In Which Fleury Takes 2nd Place All Time Goaltender Wins

In this episode, Mikki talks about the turn-around game against the New York Islanders and Fleury's big night. She also touches on the Wild being the Short Kings of the league and two specific player haircuts.

Foligno Lifting Zuccarello

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HockeySheWrote

Wild Hockey Fan | Cozy Mystery Writer | Mom of 2 | MN Raised | She/Her | Hockey Takes that No One Asked For

What is Her Wild Side Hockey Podcast?

Her Wild Side combines hockey knowledge with a side of vibe checks. The weekly show will have game breakdowns, any topical news about the MN Wild, and fun things going on surrounding Wild's social media. This show aims to be informative while also sparking good conversation about the Wild and hockey in general without having to keep everything serious.

Hello, welcome to Her Wild Side Hockey Podcast.

I am your hostess, Mickey.

And here we are.

We are, let's see, halfway through the season-ish, halfway-ish.

And last night, the Wild seemed to have turned another corner, which we're kind of going into what I would say is the fourth iteration of this team.

So, you know, we never know kind of which team is going to show up to a game.

And I was actually at the Islanders game last night, and it was such a fun one to be a part of.

But so this team started off the season terrible.

They fired Everson, brought in Hines.

The team was wonderful.

Then people started getting injured.

They tried to hold it together, and it was downhill again.

But then last night, all of a sudden, we've got this team that looks a lot more like they first did when Heinz came in.

So is this team that's here to stay?

could be i'm hoping so and i know that there was a press conference with uh billy g before the game last night where he was talking about he still sees them as a playoff team if they work really hard they can get there and you guys know me i'm rose-colored glasses so i am absolutely of that train of thought if they can look like they did last night here on out they have a chance a chance

And who knows why they played so well last night?

Because as far as I know, the Islanders aren't terrible, you know, but they completely shut them out.

So talking a little bit more about just the Islanders game coming in the wild, they're at rock bottom, like just absolutely rock bottom.

They are coming back from the game against Arizona on Saturday, which I I'm not even going to get into that game, except to say that they were booed off the ice.

They were completely shut out.

They were booed off the ice.

I mean, congrats to Nick Bugstead for his hat trick.

That was nice for him.

He's a Minnesota boy, so I'm still going to support him.

And what was weird is that that game we actually had Kirill and Gustafsson back.

So maybe the key is that Jonas Brodine was back last night.

Obviously, we all know what a big part he is on the blue line.

The other difference that we had in the lineup was that they took out Merrill and Goligosky and they had Hunt in.

Hunt and Mermis were the third pairing.

Second pairing was Bogosian and Rodin.

First pairing, Middleton, Faber.

And honestly, that seemed to work really well.

And I hope they really keep up with that because it's it works.

And I'm hoping it keeps working.

I know Hunt is young.

I know he doesn't have a ton of experience, but I think he does at least as good as Merrill or Goligosky can do.

I will say that Brodine coming back, his hair was flawless.

And I don't understand how, you know, I think at one point he did an interview and they were like, oh, everyone talks about your hair.

How does it, you know, how do you do your hair?

And he was basically like, I wash it.

But anyway, he was looking flawless, which might have helped.

So like I said, I was at the game last night and I brought my best friend Amanda with me.

I have brought her to probably five games over the past couple of seasons whenever I needed to have someone come with me because my brother couldn't.

Except somehow, until last night, every single game that I took her to was against the Avalanche.

And I don't know how or why that ended up, but...

Last night she finally saw the Wild play someone who was not the Avalanche.

We've been to preseason games.

We've been to season games.

We've been always the Avalanche until last night.

So she jokingly was like, I almost said no because it's not the Avalanche.

But she did come with me.

And as we were getting to the end of the game, and it was obvious that Fleury was going to win at least.

And then, you know, I didn't want to talk about a shutout because you never know.

I was trying to tell Amanda how special Fleury is and how he's just the last kind of goalie of his kind.

And, you know, I mean, she got it.

But at the same time, it's like unless you really watch or pay attention to hockey, I don't think you can express how amazing Fleury actually is.

Um, let's come back to him though.

First, I'm going to talk about, so two minutes or it's like a minute into the game.

The Islanders take a penalty.

Um, one of the Islanders slash flurry, uh, after the whistle blue flurry was, uh, he was not having it.

He immediately face washed this guy with his glove.

And of course everyone else swarmed him too.

