“Well I hadn’t met the guy before,†Maurice began. “It’s a real unique dynamic over there. So Mats loves to play. (He) not only loves practice, but he likes coming to practice, he likes being around the guys, he works hard in practice. He loves being at the rink and he loves the game. And that’s not always true over there.
“They’re not – players there aren’t conditioned to smile and have fun and get fired up for games,†he continued. “So I would notice that we’d be going out to a game and Mats would be standing at the door high-fiving everybody, chirping, getting ready to go to the game, and everybody else looked like they were going in for a shift, like, ‘What is this guy doing? All excited about playing hockey in the middle of January in Russia.’
“I really appreciated that from him. I think he loves to play, he loves the game, and as a coach you really appreciate that, but you especially appreciate it over there,†Maurice added. “Because it really stood out how much fun he has at the rink. (I’m sure) you’ve seen it a lot of the time (with the Rangers). He’s probably in the middle of most jokes and he’s laughing all the time. He takes the game seriously, but he’s not spitting nails before a game worrying about it. He goes out and plays as hard as he can. He has fun.