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'm your hostess, Miki,
and it has been a crazy weekend.
Between draft coverage Friday and Saturday,
and then I went to a movie
because my family was like,
please spend time with us.
And then today we had a
Taylor Swift themed
birthday party to go to,
which I'm covered in glitter.
I don't know if anyone,
if it's picking up on camera,
but I'm here.
Here I am.
Tomorrow free agency starts
and then it's going to be
all crazy again.
But I just wanted to do a
really quick kind of wrap
up of the draft.
So first of all,
I wanted to say having the
draft of the sphere was really cool.
I mean, I wasn't there even on TV.
It just looked really cool.
At the same time,
I would never go there in person.
I will never go to the sphere.
I hate even, you know,
when I've sat 200 level at
the Excel Center, even that,
walking down the stairs,
like freaks me out.
So having to walk down the sphere,
no thank you.
And I love, love, love,
love the trade horn.
It was hilarious.
And it was also like, you know,
it's like a...
What is it?
Pavlov with the bell response.
You know,
it's like the trade horn goes off
and everyone's like, oh, oh,
like it get all excited.
And apparently it scared
Bill Gehring the first time it went off,
which is hilarious.
So we're going to just dive in.
The Wild only had one pick
in the first round on Friday.
So they actually traded up
one spot to number 12 from
13 to 12 to pick up Ziv Buyam, who
is the steel of the draft.
Absolutely the steel of the draft.
I don't know why he didn't go higher.
I think he's a little bit undersized when,
you know, that's okay.
But I think maybe that's why
people were passing him by.
Honestly,
he's probably the best defenseman
that was in the draft.
And he's
Apparently,
they're looking at he's really
good at controlling the game,
quarterbacking power plays.
And honestly,
with him and Faber as a pairing,
that is going to be such an
amazing pair for like the next decade.
So I love the pick.
I love the pick.
I don't know how he fell that far,
but you know what?
He's the wilds now.
So and actually all of the
wild picks were slated to
go higher or previously, you know,
like preseason,
they were ranked higher or
and there are a couple of
them that dealt with
injuries and were out for spans of time.
And that probably affected
them both the rankings and then just,
you know,
trying to get back in the swing
of things.
But so Saturday at 40, number 45,
they got Ryder Ritchie,
who is a right wing.
And he was apparently the
top pick in the WHL draft a
few years ago.
But he missed a lot of time last year.
He had a significant injury
and he was out for a long span of time.
But he's a goal scorer.
He's got an amazing offensive upside.
So I'm excited for that.
And then 122, Aron Kiviharju.
I thought I would be able to
get through that.
Okay, Kiviharju.
He is another left-handed defenseman.
And I love,
I don't know if you guys have
seen the video.
They had the little video on
the Minnesota Wild page of
Bill Guerin on draft day.
And when they pick him,
he goes up to Bill Guerin,
shakes his hand and says,
you just made the biggest
deal of the draft.
I promise you that.
And he was another one who
was ranked a lot higher and
for whatever reason fell.
But the Wild have this,
Judd Brackett has this
sense of how to pick these
amazing picks throughout
the whole seven rounds of the draft.
And obviously not everyone
is going to turn out the
way that we're hoping they will.
And sorry,
I was looking at the battery on
my computer.
I thought it was saying that
it was gonna die.
And I was like, oh God, yeah,
but you hear me.
But back to it.
Number 140, they took Sebastian Sweeney,
another Finn,
right-handed defenseman this time.
And apparently he's got
really good size already.
So if any of you were like
feeling a little angry
about the undersized defenseman,
Sebastian, he's got you.
He's a good size.
But can I also say,
all these guys are like 18, 19 years old.
They still have time.
to fill out and to get bigger and taller.
So like, that's why to me, especially it's,
to me, it's not a big deal.
Um, at number 142, they took Chase Wutzke,
who is a goalie.
Um, and he is also from the Métis tribe,
tribe,
which is where Connor Dewar and
Kaylin Addison, um, are both a part of it,
uh, a part of the tribe.
They have Métis lineage.
Um,
And this goalie – so the
goalie pick is interesting
because immediately everyone was like, oh,
Gus is out.
Guys, again, this kid is young.
He – I don't even think
he'll go to Iowa next year.
I mean,
maybe because they do need goalies.
But, you know, he might –
He might need a few more years.
He just started the WHL last
year and said that he
really took some time to
adjust to the speed of the WHL.
He was not used to it.
By December, January,
he was named Goaltender of
the Month for the WHO
because his record was 12-0, 1-1,
1.88 goals against average,
and a 0.934 save percentage.
So he might take some time
to adjust to when he keeps
moving up the leagues, hopefully.
But it looks like he is able
to just settle in.
And then we have one more at 174,
which is Stevie Lescover.
left-handed defenseman.
And can I just say Stevie,
like I love that he uses Stevie.
I love that.