Guy goes to the box, uh, like a minute or so into the power play Zuki scores.

Now, we are already doing better than Saturday or Friday or any of the last five games, six games they've played.

This is a great start.

So I know myself, I was letting myself get hopeful.

I was hopeful that if nothing else, they were in the game.

I could count on them to be in the game.

And then first period ends.

We're up one zero.

That's great.

Second period.

Now we've got doer scores, X scores on a power play goal.

We're up three zero after the second period.

And again, I was cautiously optimistic.

Now, I'm always optimistic, but

I was trying to be cautious because in hockey, the thing that I like so much about hockey, one thing, I guess, is just how fast paced it is and how a game can change in 10 seconds.

You can go from winning to being tied to two in 15 seconds.

You know, it just things can turn on a dime.

But.

get to the third period and gets a shorthanded goal, which I think I read was the first of his career.

And then Moose scores and they win five zero.

All 18 skaters on the ice for the wild had a shot on net last night and getting to the end.

You know, there was just this palpable excitement because you know that all of the Wild fans in attendance know what this game was going to be.

We all knew that this win was going to mean something when we got to the end.

And after getting booed off of the ice on Saturday, I can only imagine how it felt for Flower as everyone was chanting, Flurry, Flurry, Flurry.

And it was amazing.

And to have this 552 games that he has won in the National Hockey League.

And putting him above Patrick Waugh, he is now solely the second, number two.

And to do it with a shutout?

I mean, it's just amazing.

It's amazing.

Now, one thing I do want to point out for this game is our special teams have been terrible.

That's been kind of part of what's been going on the last couple of games.

Terrible.

This game against the Islanders last night, 100% PK and a 40% power play.

They scored on two of the five power plays they had and had a shorthanded goal.

You know, who knows, again, if this is something that will keep up.

But I like it.

I like what I'm seeing, you know.

So let's.

Oh, and then I did have to point out that, as always, at the end of the game, when they're coming off the ice and Zuki's always last and Foligno, you know, like picks him up.

This time, he picked him up so high that, you know, Zuki was just about flung up in the air.

And I'm going to post a link to that video on Twitter because I've never seen him lift Zuccarello this high.

And maybe I just, you know, don't always pay attention, but this one was like extraordinarily high.

But Fleury, he...

It's hard to explain to someone who is not super into hockey why this is such a big deal and why he is the last.

He's going to be the last goalie to ever reach a thousand games.

It just it is not mathematically feasible for any other goalie to do that.

There are no goalies who play that much anymore.

It's moving into where it's mostly goalie tandems.

And, you know, it might not be a completely 50-50 split, but it's usually something, you know, 60-40, where there's only 82 games a season.

Only.

Only, I say.

But it's just... Unless you get someone who comes in at 18 like Fleury did, and then, I guess, plays pretty much every game, every season for 20 years, then they have a chance.

But...

I'm going to tell you right now, that's not going to happen again.

It's just not.

And the fact that he is 39 years old, and as Zuki said in an interview last night, he keeps getting younger and younger.

I was trying to point out to my friend Amanda, like, look at how he's playing.

You never would guess that that goalie, that that man is, that man right there, is 39.

And

you know, especially because of the style of goaltending that he does, you know, this is not, um, kind of the style more that like Gustafson and, and wall said you were, um, they're very like set, like their whole thing kind of is making sure they're in the correct position.

Um, and that works great for them, but flurry does just the athletic saves.

He likes to do, uh, the flexible stuff, windmilling the arms.

He likes to, if he can put on a show,

And to be able to keep playing 20 plus years, doing that much athleticism in the net.

Again, I just and I think the best thing is that he's just such a great guy.

There is no one that will ever have a bad word to say about Fleury.

He is nice to everyone he meets.

Nobody hates him, even though he pranks them.

But no one can get mad at him.

And he even last night, he was telling the reporters, my dream was just to play in the NHL.

He's been doing that, but like.

That was his dream and it came true, but he never was like, oh, my dream is to win the Stanley Cup.

My dream is to do this.

No, he just wanted to play in the NHL.

And greatest of all time, someone on Twitter was saying he's also the greatest of all time for not injuring his teammates in the last couple of games when they've really hung the goalies out to dry.

So, like, props to him for that.

There's a story that I've heard a couple times now in pieces about Fleury.

When he was in juniors, his coach at that time was Pascal Vincent, and he

Fleury was like 16 years old and he pulls Fleury out of the game and sits him on the bench.

