“I mean, my role, I want to be a leader,” Washington winger says. “I want to step up in the big moments.”
Jakub Vrana came off the ice at the Washington Capitals’ practice facility Saturday afternoon, casually looked up, and flashed his signature wide smile at the onlookers above. It’s hard to find a moment when the 24-year-old Czech winger isn’t smiling, joking or genuinely enjoying himself.
He can’t help it. Vrana describes himself as a “happy kid” who loves hockey, likes to have fun, laugh and then laugh some more. He knows the Capitals’ fan base views him the same way.
“I mean, first off, when you are just looking at my face, I mean, I look like [a kid] a little bit,” the babyfaced Vrana said with a lighthearted chuckle. “You can’t do anything about that.”
His escapades with teammates in the days after winning the 2018 Stanley Cup are also enduring examples of that “kid” persona — the photos and videos from those nights still frequently surface on social media. His permanent personal reminder is the Stanley Cup tattoo he got on his left wrist while holding former goaltender Braden Holtby’s hand.
“I wake up and I didn’t even know I had it,” Vrana said recently. “I looked at my arm the next morning, and it was there.”
Jakub Vrana really just letting everyone know: “Excuse me! I am babey!”
Bonus:
There was talk of how Bondra scored 503 goals in his career, which was “pretty good,” Vrana remarked, and how Bondra tallied 19 hat tricks during his 16-year NHL career. When Vrana noted he hadn’t yet managed one, Bondra asked why.
“What is stopping you from scoring a hat trick,” Bondra asked Vrana. “You’re going to have three to four scoring chances. Just do it.”
“You just need to imagine it, and it will happen,” Vrana recalls Bondra telling him.
So on his ride home from the autograph session, Vrana started to envision his first hat trick. Twenty-four hours later, he scored three goals in a 4-2 win over the Calgary Flames.
