The Wild's Goalie Problem, Game 7, and Free Agency Prep

In this episode, Mikki talks about Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, the Minnesota Wild's Goalie Problem (and how to solve it), and prepares for the NHL Draft and Free Agency.

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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 am your hostess, Mickey.

As you can see,

if you're watching on video,

I am still in my makeshift studio,

aka my bedroom,

except I blurred the

background because you guys

don't want to see all of that.

You don't care.

I'm going to be ordering my

own green screen so I can

set up kind of what I had before here.

But either way,

welcome to the two days of

the NHL offseason.

Except not really,

because there are already a

bunch of trades happening.

So there is no offseason this year.

Which is actually,

that was the title of the

episode I put out on Monday, Sunday.

I don't know.

All the days blur together for me.

But yeah,

so even though we are in the offseason,

there is still so much happening.

Because...

we just finished the stanley

cup finals last night and

let me tell you guys game

seven did not disappoint

the whole final series was

so much fun to watch I just

I mean I'm sure you all

watched it so I'm not gonna

sit here and rehash

everything but I am gonna

say amazing win by florida

30 years in the making they

good for them you know as a

wild fan who you know we're

getting to you know what 20

plus years in the league

and not getting there uh I

understand how florida fans

felt so you know I'm hoping

maybe that's the start of

like let's get other teams

like the wild to the stanley cup finals

But just watching the celebration,

I think is the best part

because even though I

wasn't technically rooting

for either team, you know,

I was just kind of here for the hockey.

The celebration is still

just so emotional.

Watching the Kachuk family.

And first,

just seeing them up in the stands,

Keith crying, Brady was so excited.

And thinking back to last year,

when they're coming to the

end of the Stanley Cup Finals,

Matthew is so banged up

that Brady has to literally

help him out of bed and

make sure that he's

breathing while he's taking a nap.

Brady was there and he he

was there for all of that

and he saw all that heartbreak.

And so having him be there

again this year and seeing

how emotional he got,

what just what a great family,

like how awesome, amazing was that?

And the first person that I

really got emotional about

was Kyle Ocposo.

A Minnesota boy, I, you know,

I always love a Minnesota boy playing,

especially when they win the cup.

He was the 13th U of M

Minnesota Golden Gopher

hockey player to lift the cup.

And knowing that he has worked so hard,

I think like 17 years?

I'm sitting here trying to do math now.

Either way, he has been working so hard.

And I know people,

there's plenty of people

that are always going to harsh the vibe,

right?

And they're going to be mad

about Akposo leaving or

about Akposo playing better in Florida.

But you know what?

While he hasn't said it,

most likely this feels like

it's going to be a retirement for him.

For the Buffalo Sabres to

respect him so much that

they help him go to Florida,

the team that he really wanted to go to,

that they traded him there

so that he could win a cup

before he's done, like,

that's one of those things

where hockey is beautiful.

It's the wonderful game, you know?

just having that much

respect for a player is so

touching to me.

And I think it says volumes

about the Buffalo organization.

And I was reading back over

Akposo's past and the

things that he has dealt with.

And I did not realize the

concussion and the

neurological problems that

he had kind of stemming from that.

And

to the point where he was manic,

he was in the hospital,

he could barely talk.

And to see him now having

come back and now all the

way to the Stanley Cup out

there with his wife and his four kids,

good for him.

Watching Sergei Bobrovsky lift that cup.

He's another one, you know,

he is somewhere around my age, you know?

And so I know that,

what it feels like to be this age.

Obviously, I'm not a pro athlete, but,

you know,

I know what it feels like to

have aged some.

I know what it feels like to, you know,

be like from high school

until now and how long of a time that is.

And to wait that long and Bobrovsky really,

you know, during overall in the playoffs,

he played pretty well.

At the beginning of the final series,

he played really well.

He fell apart a little.

It wasn't totally his fault.

But he was the one that

really captured that final game, I feel.

He just kind of locked everything down.

He let in one shot.

That was it.

And then Paul Maurice.

Now, I'm trying to remember.

Of course,

I always remember things as I'm

recording and not before to

go look it up.

But he had been talking about his son.

I believe his son won.

a championship in one of the

leagues that bear with me folks here.

