Rituals play part in pregame preparation

Patrik Laine has his rituals on game days, a hodgepodge of habits that are musts in his routine before he takes the ice for the Winnipeg Jets.
"The last, maybe three or four years, I eat ground beef and macaroni before the game. Only home games, because it's hard to find it on the road. But on game days at home, I eat it twice, lunch, supper," Laine said. "I put my pants on last. I even put my jersey on first. And I just play video games."

When you score 44 goals in a season, you stick with what works for you. And when the Stanley Cup Playoffs begin, you stick with what's worked for you, on and off the ice.
"I'm not going to change. I'm going to go with the same routine," Laine said. "I'm not going to do it because I'm superstitious, I like the food and I like video games, I do it because I like it and I've always done it."
You've heard the usual hockey-player routines: taking pregame naps, eating meals of lean protein and carbohydrates and participating in hallway soccer games. Some players take it a step further, doing something that can make them feel more prepared physically or mentally. That's true for the playoffs, too; the pressure is that much greater, but that's all the more reason to keep the routine the same.
"If you keep it the same, go out there and stay loose, when you're having fun and you're loose, any athlete, any sport, that's when they're playing their best. They're not tense, not thinking about it," said Jets forward Paul Stastny, who gets to the rink about three hours ahead of time and watches Jeopardy or Pardon the Interruption. "It's stuff you've done your whole career. Just because it's the playoffs doesn't change much."
While rituals depend on the individual, the reason why hockey players have routines seems universal.
"I think a big part of it is we play 82 games," New York Islanders forward Anders Lee said. "There's so much routine, every day is pretty structured, and you just want to go in every night feeling as good as possible and as most ready to go. There's just a lot that goes into getting your body back to 100 percent every night, and a lot of it has to do with the routine."

Not every ritual has a correlation with on-ice performance, though. It may be a habit a player picked up during his career and it's stuck with him.
Take Tampa Bay defenseman Victor Hedman for example. He's played "five-finger fillet" with assistant equipment manager Rob Kennedy for five or six seasons. Kennedy puts his hands flat on the bench and Hedman uses the blade of his stick to hit the spaces between Kennedy's fingers.
"I've hit his fingers a few times and maybe his face once, but Rob's a tough guy. He can take it," Hedman said. "I'm not really superstitious. It's just something I like to do before the game."
Hedman may be among those who don't subscribe to superstition, but it has its place in hockey. Pittsburgh Penguins forward Bryan Rust always eats a bag of peanut M&Ms before a game. The one game he didn't have any this season, he said it showed on the ice.
"I was either a minus-3 or minus-4," Rust said. "So, I try not to [forget]."
But rituals are also about finding the right balance. Anaheim Ducks forward Chris Wagner used to call his dad and girlfriend every game day. Now, he mixes up his routine, watching a Netflix show or adjusting his nap time, depending on how he feels that day.
"I don't like to have a strict routine because if something goes wrong, you might get screwed up," Wagner said.
Whether done for fun or deemed a necessary part of the preparation, game-day routines still have its place in hockey.
"We're just creatures of habit, with certain ways to practice and certain things to do before the game," Blackhawks forward Patrick Kane said. "Sometimes you just do those things to get you into the right frame of mind."
NHL correspondents Corey Long, Wes Crosby and Scott Billeck contributed to this report.