The most telling sign that Patrick Eaves has truly fit in with the Ducks might have been off the ice.
A few weeks after Eaves arrived in Anaheim, he spoke in a postgame media scrum when teammate Sami Vatanen walked by and gently stroked Eaves’ bushy, mountain-man beard. It was a photo-ready moment that captured Eaves’ cheery impact on the Ducks. The beard is the hockey equivalent of a roadside attraction, grown since October 2015 and trimmed monthly, according to Eaves.
“I thought it would stop growing at a point,” he said.