You know what?

I'm going to pause and I'm

going to go look at, okay.

I did my research like a good podcaster.

Um, so when Paul Maurice moved to Florida,

his son moved with them and

he was working as a

broadcaster for the ECHL team,

the Florida Everglades, Everblades, sorry,

reading, um,

And they won the

championship two years in a row now.

And so Paul Maurice had kind of said like,

well,

now I need a Stanley Cup so I can

win something too.

And seeing, I mean,

he is such a funny coach.

And I like,

he's one of those coaches that

has personality.

And I like that when he's

being interviewed afterwards on the ice,

he really let his

emotions come out.

And he was very heartfelt in what he said.

In a league where so many people, you know,

they end up going to those defaults of,

you know, we really,

we put pucks deep and we, you know,

all of the mumbo jumbo that

we're used to hearing.

It was nice to hear

something a little bit different.

Now,

there's been a little bit of controversy,

which there shouldn't be,

about the consmite.

Connor McDavid absolutely

deserved the consmite.

As people are pointing out,

he broke a Wayne Gretzky record.

That is not something that happens often.

You know,

that is not something that like

every year someone's going

to break a record.

No, Wayne Gretzky has had records for,

you know,

that he's held for dozens of years.

And for McDavid to come

along and break a record

and basically drag his team into

through the entire Stanley

Cup final rounds.

He basically drug his team

to the game seven.

And you know what?

They lost.

Yes.

And people are saying, well, you know,

if it's the most valuable player,

then they should have won.

Okay.

You know what?

That's not how it works.

It's not.

They're saying who was the best overall.

It's not who won it all.

And it's the same thing.

I'm going to talk a little

bit later about the Calder,

and we have touched on this before.

The Calder is not for the

player that's going to end

up being a superstar.

The Calder is supposed to be

who was the best this season.

So, cons might,

who was the best this playoffs?

It was McDavid.

And you know what?

If you want to be just...

I just can't.

You know what?

I can't with people.

And then they complained

that he didn't come out to get the award.

You know what?

He's back in the locker room

with his teammates.

They are grieving for this

championship that they were

so close to winning.

And before he left the ice,

he was the first one to go

down the handshake line.

And he was not just good game, good game,

good game.

He was talking to every

single other player.

And you could see that he

was genuinely congratulating them.

You know?

And to be fair,

the Panthers were doing the

same back to him.

Because you know what?

He's a tough guy to play against.

And they were sincerely saying that,

you know, he had done a good job.

And he had played well.

You know?

And he did try really hard.

So for him to not come out,

would you want to?

Would you want to go out

there and grab this award

that in that moment in time

is not going to matter to you?

You know,

I'm sure further on in McDavid's

career or when he's retired,

I'm sure that he'll be very

proud of having won the Conn Smythe.

But in that moment in time,

it probably felt like a

participation ribbon for him.

And it was bad enough that

people in the audience were booing.

That's so tasteless.

So tasteless.

Like your team already won.

You don't have to boo Connor McDavid.

Now,

maybe people were booing Gary Bettman

because obviously that's a thing,

but they didn't boo at the

beginning of his little speech.

They only booed when he got

to the Conor McDavid part.

And so if that was you,

I just want you to know

that you should maybe sit

with yourself a little bit

and think about how to be a

classier fan for next season.

We are going to shift gears here.

I'm going to quick do my

little Ticketmaster read,

except I changed things

here and... All right, here.

So,

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Wild Side Hockey Podcast is

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then we would love if you

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Again, you know,

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QR.

I can talk.

Okay.

Back at it.

So 30 minutes before the

Stanley Cup finals are going to start,

all of a sudden...

Lena Salmark traded to the senators.

And this was one of those things where,

like, people knew it was coming.

And I kind of hope that the

GMs waited just to kind of

announce it then to just

needle Bettman a little bit.

You know, just to be like, you know what?

This is going to stick in his craw.

Let's do it.

But it's just the goalie

carousel is still turning and spinning.

And for Minnesota Wild fans,

that means that that's one

more team that doesn't need

a goalie anymore.

They are not in the goalie

contention anymore.

So the Senators are done.

Who else?

The Devils were out now.

I can't think of who else.

