.5% move could be considered surprisingly modest, but there's a difference between losing Bedard's production amidst a stellar rookie campaign and getting him back for his first action in six weeks. Expectations that he wouldn't be in midseason form were understandable, and oddsmakers likely opened the Blackhawks a few percentage points short, aware that they might see some money on the home underdog once it was confirmed Bedard was back.

Of course, bettors can only get so excited about the Blackhawks - with or without Bedard.

With a 3-12 (20%) record on the moneyline and only one regulation win in Bedard's absence, the 10% change in valuation we mentioned earlier might be considered too low. However, it's not like the Blackhawks set the world on fire before Bedard got hurt. They won just 28.9% of their games (11-27 on the moneyline). A drop in win percentage of 8.9% suggests that valuation was about right.

Here's a look at the Blackhawks' advanced metrics at even strength before Bedard's injury, and then in the 15 games they played without him:

The Blackhawks maintained their (poor) expected goals share (XG%) and improved their high-danger chance share (HDC%). But without Bedard, their ratio of converting those quality chances went way down.

The league average in converting high-danger chances is 12.5%, so Bedard's presence makes Chicago better than average at converting scoring chances. His absence was felt on the power play, as the Hawks went from converting 14.1% of their HDC on the man-advantage to scoring just twice on 28 HDC created without Bedard.

For bettors, the question of whether we should be more interested in backing the Blackhawks now that Bedard is back is an interesting one. According to Moneypuck.com, Bedard leads Chicago in XG per 60 minutes at even strength, but he's only tied for 77th (with Connor McDavid at 0.87) in the NHL. Ideally, we'd like to see him have more of an effect on driving play in general, even if we know his sniper skills make the Hawks more dangerous when he's on the ice.

While the star rookie chipped in an assist in Thursday's 4-1 loss, his presence meant little overall. Pittsburgh generated 65% of the expected goal share at even strength and had significantly more high-danger chances than Chicago.

The Blackhawks may be better with Bedard, but unless you're getting an unbelievable price on Chicago, you're still better off leaving them off your card on a nightly basis.

The cheat sheet

The dirty little secret in the betting world is that, while there are no bad bets at the right price, the discovery process of what a good price looks like is hidden.

Each week, we balance market information from regular-season point totals and in-season advanced metrics - with an even-strength focus - to determine the win probability for each team and the moneyline needed to bet on either side. The idea is to remove the cognitive bias of win-loss records, which can be skewed by outliers like special-team results, poor goaltending performances, and other unreliable events.

You can use whatever parameters you like to decide how much of an edge you need to trigger a bet, but here are mine:

• True line favorite of -111 or longer: 1%
• True line between -110 and +110: 2.5%
• True line underdog of +111 or longer: 4%

I also have a 5% win probability consideration for a team playing in the second game of a back-to-back with travel and a 3% consideration for the second leg of a home back-to-back. When it comes to injured players, an estimation is made on the player's impact on their team's win probability.

When the betting markets open up the night before, you can compare those prices with our "price to bet" column to see if you're getting any value with either side's moneyline. There's a possibility that a moneyline moves into a bet-friendly range at some point between the market opening and puck drop.

*Eight of 10 games on Monday start at or before 4 p.m., providing matinee action for those observing a holiday

Matt Russell is the lead betting analyst for theScore. If there's a bad beat to be had, Matt will find it. Find him on social media @mrussauthentic.

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After a poor performance Thursday, Flames goalie Dustin Wolf is looking to use Calgary's 6-3 loss to the San Jose Sharks as a learning experience.

"I mean, you always want to come out and play the very best you can. ... It's unfortunate for the outcome, but I think these are games and days that you'll look back on," he told reporters postgame. "They suck, but ... it's a great opportunity to evaluate yourself as a player and a person and come back stronger."

Wolf made 25 saves on 31 shots against the Sharks and allowed 3.79 goals above expected at all strengths, according to Natural Stat Trick. San Jose, which came into Thursday's matchup with the league's worst offense, jumped from dead last to 31st in both goals for and goals per game after the six-goal outburst.

The Flames entered the final frame down 3-2, but Wolf surrendered three goals in an 11-minute span.

"I wasn't super pleased with the goals in the third, and those are the times where you need a couple saves to give the group some life," Wolf said.

