Brandon Tanev went viral on social media for the headshot he took for the Pittsburgh Penguins before the season started.
Tanev isn’t smiling in the picture. Nor does he have his game face on. The Penguins forward looks shocked as if he’s witnessing a crime happen behind the camera.
“I’ve definitely teased him about that a bit,” brother Chris Tanev said to the NHLPA. “I think I got about 100 messages when it came out. I can only imagine how many messages he got and how many people called him about it.”
Chris added in a different interview that “maybe he saw a ghost before they shot the picture?”
On Monday, Brandon was finally asked by the hockey media how this headshot came to be. Was he not ready? Did the photographer snap the button too soon? Was an alien spaceship landing in the background?
“I did actually see a ghost,” Brandon said joking. “It was walking behind the gentlemen taking our pictures. Kinda caught me off guard. I haven’t seen one of those things yet so it was pretty rare to see that and that’s obviously why I had that facial expression.”
Hockey Twitter kept digging and there’s more to this story. Brandon has basically had the same expression in every NHL headshot he’s taken since 2015.
Brandon Tanev 2015-16 to 2020-21 #LetsGoPens pic.twitter.com/QLMNaV0h3t
— Here's Your Replay ⬇️ (@HeresYourReplay) January 12, 2021
And he makes the same expression in candid photos.
Brandon Tanev’s not your typical Disney prince, but his bio picture most definitely saved our day.
https://t.co/rtExezFWa4 pic.twitter.com/0Hwffw7gOp
— Chris Cerullo (@CJC_95) January 13, 2021
Photo courtesy of NHL Headshots
