I wanted to publish a story on Coyotes defenseman Jason Demers last week, but he was far too subdued when I sat down with him.

“Why do you like me so much?” he chuckled. “I feel like we’ve got a little bromance going here.”

It’s not monogamous. Most reporters like Demers. Fans and teammates, too. Why?

Maybe it’s because he celebrates every goal like it’s his first, prompting his dad, Darrell, to jokingly worry that he will throw out a rotator cuff.

Maybe it’s because he plays hide-and-seek, or whatever other games Brad Richardson’s 3-year-old daughter, Lexi, demands of him.

Maybe it’s because he carries the nickname “Daddy,” one that Joe Thornton bestowed upon him over a game of cards while the two were teammates in San Jose.

Maybe it’s because he makes his teammates laugh so consistently.

“He’s a loud guy, a funny guy and it’s a lot of fun to be around – sometimes too much,” captain Oliver Ekman-Larsson said. “Everybody prepares differently before the game. He’s loud and says some weird stuff once in a while, or really, always, but he gets everybody going. We hear him all the time. He never stops talking. You know when he’s quiet, something is wrong.”

It’s hard not to love Demers after he brought a “celebratory” slice of pizza to his postgame media interview (an unprecedented experience for this reporter) after a win over the Anaheim Ducks last week, and then began the interview with a mouth full of sauce and cheese.

“No cameras, right?” he asked, glancing from side to side with well feigned concern as he hid the remaining crust by his leg. “Toc doesn’t like it.”

Demers was a seventh-round draft pick (No. 186) in 2008, yet he will play his 600th NHL game on Thursday against the Florida Panthers, one of his three former NHL teams. Every teammate interviewed for this story (some not quoted) noted how much the Coyotes missed him while he was out, and how happy they are that his wacky, weird and wild personality is back in the locker room for the playoff push.

“He’s a character,” Richardson said. “He keeps guys loose and calm and light and then he’s also a steady player. There’s a lot of pressure games coming so it’s good to have that big voice, that veteran presence to help take a little bit of that pressure off.”

Humor has been Demers’ release valve since he was a kid, Darrell Demers said; a way of reducing pressure. In that vein, he is a chip off the old block. On the rare days that laughter wasn’t filling the Demers household in Dorval and Montreal, Quebec, Darrell took it upon himself to restore it.

“There was one day where we were trying to get everybody excited for the day and it was probably negative-20 (degrees) outside,” Darrell said. “My wife was just leaving with the boys and everybody was a little down. I’m in my boxer shorts and a T-shirt and I just ran outside in this suburban area, jumped on the hood of her car and I started dancing. I dented her hood, but they were all just kind of cranky so I thought it needed to be done.”

Jason likes interaction and enjoys the opportunity to showcase his outgoing nature. He and Coyotes broadcast analyst Paul Bissonnette “performed” a role in ASU basketball fans’ “Curtain of Distraction” in January. Demers also joined Bissonnette and TV analyst Tyson Nash for a segment of the Coyotes’ comedic “Pillow Talk” series.

Jason isn’t shy about admitting he needs an audience. While he was rehabbing a meniscus injury with Bill Knowles, the director of reconditioning and athletic development at HP Sports in Wayne, Pennsylvania, Demers was simultaneously going a little batty. New York Islanders forward Andrew Ladd was rehabbing alongside him with what Demers said was the same injury (one Ladd suffered two days before Demers’ injury on Nov. 15). Demers said it helped to have a partner to push him, but he still missed being around his teammates.

“Everybody knows I like being around people so being by myself for five weeks in Philly was tough,” he said. “It’s a sense of comfort to be back with the guys and be back in the mix.”

His father expanded on that thought.

“Jason needs to talk, just like his dad,” Darrell said, laughing. “We moved a lot when he was a kid — every two years – and that can be hard on a kid. Not him. When we’d move to a new neighborhood, Jason would go knock on doors just to make friends. We wondered what the hell he was doing and he said, ‘I just want to meet new people.’”

Demers’ said his gregarious nature landed him in hot water in the early stages of his NHL career with the Sharks.