But either way,

I'm going to go back and

I'm going to say one more time,

What I think about this goalie issue.

I understand that people

want Wallstead to come up

and play in the NHL.

Yes.

Me too.

Absolutely.

I want him to get some

mentoring from Fleury.

I want him to get more

experience at the NHL level

and against harder teams.

But by next fall,

by the beginning of next season,

Fleury is turning 40.

And Walsett is 22.

So between those two,

who is going to play 50 games?

If you try and play Fleury for 50 games,

he's going to burn out.

Guys, he's going to be 40.

It's a fact.

Even though he is in

incredible shape and he

still plays really well,

it will burn him out to play 50 games.

Walsett, on the other hand...

if he is, I don't want to say forced,

if he is playing 50 NHL games,

you are just,

you are taking your new star

goalie and absolutely just

chucking him into the fire.

And that feels like a really

great way to ruin it.

That feels like a really

great way to completely

wreck his confidence and

it feels like a good way to

make him doubt himself and

his abilities so I feel

like the best solution that

can happen here is to have

three goalies not all the

time that does not mean

always having all three

goalies there what it means

is gustafson is still

young.

He is young enough.

And he played a whole extra

month with Team Sweden and

looked good in the tournament.

He looked good.

And you know what?

He's going to work on his

conditioning over the summer.

He knows that.

He was very open with the

fact that he knows what he

has to work on.

And I bet that he will.

Because he is a professional athlete.

So if he comes back and he

has gotten over his sophomore slump,

then he can play the 50 games.

And then what you can do is you can give,

you know,

another good chunk to Flurry and

then pull Walsett up from

Iowa and give him some

chunks of games here and there.

Walsett is still signed to an ELC.

Pulling him up

It's not that much to add to

the salary cap situation

because we already know it's tight.

We have one more year,

but it's not like you're

trying to find room for $4 million.

You know,

you're finding room for like some,

it's something around 800 to 900,000.

Like that's a different story.

You can find that in the salary cap.

I think that's the best way

to go about it.

I feel like that will also

help give Gustafson maybe a

little more confidence that

he lost last year.

As long as everyone in front stays healthy,

I think this is really the

only way to have all three

of those goalies.

I feel like that's the only

way to have a successful

year goal-tending-wise.

I think it's also...

one of those situations where a lot, a lot,

a lot of players go through

the sophomore slump.

It's a real thing.

It's one of those things

where you have all this pressure,

you signed a big contract,

you get on the ice,

and maybe you're okay for a little bit,

but then something happens,

you make a stupid play,

or there's a game that just

goes completely sideways.

then the doubt starts to

come in because now it's

not oh am I a good player

it's oh my god am I

actually worth seven

million dollars like can I

play to that ability for

gustafson am I a goaltender

worth four million dollars

you know I bet he didn't I

bet he felt like he wasn't

last year but if he can

come back in and gain that confidence

Now we've got a

Gustafson-Wallstead tandem

once Fleury retires after this season.

I feel like that is the best

situation that we can have.

All right.

I'm going to throw it to one

more ad before we kind of

talk about what's coming up

in the next couple of days.

So bear with me and I'll be

back in a minute.

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Welcome back.

This last little chunk of

the show today is just

about what is coming up.

First of all, with the podcast,

I've talked about how

there's going to be some things changing.

I am going to be just

tweaking a few things.

Maybe looking to get a

little more... I don't want

to say professional, but just, you know,

like all the fun little tags and stuff.

Which, right now,

I'm basically a one-woman show, and...

As a mom who works,

I just don't have time to

figure everything out.

But I do have someone who is

going to help me.

So that will be good.

I'm looking into launching

some new merch this summer.

So just keep an eye on that.

Obviously, I'll be talking about that.

I'm looking to kind of ramp

up my social media presence a little.

Just a lot of things that

I'm trying not to overwhelm myself with.

Right.

But as for the Minnesota Wild,

what's coming up?

Well, let's see.

Wednesday, we have the NHL Awards.

However,

we don't have anybody up for any

of those.

But Thursday,

they will announce the Calder Trophy.

And as I mentioned before, you know what?

We know Connor Barrett is going to win.

We know that.

And is he a good player?

Obviously.

