“We make fun of him, he does some dumb things sometimes, but he can laugh at himself,” Brendan Gallagher said. “He brings a lot of energy both on the ice and off the ice. We’ve had a lot of fun with him.”
What kind of dumb things?
“Everything,” he said. “You just talk to him every day. You can ask me on a daily basis and I’ll tell you the dumb thing he did that day. He’s funny. Obviously there’s a language barrier there too, he’s learning a new language and he’s 18, but there’s things we’re able to laugh about.”
When told of this, Kotkaniemi suggested he is the one getting the last laugh.
“Yeah, I do those things on purpose,” he said with a grin.