10 NHL Players and Coaches Who Need to Smile More

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Not many players in the league flash their crocodile smile as often as Alexander Ovechkin, so he's certainly not the poster child for needing to smile more. But there are a lot of players, and coaches, who aren't as free-spirited as The Great Eight.

What follows are 10 guys—five players and five coaches—who could take a few lessons in smiling from Ovi. Life is too short to be serious all the time, and these guys could lighten up a little bit.

Scott Arniel

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It's so bad in Columbus right now, it might help the situation if someone had a little bit of a sense of humor about things. It's understandably hard to be laughing the entire game when your job is vanishing with each subsequent game, though.

Daniel & Henrik Sedin

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These guys are too good to take themselves so seriously. It would be nice to see one, or both, of them crack a smile before being handed significant individual hardware in Vegas.

Todd McLellan

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Not many coaches have been as frustrated by world-class players over the last few years as McLellan. Not many coaches have won as many games as the McLellan-led Sharks, either.

Jarome Iginla

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Obviously, Iginla has plenty to be frustrated about during his last few years in Calgary, but the future Hall of Famer has already established himself as someone nobody should mess with.

Maybe now it's time to establish himself as someone who has a really good time as well?

Peter Laviolette

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While his multi-million dollar goalie has admittedly not given him a whole lot to be excited about this year, he still has some great characters in the room in Philly that have to keep him on his toes. Maybe Chris Pronger's post-game comments could get him to smirk a little.

Nicklas Lidstrom

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He smiles almost every year when they hand him the Norris Trophy, and will certainly be smiling when they place him into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

But he's had enough reasons to smile as a member of some really good Red Wings teams that showing a legendary smile wouldn't be a bad thing.

Joel Quenneville

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For a guy working with as much talent as he is, and with the best record in the league, it seems like Quenneville is going to have a coronary two or three times every period.

He spent some time in a hospital last year, so maybe having a smile at the antics from some of his young players wouldn't hurt.

Sidney Crosby

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I'm sure he'll smile when he (finally) returns to the ice for the Pens, and most of the hockey world hopes that's soon. With the amount of pressure he's had on his shoulders since being drafted, it's understandable that he might be serious at times.

But all the time?

Barry Trotz

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He's coached more than 1,000 games in Nashville and is one of the most respected coaches in the game, but Trotz rarely lets his smile appear. Hopefully, he was able to grin when Pekka Rinne signed to stay with him in Nashville for the coming seven years.

Jonathan Toews

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His nickname is "Captain Serious" because a smile from Toews is almost as rare as a goal from John Scott. Like Crosby, he's had a lot of pressure put on him as a young captain, and he's stepped up to the challenge every time.

It's odd that he leads the Blackhawks by example in every way but one: smiling. At least he's got Patrick Kane to handle that for him.