He added: "It's one of those where you make some saves, and next thing you know, a couple are in your net. You got a couple bounces that don't go your way. That's the nature of hockey and the National Hockey League - it's a hard league to play in."

Wolf has appeared in just seven NHL games since making his debut last season. He owns a .887 save percentage and 3.47 goals against average.

The 22-year-old has been outstanding in the AHL. He's been named the league's best goalie in back-to-back seasons and won the AHL's MVP last campaign.

On the two occasions Wolf has surrendered six goals in the AHL this season, he's bounced back with a monster performance.

"I'd like to say that's one of my strengths in my game," he said on his ability to handle adversity.

Flames head coach Ryan Huska believes in Wolf's ability to turn the page.

"I know he's good that way," he said. "He'll flush it and move on from it. There are certain things he'll take from it and make sure he's better his next start."

"He needs to get back in there and be himself," Huska added.

Calgary next plays the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday.

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In hockey's early days, a suit did the trick. "It was throughout the league, everybody dressed up," says Gerald McNamara, who began his career with the Toronto Maple Leafs as a practice goaltender in the late 1950s before becoming a scout for the team and then general manager in 1981. "When they came to games, they had to come with a shirt and tie. When we went on the road, they had to have a shirt and tie. And on the plane to come home, they might loosen their ties."

While those ties might be getting looser every year - or disappearing completely - the concept is immutable: "If I feel good going into a game, that always makes a difference," says Bruins forward David Pastrnak, who carries the sartorial mantle in today's NHL.

Today's stars are increasingly seeing beyond the letter of the law - codified in team dress codes - to its spirit, upheld by generations of the league's greatest dressers, from Brendan Shanahan to Henrik Lundqvist to Sean Avery. They're playing within the dress code to redefine what looking your best means.

"My favorite (way to change it up) is probably just the color of the suit, and I sometimes match it with shoes or a hat," Pastrnak says.

It's a balancing of tradition and modernity, and it's helping today's athletes take that step toward giving fans something they've long been asking for: a little personality.

"My mom said I was always like this as a kid," says Pastrnak, which is a lot more backstory than you usually hear from an active NHL player in a media availability.

Legacy of looking good

The idea of looking your best when showing up at the rink isn't new. An element of sophistication has been part of a hockey player's gameday mystique since the sport's early days.

"In those days, that was the dress code and everybody had to toe the line - let's put it that way - because they could give you two weeks' notice and you were out of your contract," says McNamara.

Conn Smythe, who owned and founded the Maple Leafs, ran a notoriously tight ship. McNamara still remembers arriving at one of his early Leafs practices as a backup goalie and stumbling into a team meeting in progress. The players were attempting to unionize.

"The kid should hear this stuff too," Smythe told Leafs trainer Tim Daly, who led McNamara into the fold.

Smythe pointed to the wall where plaques dedicated to winning Leafs squads hung. "There's my record," he said.

"But you can't eat records," retorted Tod Sloan, who by that point had amassed a 10-season tenure with Toronto. Sloan was summarily traded to Chicago.

Smythe didn't tolerate dissent - not with unions and not with the dress code. No shirt, no tie, no hockey. Flouting the dress code for any reason was unthinkable. He even extended the requirement to fans, especially those in the more expensive seats.

While not every team went as far as to require its fans to arrive looking dapper, the players' dress code wasn't isolated to the Maple Leafs. For a lot of NHLers, wearing a suit felt like a distinction. "There was great pride in it," says Tracy Wilson, whose dad, Johnny Wilson, once held the NHL ironman streak and won four Cups with the Red Wings in the 1950s. "It's not like these guys made a lot of money in the NHL at that point. But it was surely better than working as a factory worker or digging ditches. I remember my dad told me about getting suits made. He wanted to look sharp. The mindset was: you wanted to look like a professional."

While the method may be changing, the mindset is the same: players want to look like they're ready to work.

Today's craftsmen

J.F. Bedard will never forget the frantic call he and his business partner received from Nick Suzuki on the eve of NHL media day in 2022, when the newly named Canadiens captain arrived in Las Vegas to meet the press without his luggage, which was lost somewhere in airline limbo. "I have a hoodie and shorts and 10 interviews before 10 a.m. tomorrow," Suzuki told the two tailors, who head up Glorius Custom, a brand that's become a go-to among players looking for a perfect-fitting suit.

