From well before Dan Bylsma was promoted from the Coachella Valley Firebirds of the American Hockey League to head coach of the Seattle Kraken, it was publicly known that he has a comedic side. This became common knowledge across the hockey world during his time as coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins, which coincided with the filming of HBO’s hit series, 24/7 Penguins/Capitals: Road to the NHL Winter Classic.

In that series, some of Bylsma’s mood-lightening antics were revealed. Penguins players who lost contests in practice were “punished” by doing things like running to the top of what was then called Heinz Field in full hockey gear, which Jordan Staal did in one of the episodes. (Bylsma later lamented to us in his first interview with the Sound Of Hockey Podcast that Staal cheated at his punishment by hitching a ride on a golf cart to the other side of the Pittsburgh Steelers stadium.)

In another segment of the 24/7 series, filmed during the first practice of December when players get to shave their “Movember” mustaches, Bylsma held a shootout competition to determine who would be “Mustache Boy.” The loser, defenseman Paul Martin, had to keep his mustache for a second month.

During the aforementioned SOH Podcast interview, recorded with Bylsma in October 2022, Bylsma shared one of his favorite “punishment” stories from back in his Pittsburgh days. In this one, Bylsma included himself as a potential loser of the contest. He said defenseman Jay McKee had a “Semi-rig truck with a pickup truck bed on the back. It was a special-looking machine. We did a shootout to wash his truck, and I lost that one.”

And so, there was Penguins coach Dan Bylsma, in the bowels of Mellon Arena, scrubbing down McKee’s oversized vehicle.

As Bylsma’s career progressed, the antics evolved, but they certainly didn’t stop. On another more recent episode of the SOH Podcast, we asked Kraken goalie Joey Daccord about his favorite memory of playing for Bylsma in the AHL. He recalled a story from his days playing for the Charlotte Checkers in Seattle’s inaugural season, when the Firebirds were not yet in existence, and Bylsma was serving as assistant coach for the temporary AHL affiliate of the Kraken. The Checkers were on the road to face the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, where Bylsma had also coached before getting promoted to the Penguins in 2009.

“[We were staying at] like a little Holiday Inn in the middle of nowhere, and I think there was a wedding in the hotel,” Daccord said. “We were in Wilkes-Barre, where he coached, and he obviously coached and won the Cup in Pittsburgh, so not far away. And he was doing video on his laptop, cutting clips of the game from the night before in the lobby of the hotel with a hockey helmet on. No cage, just a hockey helmet on.

“So this older couple goes up to him and is like, ‘Oh, my God! Dan Bylsma! We’re huge fans, we’re big Pens fans, can we have a picture?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, sure, no problem!’ He stands up, takes the picture with the hockey helmet on.”

Daccord’s story made it clear that the legend of Bylsma has already grown in Seattle, even within the relatively young Kraken organization. At this point, every player that spent time in Coachella Valley has a favorite “Disco Dan” moment. But when Sound Of Hockey asked Bylsma what the goofiest thing he’s done to motivate his team was, he said, “That’s not for you to hear.”

Thankfully, his players were a bit more forthcoming.

Building trust

When defenseman Ryker Evans finished his 20-year-old season with the Regina Pats of the WHL, he signed his entry-level contract with the Kraken and reported to Charlotte to begin his pro hockey career. It didn’t take him long to learn that Bylsma’s approach to coaching was a bit different from what he had encountered previously.

“When I first went to Charlotte, [it was] my first week there,” Evans recalled. “[Bylsma] comes up to me, and he’s like, ‘I want to trust you.’ So he stood in front of the net while I was shooting pucks.”

Standing in front of the net while a player practices shooting is not the most absurd thing. Players do that for one another all the time to practice tipping shots and screening the goalie. But they wear padding from head to toe. Bylsma was not wearing any padding at the time.

“The goalie’s playing net, and he’s standing in front of the net. Just standing there… I thought that was crazy. [I was] just a guy coming out of junior. I’ve never seen a coach do that,” Evans said with a laugh.

This tracks with what we’ve seen from Bylsma in training camp and practices. He loves sliding around on the ice in his tracksuit, acting like a defenseman trying to break up shots and passes, and making players chip pucks over him during drills. When we asked Bylsma in training camp about his willingness to put his body in harm’s way, he joked that the puck is “just rubber.”

