CRANBERRY, Pa. -- Having hotel roommates on road trips used to be standard practice in the NHL until fairly recently.
Since the 2013 revision of the collective bargaining agreement, any player not on an entry-level contract is guaranteed their own room on the road. Before that, having a single room was a privilege reserved only for veterans with either 600 games played or 10 years of experience.
The Penguins don't have many players left in training camp on entry-level contracts -- just Ty Smith, Sam Poulin and Filip Lindberg, with the latter two likely to start the year in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. Unless there are any entry-level players recalled during the year, there really won't be any roommate situations on the team.
I thought the topic of roommates would be a good one for my new regular feature this season called "Survey Says," where I go around the locker room and ask as many players as I can the same fun question about something that isn't quite hockey related and lets readers get to know them more.
This edition's question? Which teammate would you least want to have as a roommate on a road trip?
It led to some pretty funny answers.
Jake Guentzel: "Probably Tanger because he's on his phone all day watching Instagram."
Tristan Jarry: "Somebody that doesn't nap long. I know Tanev didn't nap at all. That'd be probably someone I would not want, someone who doesn't sleep."
Danton Heinen: "I'll go with Friedsy. He's just wild."
Marcus Pettersson: "I just feel like Frieds. He's got a lot of things going on. He can never sit still."
Brian Dumoulin: "I'll go with Frieds. (laughs) No reason, that's a reason in it's own."
Brock McGinn: "Let's go with Frieds. He might talk my ear off."
Mark Friedman: "Is this where guys said me? Probably Zuck, just because he's loud."
Sidney Crosby: "Zucks. (laughs) He'd be all over me, he's always giving me a hard time. I feel like he'd be giving me a hard time the whole time."
Kasperi Kapanen: "Geno. I think he'd probably just speak Russian to me and be on his phone more than talking to me."
Bryan Rust: "Probably Zucker. He talks too much. He just likes to hear himself talk. I don't think I'd be into that."
Jason Zucker: "Bryan Rust, for sure. I hate that guy. I've hated him since we were 15."
P.O Joseph: "I'm going to say (Zohorna) because I know we wouldn't be sleeping at all. I feel like we'd be laughing and joking around too much."
Casey DeSmith: "Geno (laughs) I don't think he likes me."
Past editions of Survey Says can be found here. Have an idea for a future question? Leave it in the comments!