"All of the stores were closed," says Bedard. "But we had a pair of jeans that were going to be delivered to another client. I gave them to Nick to try on."

"Are you kidding me? These pants fit," Suzuki said.

"OK, give me five seconds, I need to make a call," Bedard replied.

"Why?" asked Suzuki.

"Because they're Crosby's pants," said Bedard, as he dialed the Penguins' star to ask if his custom outfit could be diverted. That's how the Canadiens captain ended up at media day in Sidney Crosby's clothes.

Bedard recounted the story because to him it epitomizes the importance of fashion for today's modern players. "Fashion is very strong in the NHL right now. The guys need to be sharp."

Acquiring a well-fitting suit is a process that requires something today's top athletes intrinsically understand: attention to detail. Bedard flies across the continent to perform the intimately AI-proof task of measuring them in person. "The best-case scenario is that we take the measurements because it is an art. For our business, the most important part is the measurements," says Bedard, who notes that if a player's body changes, measurements have to be retaken. "Hockey players have big thighs and slim waists, it's super hard to make some cuts - like the slim fit - work with their proportions," he says.

Custom suits - the personalization, the artistry, the handiwork - aren't going anywhere, he thinks. He designs looks for many minor-league athletes now, and more than a handful of players at the draft. "It's in their head: when they put on the suit, the shirt, and a tie, it's like a ritual," he says.

Of course, a tailor would say that. The NHL dress code, enshrined in the collective bargaining agreement, is good for business. But it's not just that. "I've always loved the dress code," says designer Tom Marchitelli, who dresses today's top stars across the NHL, NFL, MLB, and NBA. "Not just for my business, but because it adds a certain respect and class that the players bring to the sport."

While some have decried the confines of the dress code in today's age, Marchitelli doesn't see it as a style-killer. Guys like William Nylander, Auston Matthews, and Pastrnak are finding unique ways to color within the lines. "There's a ton of style in the NHL today, there's just different degrees of style and how different people interpret that word," he says.

"When you look at the way NFL players dress, each guy wants to be flashier than the next. They want to have fabrics and fits that you see from a mile away. That's because the personality of the football guy typically is that way. A hockey guy is typically more reserved. I think it's just more of a reflection of the personality of the athlete by sport."

When NHLers do want to showcase their personal style, team social media strategists are starting to help by posting real-time photos of players arriving to the rink in their fits. "You get to see them coming in and it makes them more human and more relatable. That inspires someone who goes to work in a suit every day to do something a little different to emulate them," says Marchitelli.

Some athletes prefer to stay on the safe side of Marchitelli's tastes. "I'm probably one of his more conservative clients," says Stars netminder Jake Oettinger, who was fitted by Marchitelli for the first time for this year's All-Star Game. But Marchitelli does have clients on his roster whose big personalities announce themselves in their fits.

"I can't think of more than three or four hockey players that would even attempt to put that thing on and try to pull it off," Marchitelli says of a suit he made for Evander Kane that the Oiler debuted in late 2023, pictured below. "That is a bold, badass man. I regard Evander as one of the best-dressed players in all of sports."

"I put a lot of thought into the suits I make for myself and wear. There's certain games you kind of pick out different suits for," says Kane. "There's a few guys who take pride in their appearance and try to add a bit more style into it. You're seeing them more around the league. A few years ago, I started wearing sneakers with my suit, no tie, button the dress shirt all the way up, you know, just different things. And I see some more guys doing that now."

Roll out the red carpet

Today's athletes, fans, and even front offices still want players to look put together when they come to the rink, but they aren't necessarily stuck on a suit and tie being the highest interpretation of what that means. What looks and feels professional today is taking on a new definition, in part due to a gradual, culture-wide inclination towards casual, and also partially due to the influence of other major sports on hockey culture.

"The pandemic bubble has broken down a lot of the dress code for the NHL," says Kesha McLeod, who now serves as Sherwood's in-house fashion director after a successful career styling athletes like Serena Williams and James Harden. "We got to see how expressive guys were and what they were wearing - not only just suits, but in casual wear. In what their interpretation was, we got to see a lot of personalities," she says.

