Nikita Zadorov walked into his post-game media scrum on Saturday night with a smirk. He was ready for the moment.
"Where's my beer," cracked the Bruins' big defenseman.
If you were anywhere near Boston sports-related internet on Friday, you'd know to what he was referring.
Zadorov was sitting courtside with David Pastrnak at the Celtics-Lakers game on Friday night at the Garden and when the camera caught panned on him, the big man chugged his whole beer to the delight of the crowd - and maybe a wince or two from his bosses.
But if his exuberant imbibing had a deleterious affect on him, it didn't show up in his performance in the B's 4-1 win over the New Jersey Devils on Saturday. Zadorov was all over the ice in 20:01, posting a plus-3, with two blocks and a couple of decent scoring chances, one of which went off the crossbar.
Zadorov had a chuckle about the whole thing.
"I went to 15 games probably and the camera was never on me. But one time I went with Pasta, they put a camera on me and I was like 'I have to do it for Boston,'" he said with a laugh. "It was a cool moment. But you've got to have a guilty game once in a while and play good. I thought I did real good today."