Minnesota Wild Draft Day Overview

In this episode, Mikki does a quick run-down of the Minnesota Wild's 2024 Draft picks, trading Vinni Lettieri, and which Wild players are headed to free agency tomorrow.

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Creators & Guests

Host

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'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.