"I really like now that people are taking chances. If we're going to have a dress code, to have fun with colors, textures, and to keep it exciting."

McLeod remembers being on the ground during what she described as the "original tunnel walk" days of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh, when the Miami Heat turned the act of showing up at the arena into what she calls "the new red carpet" after the NBA instituted its dress code in 2005 requiring players to arrive in business casual attire. This channeled the fashion sensibilities NBA players are known for into menswear, transforming the category.

"Being one of the originators of the NBA tunnel walk and seeing the progress of that tunnel from 2006 to now - I think eventually the NHL finally got to it and saw that it was something exciting," she says. "The NHL is just capitalizing on that and embracing the players that they have."

Sherwood has branded itself on the hunch that style will be integral to engaging a new generation of fans who don't dress like their grandparents. "We started to look at the young kids coming into the sport and the influence that other sports have on hockey and hockey players. It is immense," says Brendon Arnold, Sherwood's associate vice president of brand. "You look at the NBA, you look at the NFL, you look at golf, you look at all these other sports: they have started to evolve over time and leverage creativity and individuality and self-expression and plug it into their sports," he says.

"That makes this a better game, it makes it a bigger game, you start attracting more people, you start attracting different types of people to the game that may not have even considered it because they may have believed it was stuck back in the old ages of what it used to be. Hockey is now becoming a more relevant sport with the youth because they're starting to see athletes and players and teams that resemble themselves and their values," Arnold adds.

Living by a new code

When you talk to today's on-ice leaders about values that represent hockey, they don't sound too different from the game's originators almost a century ago.

"It's a very gritty sport. You've got to really work hard," says Ducks forward Max Jones.

What's changed is the way that sentiment is expressed. Instead of suits and ties, those values are embodied in brands like cult classic Violent Gentlemen, started in 2011 in Southern California by Mike Hammer and Brian Talbert, who came from a music and action sports background.

"The hard work tied to Violent Gentlemen, the grit to their brand, is what attracts a lot of people," says Ducks forward Frank Vatrano. He recently modeled for the company in its newest lifestyle campaign announcing its biggest partnership to date, with Ebbets Field Flannels. "People in the hockey community can be really blue collar and I think that's what their company represents," Vatrano says.

"The stuff they make is more of a streetwear-type brand," says Jones, who also modeled alongside Vatrano for the campaign. "I feel like it represents hockey players a lot."

That new expression of the same values has worked its way up to front offices, some of which have experimented with loosening restrictions on dress codes since the pandemic. In 2021, Arizona took the league-leading approach of completely relaxing its gameday dress code in a move designed to connect more directly with fans.

"We have to tap into fans any way they can relate," says Xavier Gutierrez, Coyotes president and CEO. The team's focus is not just on its existing fan base, but on what Gutierrez calls "fans in waiting."

"A central effort around that is to leverage content, experiences, and culture. Fashion, music, and food really engage these fans in waiting," he explains.

To be sure, the Coyotes have received some recent criticism about their arena issues. But the franchise appears to have turned a corner on the ice, and it's collected a lot of positive feedback from players since initiating the clothing policy changes. "It's great that guys get to show their personality a little more in the way they dress," forward Liam O'Brien says.

"I really enjoyed in Arizona showing up wearing whatever I wanted," says Senators defenseman Jakob Chychrun, who got a taste of the no-dress-code life before he was traded from the Coyotes to Ottawa last year. "I think you just come out feeling good about yourself. A little bit of swagger, a little bit of confidence. Confidence is everything. If you can get a little bit extra out of picking something that you think looks good out of your closet, all the power to you," he says.

While Conn Smythe might have grown his fan base through a monoculture of suits and ties, more people today see variety as the path forward.

"Personality is how community is built," Violent Gentlemen's Hammer says. "Obviously we're all here because we like hockey. That's a given. But what other common ground is there? Those more connective things, like favorite brands and fashion, are just going to connect the fans more and more to the players, and that's great for everybody," he says. "That pushes the whole sport forward."

Chychrun summed it up: "Hockey players are such genuine people," he says. "I don't think what you wear should determine whether or not we are professionals. I'm always an advocate for dropping the dress code, letting guys express themselves, doing whatever we can to grow the game."

Jolene Latimer is a feature writer at theScore.

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