The playful side of Randy Carlyle couldn’t help itself as he walked through the Ducks’ locker room after a recent practice.
He had just put his players through a grueling, 90-minute session that ended in a conditioning skate, and it was clear from their faces that Swedish winger Jakob Silfverberg handled it slightly better than Finnish defenseman Sami Vatanen.
“Sami is redder than you,” Carlyle told Silfverberg. “The Finns aren’t in as good a shape as the Swedes.”
Carlyle was joking, of course. It’s a part of him that often rears its head as he makes his way around a familiar setting, needling players about their stamina or their wardrobe.