It is time for teams to dump archaic hair, facial hair rules

The New York Islanders made one of the smartest free agent signings of the offseason when they signed forward Anthony Duclair to a four-year contract. He brings speed, goal-scoring and offensive creativity to a team that has been desperately looking for it. He should be a great fit, especially as he gets to play for his former juniors coach, Patrick Roy.

The only downside to the move for Duclair? He had to make some changes to his appearance to satisfy the rules set forward by general manager Lou Lamoriello.

Specifically, Duclair had to shave his beard and cut off his dreadlocks. Duclair posted a picture on social media of his hair on Wednesday night, indicating that he satisfied the rules.

This should not be a thing in 2024.

Lamoriello has enforced a variety of rules on his players throughout his various front office stops in New Jersey, Toronto and, now, New York and refuses to give an inch on almost all of them. Facial hair is not allowed during the regular season, hair can not touch the collar of the jersey and no jewelry is allowed.

He also has a bizarre rule about not allowing players to wear high jersey numbers. This is the only one he seems to show some flexibility with as he allowed players like Jaromir Jagr and Alexander Mogilny to keep their high numbers as a show of respect for what they had accomplished in the NHL.

These rules are almost identical to what the New York Yankees have enforced on their players since the mid-1970s under former owner George Steinbrenner, where players are not allowed to have beards or have hair that extends to their jersey collars.

The mindset is for everybody to look uniform, and professional, and presentable, a clean-cut image, so to speak. But what it's really about is control. It's a way for power-hungry executives — which Lamoriello has  always been — to micromanage every small detail of his team and his roster. It is to cut out the individuality of every player on the roster.

Yes, Duclair was almost certainly aware of the rules when he chose to sign with the Islanders. He did not have to sign there if it was too much of a problem. But that takes away from the absurdity of these arbitrary and archaic restrictions.

Maybe there was a time when that sort of thing worked. Even then it is debatable. If that time did exist, it has long since passed. It's still a team game, but allowing players to be themselves and have their own identity is also important to today's players.

This level of micromanagement and power grabs does nothing to further a team's ability to win, and if anything it might even keep players from wanting to sign there.

Lamoriello built a powerhouse with the Devils in the mid-1990s through the early 2000s, but he has not really found continued, sustained success — and certainly not championship level success — in nearly two decades. Perhaps that alone should make him try to reconsider what he is doing.

It is not like the current formula is producing results.