With the Pittsburgh Penguins locker room in a generally upbeat state of mind after five straight convincing wins, perhaps it was a good day for the latest edition of One Question – especially since it was an offbeat topic.

The question: Do NHL players tend to be robotic and lack personality in interviews, and should they?

A quick bit of background: At the recent World Junior Championship, Team Canada outgoing defenseman Zayne Parekh, 19, created a bit of a stir in an interview when he mentioned “watching NHL guys be robots and not having any personality.” For the record, Parekh walked back those comments with an apology after Canada won the bronze medal and he headed back to his NHL team, Calgary.

So it might have been putting some Penguins on the spot during this small survey asking them in interviews to discuss how players come across in, well, interviews. They were good sports about it, and offered some insight.

“I don’t think I’m someone who’s really stressed in front of the camera. You never know if some guys are or aren’t. That’s a factor that probably plays into the answer you get,” Penguins winger Anthony Mantha said. “Obviously, some players keep it generic, which is the right way not to get in trouble.”

Hmm. So NHLers might keep things bland to avoid any sort of controversy?

“I think maybe compared to other sports you watch, it might be a little different,” Penguins forward Tommy Novak said. “I think you see more guys now being a little more out there, but I think maybe a culture thing.”

Novak doesn’t sense there’s a sort of peer pressure to keep things vanilla in interviews — although it’s possible Parekh’s apology came after some backlash.

“I think some guys show more personality than others, but not everyone is super comfortable being out there like that,” Novak said. “I think it’s guy by guy.”

Penguins defenseman Erik Karlsson, who more than once has accused reporters in Canada of being on the sensational side, predicted the Parekh might end up toning down his personality in public comments.

“If he makes it to the NHL, we’ll see how he handles it after two years in Calgary,” Karlsson quipped – although, for the record, Parekh has played 11 games with the Flames this season after debuting with one game last season.

Parekh might have earned the right to some leeway at the world juniors, where he set a tournament record for Team Canada defensemen with 13 points.

Karlsson also gets why some players at times might keep things mundane.

“Sometimes, yeah,” he said. “I think it’s politically correct answers sometimes, and it’s actual answers. But I just think that in today’s day and age, no matter what you say, there’s always going to be someone who disagrees with you and has a different opinion. So whether you want to take that battle or not I think is an individual question.”

Over the years, one subset of NHL players who often have been known for having and displaying a good deal of personality is the goaltenders.

Penguins goalie Stuart Skinner, who has seemingly endeared himself to his new teammates off the ice in his first few weeks since joining the team in a trade, was asked if goalies, with their sometimes loud or quirky personalities, should be exempt from any pressure to tone things down in interviews.

“We’ve definitely been known for more personality,” Skinner said of goalies. “Not exempt. I think (more personality) is what (Parekh) wants to see, right? More goalies. He must be good friends with his goalies.”

In general, Skinner said, “You’re going to see some guys that are going to have that type of character, and some guys who are more serious, some guys who are pretty relaxed and chill. That’s kind of just human nature. I guess it really depends on who you are.”

Here’s who Penguins captain and megastar Sidney Crosby is: A guy who did his first interview at age 7, and who – at least during the early years of his NHL career – got called “Sidbot” behind his back by reporters who sometimes complained that Crosby, while incredibly accessible and accommodating, often didn’t show a lot of personality or say anything remotely controversy.

Yet, for this One Question, Crosby gave the longest answer. Here’s the entire thing:

“I think you’ve just got to be yourself. I think hockey players are known as being pretty humble. I think that, playing a team sport, you ultimately think team-first. It’s not about necessarily you or promoting yourself. It’s about the team. That’s always kind of been ingrained in hockey, and that’s part of what I love about the game.

“Everyone’s just got to be themselves. That’s the biggest thing. That’s what makes being part of a team great, is the different personalities. I think for Zayne, he’s just got to be himself. If that means showing personality and being who he is, then he shouldn’t be afraid to do that, and people should accept that. For people who are less likely to kind of show their personality … I think it’s kind of hard for people to relate to people who have been in front of a camera since they’ve been a teenager or even younger than that.

“There’s a lot of reasons for that, or why you could say that. I think you’ve just got to be yourself at the end of the day.”

Tags: anthony mantha erik karlsson Pittsburgh Penguins Shelly Anderson Sidney Crosby stuart skinner tommy novak

Categorized: Pittsburgh Penguins