Um, so
One more thing I'm going to
say before we come back,
before I get my commercial
done and I come back, is that they also,
on Saturday,
traded Vinny Letary to the Boston Bruins.
And in return, they got Jacob Lauco back.
And they also traded a pick.
But to me, it's kind of like, whatever.
They traded picks, so they both used him.
But so that was interesting.
Letary has previously played in Boston.
And, you know,
it was really fun to have
him on the team.
know minnesota boy and with
hockey lineage and you know
but jacob lauco I i like
him he likes to eat grapes
he loves lord of the rings
I mean I don't think we can
go wrong with that and I
know that he's kind of a
character so okay this is I
know this is kind of like a
this podcast is a little bit frantic
like frantic energy right now,
just because it has been
quite a weekend and I
cannot even tell you how
busy I'm going to be tomorrow.
So I'm going to kick it to
ESPN plus commercial really quick.
And then we will just talk a
little bit about free
agency starting tomorrow.
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Welcome back.
So free agency starts tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Central Time.
And all the teams had to
extend qualifying offers to
any player that was on an
expiring contract.
For the Minnesota Wild,
I have it all written down.
They extended qualifying
offers to Declan Chisholm, which, I mean,
they're going to sign him ASAP.
Sammy Walker,
which everybody loved hearing
that because, you know, Minnesota boy.
Adam Raska,
which I was really pleased with
because when they pulled
him up towards the end of the season,
I liked him.
He was just like a hard-nosed,
physical guy.
And he just seems like fun.
And then also to Graham Clark,
who is the prospect that
they got back in exchange
for Adam Beckman.
But there's also a list of
players that they did not
get a qualifying offer to,
which are Mason Shaw and...
I'm not happy about it.
I understand...
But, okay, we'll talk about that later.
Hunter Jones,
who he was goalie down in the
farm system.
Simon Johansson and Sam Hentage.
Hentage, I think.
Okay,
so what needs to happen is any player
who has a qualifying offer,
they need to sign a contract by 11 a.m.
tomorrow.
or they become a restricted free agent.
Now,
all of the players that were not
extended a qualifying offer,
they become unrestricted free agents.
So again, with Mason Shaw, I am,
Really hoping he finds somewhere to go.
And also,
Caitlin Addison was not extended
a qualifying offer from the Sharks.
So those two,
I will be really curious to
see where they end up.
I really hope they're both
able to find a contract.
You know, they both have their problems,
but they're just such good guys.
What was the other thing?
There was one more thing I
was going to touch on.
Everything has gone out of my head,
probably because I just
kind of want to put on my
pajamas and lay down.
Yeah,
so tomorrow's going to be frantic and
maybe not frantic, frenzied.
It's a feeding frenzy.
I'm going to be pushing out
content like crazy, I'm assuming,
and probably make another
podcast tomorrow night.
We'll see how it goes.
But so I'm interested to see
where Shaw and Addison maybe end up.
I'm curious to see who they bring in.
I've been hearing the wild,
I've been hearing, you know, wild writers,
wild podcasters talking
about different scoring
wingers that might be worth
a look tomorrow in free agency.
David Prawn was one.
Let's see.
Anthony Duclair um oh boy
hold on I'm gonna pause
this because I gotta look
something okay I'm back
sorry I just I thought I
said something stupid that
was like super super stupid
wrong um no I'm right I'm good um
But there have been a lot of trades.
I think that's what made
Saturday of the draft so
much fun was because that
trade horn was going off
and it wasn't just for picks, you know?
Because a lot of times I
feel like a lot of the
trades on draft day are for picks,
you know?
But this time it was a lot
of different players and
like important players.
Utah,
Hockey Club Utah did not come to mess
around.
They were trading like crazy.
They were pulling in big name trades.
I love it.
I love it.
People were seeing that in
how many years that the
team was in Arizona and
they just did nothing to really grow.
And they moved to Utah now
and he is already like, he's getting it.
And then Vegas,
Las Vegas actually traded Logan Thompson,
their goalie, during the draft.
And literally, while he was there,
signing autographs at the Sphere.
Apparently, from what I hear,
he was told earlier that
morning that he would be traded later on.
But they had to kind of
finish all the details.
So he did know before he
came to sign the autographs that day.
But I can't imagine how
deflating that must be.
And this is kind of version
2.0 of Vegas being...
shit at for their goalies
like they just treat their
goalies like crap um okay
I'm gonna wind up because
again I just want to go lay
down but you'll probably
see a lot of me in the next
couple of days so
Until then, happy last day of Pride Month.
I wasn't able to go to Pride today,
but I know a lot of you were.
And again,
I was excited to see the
Merrills on the Wild Pride float.
And while there might not be
other players that come,
which I wish they would,
they have a really strong
showing from people within
the Wild organization.
So you know what?
I do like that a lot.
But anyway, so...
Happy free agency tomorrow,
and I will talk to you later.