Replay of the Day: He shouldn’t have shaved it, they said. The hockey gods won’t approve.
And yet, there he was, his playoff beard shorn early but his moustache* still firmly intact, scoring yet another game-winning goal, the rookie’s third in these Stanley Cup playoffs.
Adam Henrique — a 22-year-old Calder Trophy candidate doing all he can to win an even better piece of hardware — is now tied with the playoff lead in winners.
How clutch is the mustachioed kid?
He scored the double-overtime Game 7 winner to push the Devils past the Florida Panthers in Round 1. He scored another OT winner in the conference finals, beating the Vezina Trophy-nominated Henrik Lundqvist, a dagger in the heart that eliminated New Jersey’s bitterest rival, the New York Rangers.
And now this beauty: accepting the pass on his skate, guiding it to his tape, and beating the likely Conn Smythe winner, Jonathan Quick, high and clean.
“A big-time play,” Henrique’s coach, Peter DeBoer, says. “Off a skate, a quick shot up top. I mean, especially with the way Quick has been playing. It was a goal-scorer’s play. He’s got a knack for that.”
“I think Clarky turned it over right away. You saw it when he had it in the blue line. I was hoping he was going to see me,” Henrique explains. “Made a great play across the ice. Got off my skate pretty good. Anyway, just had to get it to the net quick.”
Not since Chris Drury and Milan Hejduk of the 1999 Colorado Avalanche has a rookie scored three game-clinchers in the postseason.
“It’s obvious the goals he has scored are important goals for this team,” Martin Brodeur says. “It’s pretty amazing to see at that young age to be able to come in and really be an impact the way that he is.”
Like Brodeur, and even though the Devils trail 3-1 in the series, Henrique is enjoying the moment.
“It’s fun. This is where every kid dreams of playing one day. We know it’s going to be a tough ask to come back,” he says. “There’s no quit in the group in here. We know we can do it. We know we can put four together and come back.”
For one night at least, the hockey gods respected the ’stache.
*Fun lip-hair fact: Hockey’s greatest moustache, Lanny McDonald, was in attendance at Staples Center for Henrique’s Game 4 heroics.