Thankfully, Evans didn’t hit his new coach with any shots in Charlotte, but he admitted he may not have been firing the pucks with 100 percent effort. “I probably wasn’t shooting that hard. It was scary. It was really scary.”

Pre-game escapades

A consistent theme we picked up from chatting with players who spent time in Coachella Valley under Bylsma is that his antics can really ratchet up just before the players hit the ice for a game. Those moments are some of the tensest in sports, and Bylsma uses schtick to lighten the mood.

Former Firebirds like Tye Kartye and Shane Wright have seen Bylsma dig deep into his bag of tricks, especially when announcing the starting lineup.

“One that I liked was when… I think it was in the playoffs in Coachella, or maybe it was the end of the regular season,” Kartye said. “But he came in with the Firebird head on. Like, the mascot.”

Yes, we are talking about the actual head of Fuego, the Firebirds’ mascot. Dan Bylsma entered the dressing room before a game wearing the mascot’s head.

But the best part?

“He was just talking normal,” Kartye said. “And everyone was obviously a little thrown off by that. So that, I enjoyed. That one was pretty funny.”

Kartye said Bylsma—from inside Fuego’s head—announced the starting lineup and told the team what play to run off the opening face-off, but that particular message may not have landed. “I don’t know if anyone got the play because everyone was laughing at the hat.”

Wright confirmed that this event did happen as Kartye remembered it, but it wasn’t the only outlandish bit Bylsma pulled during his time in Coachella.

“He did do that,” Wright said, chuckling. “He would also draw stuff on his face. He would have the Firebirds logo drawn on his face pre-game, and then just be deadpan. Like, no emotion, no reaction, just [acting] like nothing was wrong.

“We’re all cracking up, trying not to laugh while he’s talking to us, but he just does those things to keep it light, keep the guys loose before the game, and I love it. I love when he does that.”

Even some veteran Kraken players who have never played full-time for Bylsma before have already seen Bylsma’s pre-game magic. Jared McCann saw him in action at Seattle’s first-ever preseason game against the Vancouver Canucks in Spokane. For context, this was when Bylsma was helping to run training camp with the Kraken, but his role for that season was as an assistant coach with the Charlotte Checkers, the temporary AHL affiliate. He wasn’t even the AHL head coach yet.

“He came into the room with some kind of marker on his face. And I was just like, ‘Oh, Dan, you’ve got some stuff on your face,’” McCann remembered. “And I didn’t know if he realized, but I didn’t realize myself that he was kind of playing a joke. And he goes over—he’s fully… suit on, tie, everything—and he dunks his head in the cold tub and just starts yelling.”

There is a method to the madness (and yes, it is madness). Bylsma knows these are nerve-racking moments. He wants his players to feel as comfortable as possible when the puck drops, so he digs into his magic hat to ease the stress of the moment.

“I think that’s exactly why he does it,” Wright said. “Just to keep it light, keep it loose, keep the guys relaxed, and to remind us to have a little fun out there as well.”

McCann added: “He’s a laid-back guy, but when he has to be serious, you can tell. He’s got that good dynamic of both. He’s a guy you can go talk to, but he also expects a lot out of his team. There’s not going to be any favoritism on this team, so it’s good.”

Hockey isn’t brain surgery

Sometimes losses in the NHL can feel devastating. As we saw last season, the mood around a struggling team can get tense and downtrodden, because in the top hockey league in the world, winning really is everything. But Bylsma is one of those coaches who can recognize that, although it is a results-based business, it’s still a game. It’s still meant to be played with an element of fun.

“I think anything you do in life, and anything you want to do in life, you should do it with some energy and passion and joy, and not head down, brow beating,” Bylsma said.

The veteran coach harkened back to his youth and playing days, when he spent 11 summers doing manual labor.

“I have a vision of my landscaping days when I had to shovel rocks and dig a ditch and shovel more rocks. That’s hard work to me,” Bylsma said. “Playing hockey and getting better at it and enjoying it and competing at it is an enjoyable thing. And I think it always should be done that way. It should be with a smile, but also with a sneer at times.”

It was a heartfelt answer to our question about his approach to mixing humor and seriousness to motivate his players. But with any serious answer, Bylsma always likes to mix in some levity.

“If you need any [landscaping] work around your house, give me a call.”