Jagr's playoff beard talk of Flyers locker room

VOORHEES, N.J. -- When Jaromir Jagr was a young scoring star with the Pittsburgh Penguins, he earned the nickname "Mario Jr," as a credit to his teammate, Mario Lemieux, and as an anagram for his first name.

Now in the latter stages of his career, Jagr might have a new nickname -- Patches.

Now a grizzled, 40-year-old veteran, Jagr is growing a playoff beard -- of sorts.

"Just wanted to shave all the gray [hair] and that's what happened," Jagr said of a beard that appears sporadically around the lower half of his face. "I don't want to dye it."

"Patches," Danny Briere told NHL.com. "It looked like patches. I don't know what's going on there. I don't talk to him about it."

Nicklas Grossmann told NHL.com he didn't get much of a reason when he asked Jagr about the beard.

"I don't know really what to say about it," he said. "I asked him and he didn't have an explanation. I guess he shaved off the white and kept the rest. … Maybe that's a Czech thing."

Jakub Voracek, who grew up in the same hometown as Jagr in the Czech Republic, told NHL.com that it certainly is not a Czech look -- just a Jagr look.

"In the playoffs he always does something like that," Voracek said. "Last time I saw him play [in the playoffs] for the Rangers, he had that goatee going on. He always tries to figure something out. Same thing for "Movember," he had something going on there."

Jagr said he didn't think his unique look would catch on.

"I don't think so," he said. "Because they're not 40 yet. When they turn 40 and you don't want to be gray, you have to shave it that way. Was my idea. I don't want to look gray."

More than one teammate agreed -- Jagr's look will stay with Jagr.

"You never know, maybe somebody will come in in the morning and have something like it," Voracek said, "but I don't think it's going to be me."

"I'll never do that," Eric Wellwood added. "That's too ugly, what he's doing. Don't tell him I said that."

Contact Adam Kimelman at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter: @NHLAdamK