He is going to be a superstar.

He's great at scoring.

But it is a bummer that Brock Faber,

who was objectively better

in his role as a defenseman,

isn't going to win when he

was more valuable to his team.

Just going to let it sit there.

They're also going to

announce the All-Rookie

Team at some point.

It would not be a surprise

if both Faber and Rossi

made the All-Rookie Team.

And from what I remember, Rossi, I believe,

gets a bonus.

If he makes the team.

And I, I mean, I guess, I don't know.

I don't vote on these things,

but I would have put them

both on there because at

one point favor and,

and Rossi were the only

ones dragging the Minnesota

wild for their season.

Then obviously starting on Friday night,

we have the NHL draft.

Minnesota currently has a

first round pick at number 13.

From everything that I've

been reading and I've been listening to,

it would not be a surprise

to see the Minnesota Wild trade down.

Because 13 is kind of that mushy middle.

By that point,

all the best of the best have been taken.

And by 13...

You know,

it's just obviously you're still

going to get a good player, right?

That's not the issue.

But seeing kind of a lot of

the prospects that we already have,

we already have lots of

good prospects in the system.

Maybe what we need is to see

what we can get for the first round pick.

So that would not be a surprise.

We'll see.

And then on Monday, free agency starts.

And that day is always crazy,

just like trade deadline.

But it's crazy in, like,

the most exciting way.

Things that I'm looking out

for for Minnesota,

not necessarily in just from now through,

you know, the next week or so,

would be I know that the

Jake Middleton extension is

something that's been teased a lot.

People have been saying

they're looking at 4x4 for him,

which absolutely, like...

I think Middleton needs to stick around.

He's got a great personality.

He can play up and down the

defensive lineup.

And he's shown that he can

play with Spurgeon.

He can play with Faber.

He can play... So that, I love that.

And also I've been hearing

that Declan Chisholm is

going to be re-signed, which is great.

The only thing I don't like

about that is simply that that fills...

the seven slots.

And that means that some of

the other UFAs like Dakota

Mermis will probably have

to be signed somewhere else.

Although at the same time,

good for Mermis because he

was pulled up and played 40

plus games in the NHL this

year and really came to show that,

you know what?

I am an NHL defenseman.

So I am really happy for him

in that aspect.

And I hope that he gets a

good contract somewhere.

And then Brock Faber is

eligible to sign an extension too.

And I was just reading this

morning that apparently

they have not even talked about that.

But I also don't think that

that's going to be a big

struggle because Faber

loves Minnesota Wild.

The Minnesota Wild love Faber.

We all kind of know what

he's going to get anyway.

So I think it just comes to

the point where at some

point they just have to sit

down and be like, okay,

let's just spell it out.

Um,

I know that the Minnesota Wild are

trying to look for some kind of,

some kind of a winger to put in, um,

to basically push Marcus

Johansson a little bit

further down on the lineup

and maybe pair with Zuccarello.

You know, Zucchi is a great playmaker,

but he needs someone with

him that can score.

And Johansson just wasn't that.

Um,

there's names being shuffled around and,

you know,

I don't have any inside, you know,

knowledge about that.

But it'll be interesting to see.

I'm sure that they'll pick

up somebody for just a one-year contract.

Because like I said,

this is our last year in salary cap hell.

Starting next year,

we can kind of throw around bigger bucks.

Not a ton though,

because we got to sign

Kirill at that point.

We got to sign, you know,

And we got lots of prospects.

So that's a lot coming up.

And I'm going to enjoy the next two days.

Unless Bill Guerin really

puts on his thinking cap

and makes some trades.

Who knows?

But yeah, so until then,

I guess I will wrap up.

this episode of the pod.

So thanks for sticking with me.

I'm excited to kind of get

into some more fun things

over the summer now that

the finals are done.

And once, once free agency kind of, uh,

opens and then settles down a little bit.

So be on the lookout and you

can always find me.

I mostly hang out on Twitter

slash X under hockey.

She wrote, I do have a Facebook page.

I do have an Instagram, not there a lot,

but we'll see.

Anyway.

All right.

I love you all.

You all have a place in hockey.

Hockey is for everyone.

And I hope you all know that.

Have a great day.