I don't know why, but what he was supposed to do while he was on the bench was track the shots where they were coming from.

So at the end of the game, coach goes over to get the sheet.

There are no numbers on it.

Fleury has simply written, I'm not a statistician.

I'm a goalie.

I mean, what else can you say?

Fleury is just this complete character who is amazing.

Although, I mean, he thinks his net.

You know, anytime the puck hits the net, he thinks the posts.

But he also thinks them in French and English because he doesn't know which language they speak.

I do still wish that he would have fought Bennington, Jordan Bennington, last year.

I think...

If that fight would have happened, I mean, I almost can't speak because I just, you know, the nicest guy in the league and the most hated goalie in the league fighting each other.

And Fleury can really pull like he can fight.

He fought in juniors and then he broke his thumb.

So then he didn't do it anymore.

But I mean, he can he can fight.

But again, trying to explain this to someone who doesn't watch hockey that much.

She could appreciate it, but it's hard.

But anyway, congratulations to Fleury.

It really is an amazing accomplishment.

All of the records that he is setting this year, amazing.

So there are...

A few other things.

So as I was writing my notes for today, I kept thinking of more things to write because I always think like, OK, you know, about like one page of notes is kind of good for one podcast.

But.

You know, I just kept going today.

I will say that I have cried about hockey two times this week, not because they were bad, although they were.

But because I was happy, I teared up for Marc-Andre Fleury.

But you know what?

During that Coyotes game, they did the tribute video for Matt Dumba.

And on Bali, they had a split screen of his tribute video.

And then the camera was on him watching his tribute video.

And first of all, this tribute video was longer than any that I've ever seen.

And it makes sense because Dumbo was such a huge part of this team and he actually is still a big part of the community.

But watching him watch it.

Just wrecked me in a way that I cannot express.

I I think he'll be back on the wild someday.

Obviously, the wild do not have the salary for him right now, but you can't tell me that a couple of years down the line,

they won't be able to sign him and bring him back.

Let's see, what else do I have here?

Okay, so last night after Fleury, you know, passes the record, goes second place, they take this team photo in the locker room.

I'm sure you've seen it.

It's on social media all over.

And now I'll say some of the team photos they take are just, everybody is doing something goofy.

Like the plane, the plane to Sweden, that picture, I dissected that picture.

I'm pretty sure I dissected it in an article and also on the podcast.

There was just a lot to say.

This one's not as bad.

So first of all, Joel Eriksson Ek like.

Bless him, he is my favorite, he just hands on my favorite, but he still does not know how to take a picture.

I mean, he's standing on the side towards the back and he's literally just like the standing man emoji, you know, and bless him.

Poor Vinny Latere is in the front.

He's got his boot.

I don't know when he's going to come back.

I feel so bad that he got injured because he was doing such a nice job up here.

But then you've got Kirill Kaprizov and Freddie Goudreau are like kneeling down and they're just like buddy, buddy, arms around each other, huge smiles.

But Matt Zuccarello must have been feeling a little left out because he's right behind them and he's put his arm kind of around Kirill.

Maybe just like kind of like a yeah, you can have other friends, but like I'm your bestie.

So just remember that.

And then probably the first thing that most people notice in this picture, because it's one of those one of these things is not like the other one of these things just isn't the same.

Middleton.

Is practically naked, not quite, but I mean, everyone else is wearing clothes like like long pants, maybe a T-shirt, a couple of like the guys who were scratched and the injured guys have suits on.

And then there's Middleton wearing socks and a pair of underwear.

And like, thank God they got him to put a pair of underwear on for the for the picture.

But it just makes me laugh.

He is just like he is wearing so much less clothes than everybody else, which kind of goes back into they also posted.

I love when they post the line reads.

So Fleury did the line read last night before the game.

And once again, Middleton is the most naked.

You can't see much of him.

You can just kind of see, like, his shoulders.

But, like, everybody else is wearing a shirt.

It just makes me laugh.

It just, it's a running gag, you know?

And during the line read, there's, Marco, like, is not shouting along with everyone else.

I mean, like, you know, he's in it, but everyone's going, hey, hey, hey.

And Marco, like, does not move his mouth, which seems very like him, honestly.

Faber, of course, is so happy.

Big smile on his face.

Just happy to be there.

And then Flower, obviously, is the one doing the line read.

And his accent is just top notch.

Just I love it.