“I had some big-time downers early on,” he said. “I acted the same way when I was 20 and a rookie in the league and that didn’t leave a good taste in some guys’ mouths. That was kind of the knock on me early in San Jose. It was a growing process for me. Sometimes I was a bit too light and that got me in trouble, but I had some good veterans that taught me to toe the line. You can keep it light, but when it’s time to compete, you compete.”

Thornton, who was already in his 12th NHL season when Demers arrived in San Jose, shrugged it off as part of the growth process.

“As young guys, we all go through things like that,” Thornton said. “I think it’s up to the older guys to kind of put you back on the right path, but he was just an incredible guy. He wanted to work, he wanted to learn — just an incredible personality, and he fit in perfect here. He was well-loved in this locker room. I’m sure he’s been well-loved everywhere he’s been. Fantastic teammate.”

When Demers’ suffered his knee injury in the waning moments of a 2-1 win over the Nashville Predators, Darrell took stock of an unlikely career and resolved to appreciate it all the more. He remembered the kid he coached whose teams used to “beat the crap out of (now Sharks defenseman) Marc-Édouard Vlasic’s teams.” He remembered the kid who could have attended St. Paul’s School, an elite prep school in New Hampshire, on a scholarship. He remembered the kid who talked about attending Yale or Harvard and becoming a doctor. And when the Coyotes played the Edmonton Oilers on the same night as Demers’ grandmother’s birthday, Darrell told his wife, Guylaine, they had to be home by 10 p.m. Eastern time to watch.

“Careers are too short and sometimes we take it for granted, even as parents, that he’s going to play again,” Darrell said. “When he got hurt this year, you worry, ‘Is this it? Is it over?’”

Four-hundred and fifty miles south in Philadelphia, Jason, 30, vowed to return this season.

“They gave me a timeline but I kind of had a timeline in my head and I talked to a lot of people I know, people that had the injury and I thought I could beat that timeline; I took it as a challenge,” he said. “I think I had an advantage that maybe (Jakob Chychrun) or other guys with this injury didn’t have because I had seen it with them. I think (the Coyotes have) a good system now of dealing with it so I put my injury in their hands and did everything they asked and the results were good.

“I felt really good those first couple of weeks, and I kept looking at these guys battling so hard to keep us in the (playoff) race so I had to do everything I could to get back as soon as possible. It was a little pact I made with myself. I didn’t really tell anybody the date I wanted to come back. I just kind of kept it to myself, but I was pretty close. Pretty much the day I set as a goal to come back was the day I came back (March 5).”

Photo: Brace Hemmelgarn / USA Today Sports.

Jason has told Darrell a few times that there is something special brewing in the Coyotes locker room; a mixture of chemistry, personality and cohesiveness he has not felt since his days in San Jose when the Sharks were Stanley Cup contenders. He has told his dad that Rick Tocchet may be the best coach for whom he has played. There is another element, however, that Darrell said is vital to Jason’s buy-in.

“One thing he wants to do — and I think he’ll leave the NHL when he doesn’t have it – is he needs to feel like he’s an asset,” Darrell said. “It’s not money. With that kid, nothing is about money. He needs to feel like he fits and he’s important and he’s needed. When he feels like that, you always get 50 percent more from him.”

Demers’ fuel may not be money, but it still plays a role. In fact, he is still holding on to some money, as league treasurer, that Richardson won in the team’s fantasy football league nearly three months ago.

“I’ve been on him every day for it but I think he’s trying to get the interest out of my money,” Richardson said. “Maybe you could squeeze that out of him with this story.”

Probably not.

“He’s a Neanderthal,” Demers said of Richardson. “He doesn’t have any form of wire transfer. He’s all checks and cash. He’s still living in the ’90s, but yeah, I like holding on to the money. He’s not the IRS so I think I’m good.”

(Top photo of Demers and Paul Bissonnette at the Jan. 31, 2019, ASU basketball game: Chris Coduto / Getty Images)

The Athletic Bay Area’s Kevin Kurz contributed to this story