NHL Preseason
When the New York Yankees announced in February that they were ending a longtime clubhouse policy and allowing players to grow facial hair, only one professional sports team was still widely known to enforce a clean-shaven mandate: the New York Islanders.
For the Islanders, the strict standard was set by then-president and general manager Lou Lamoriello, who wanted his teams to show unity through uniformity. High jersey numbers weren’t allowed in the locker room, barring special circumstances like a veteran with established digits coming to the club. Also outlawed among players and staffers alike were long hair and — perhaps most notably in a league full of them — beards.
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That changed in the spring after the Islanders declined to renew the 82-year-old Lamoriello’s contract, later hiring the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Mathieu Darche as his GM successor. Under the 48-year-old Darche, who was an assistant GM with the Lightning, Lamoriello’s rules have quickly become part of the past. On Wednesday, during the team’s first practice of training camp with its full NHL roster all together doing five-on-five work, defenseman Tony DeAngelo skated with a No. 77 jersey, having switched from No. 4. The back of center Mathew Barzal’s hair probably poked out from the bottom of his helmet a little more than Lamoriello would’ve liked. Defenseman Scott Mayfield’s flow? Definitely.
And there were beards. Lots and lots of beards. Forward Kyle Palmieri, one of the league’s elite beard-growers, sported the dark facial hair that was typical for him before an April 2021 trade to Lamoriello’s Islanders. Defenseman Ryan Pulock rocked an emerging beard, as did winger Anthony Duclair, goalie Ilya Sorokin and newly signed forward Jonathan Drouin, among other players. Longtime Islanders forward Matt Martin, now a special assistant to the general manager, has grown his brown hair out and added a beard since retiring after last season. Plenty more people around the rink had sprouted at least a bit of stubble.
“You don’t realize how much beard you have until you have to shave it every day,” said winger Julien Gauthier, who has been with the Islanders organization since 2023.
With Lamoriello in charge, Palmieri shaved every other day. It became second nature — he’d take a shower and do it at the rink, then get on with his schedule — so much so that Palmieri still sometimes feels uneasy arriving at the rink with a beard.
“I’m so used to coming in and looking in the mirror and making sure it’s OK that it still catches me off guard a little,” he said, adding that he believed the no-beard rule got blown out of proportion outside the organization. Added Pulock, “I don’t think the rule was a big issue for anybody in here.”
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Having a beard on the ice doesn’t feel any different to Palmieri, and his different appearance didn’t strike teammates as odd; many of them had already seen him with a beard when he played for the New Jersey Devils. In fact, under Lamoriello’s old rules, transitioning the other way was more jarring.
“The first time (former Islanders defenseman) Nick Leddy shaved here, I didn’t recognize who the guy was,” Pulock said.
More than any club in the league, the Islanders have a history with facial hair: Their Stanley Cup-winning teams of the 1980s are credited with originating the NHL playoff beard. At first, players were too tired to shave, Denis Potvin told The Athletic in June. Then they just stopped altogether, and a tradition began. During the postseason nowadays, players around the league keep their beards until they either are eliminated or hoist the Stanley Cup.
Even Lamoriello permitted the growing of playoff beards, and the Islanders twice reached the Eastern Conference final with him running their front office, including in 2021 when they fell 1-0 to the Lightning in Game 7. The run lasted long enough for plenty of players to grow beards that would’ve been forbidden in the regular season.
The grooming rules weren’t confined to players. Coach Patrick Roy, who previously led the Colorado Avalanche and the Québec Remparts in the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League, promptly shaved when Lamoriello hired him in January 2024. He said there was no adjustment to the new grooming regimen, but he’s returned to his gray-bearded look this season.
“It’s no different for me,” said Roy, whose beard isn’t quite as bushy as it’s been in past stops. “It’s how I was in junior for years and even my last year in Colorado.”
Gauthier shaved every three or four days under the old rules. He downplayed the change in routine, but coming into the first day of Islanders training camp earlier this month, he couldn’t help notice the differences in some teammates.
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“Same old day, just you could see that almost everybody had a beard,” Gauthier said. “It’s a little bit different, but I don’t think the guys are thinking (about it) too much.”
As an organization, the Islanders are going through significant changes. Lamoriello, of course, is no longer there (though a bearded statue of a generic Islanders player that was present during his tenure still stands in the lobby of the team’s practice rink). Longtime lineup staples Martin and Cal Clutterbuck have retired. Brock Nelson and Noah Dobson, key contributors on recent playoff teams, now play for the Avalanche and the Montreal Canadiens, respectively.
More veterans could be on the move soon, with captain Anders Lee and forward Jean-Gabriel Pageau entering the final years of their contracts. Defenseman Matthew Schaefer, meanwhile, appears poised to start the year with the NHL club after the Islanders picked him No. 1 in the 2025 draft, having already endeared himself to fans with his enthusiasm and smooth skating. And, atop the front office, Darche brings a new voice to lead the way.
There are fresh faces everywhere — and familiar ones with a bit more hair.
(Top photos of Kyle Palmieri: Andrew Mordzynski and Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)
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Peter Baugh is a staff writer for The Athletic NHL based in New York. He has previously been published in the Columbia Missourian, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kansas City Star, Politico and the Washington Post. A St. Louis native, Peter graduated from the University of Missouri and previously covered the Missouri Tigers and the Colorado Avalanche for The Athletic. Follow Peter on Twitter @Peter_Baugh
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