And my favorite is at the end.

He says, I go.

He's going to be in the goal.

Let's see.

Ringside Rally.

I didn't really talk to you guys about this.

I posted a little bit about it, but I don't think I really talked that much about it.

Now I'm wondering if I did or not.

Nope.

The ringside rally was really fun watching them practice and having so much fun, uh, getting autographs.

The wild do a really nice job of taking care of their season ticket members.

I will say that I know it's expensive.

Um, and full disclosure, I do not pay for tickets.

My brother is the season ticket member, but as he travels, he, uh, gives a lot of the tickets to me and even some of like the other events like the ringside rally.

But they do such a good job.

They had all sorts of things for kids and game set up.

They had like a 360 camera.

They had face painting and photo booths.

And I mean, they do such a great job.

And I think they do that because it's the state of hockey and fans will turn out.

You know, they fill the rink every night and they know that they even though they'll have fans all the time, they need to treat fans the right way also.

And I just I really I appreciate that.

I feel like it's just a really good organization in general.

Now, my miscellaneous category, future considerations and a bag of pucks, as I call it.

Um, one of my friends on Twitter was talking about how there must've been a group on for shutouts for goalies last night, because I think there were four different games that were shutouts and that just.

Okay.

Like, okay.

Goalies were on their games.

Maybe, maybe all the goalies heard about flurry getting his record and they were just like so inspired that they decided they too were going to get a shutout in honor and honor of flurry.

We've got Conor Bedard, who is skating again one week after a jaw surgery.

I'm pretty sure they're going to have to leash him to Nick Foligno because they cannot stop him from getting on the ice.

And in a way, I got to say, I feel kind of bad because that's been his entire life.

He does not know difference.

I don't think he has hobbies.

I don't think he has much of anything outside of hockey.

So Nick Foligno, I need you to help him find a hobby.

Legos are good.

Brandon Duhame got really into Legos.

Perhaps Conor Bedard could also.

The Minnesota Wilds are tied with the Seattle Kraken for the most players under six feet tall.

Both the Kraken and the Wild have nine players on the roster who are under six feet tall, making them the shortest teams in the league.

And that is not a surprise at all for Wild fans.

So just so you know, the nine that they're counting are Zuki, Patan, Rossi, Kirill, Dewar, Spurgeon, Letary, Raska, and Goligoski.

All under six feet tall.

You know what, though?

We have the team of short kings.

They get it done.

Let's see the all-star games were announcing the rest of the all-stars that were voted in.

And apparently the last handful of them needed to be from a team where they wear blue jerseys because somehow both the Leafs and the Canucks have like half of their teams going to the all-star games.

I don't know.

It's only Kaprizov for the wild and not that I think anyone else wants to go because once again, it's in Toronto and,

But it just seems a little sus.

Seems a little sus.

Everybody noticed last night that Connor Dewar has a new haircut.

Although there was no walking in picture of him.

So I don't know what it looks like styled.

We only know what it looks like when he's sweaty in between periods of a hockey game.

But it appears that he has shaved the sides.

And I cannot make a judgment call on it because...

I need to wait and see when it's styled.

Somebody suggested that perhaps Duhame gave him the haircut, which would make sense because I could see Duhame being like, man, I've got a great idea for your hair.

Just let me do it.

It's going to be great.

And Duhame would probably be like, okay.

Talking about hair, Eckie's hair is finally getting to that stage where it is getting curly again.

And there are many people on social media who are begging him to not cut his hair.

His curls are so cute, but every time it gets to this point, he shaves his head.

So, Ecker, I need you to keep the hair for a little while, okay?

The Philadelphia Flyers have that dog mask that they put on the player of the game, except every time someone wears the dog mask, it's like they get sick right after that.

So I don't know if everyone's coughing inside of it.

I mean, I know they're barking in the mask.

So like perhaps all the saliva coming out there, just it's just like trapping viruses inside of the mask.

But.

I feel like from now on, people need to make sure that the player of the game gets a hat and not a mask, because so far that seems like it has not worked super well on the illness front.

And that's about it.

I jumped around so much in my notes that I'm looking through trying to be like, did I get everything?

But I'm pretty sure I did.

So to sum up today's podcast,

The Wild might be back.

We don't know.

But either way, Flurry is back.

And we can all agree that it's just really fun to celebrate him.

So until next time, you are all beauties.

You are all part of the Hot Girls Hockey Club.

And I will see