We Need to Talk About the Wild's Trade Deadline Moves

In this episode, Mikki breaks down all of the moves that the Wild made at the Trade Deadline. She talks about the pain of losing the Deweys, but being excited for the arrival of Marat Khusnutdinov.

Articles:
Who Is Marat Khusnutdinov?
Brandon Duhaime Trade
Pat Maroon Trade
Nic Petan Trade
Matt Dumba Trade
Connor Dewar Trade

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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, Mikki,

aka HockeySheWrote,

and we are past the deadline day,

trade deadline day.

I wanted to record about it yesterday,

which would have been Saturday,

but I just needed time to

process because for the

Wild fans that are here for the vibes,

it was a lot to handle.

But we made it through.

we do have some good stuff

too so you know we have to

make our peace what is we

you know what will be will

be um but before we get

like deep into all the

trades there's kind of uh

two things I'm going to

touch on so first I'm going

to talk about Pat Maroon

and the biggest thing is that

The way that Bill Guerin is

able to make some of these trades,

he just,

sometimes he just like steals assets.

I know not everyone was okay

with the trade for Maroon

before the season started,

aka my brother.

But while Maroon was here,

he really brought good

things to the club.

I know he didn't always fight,

have that physical edge

that the people wanted, but

You know what?

He was on the fourth line.

He helped push it.

He was scoring goals and

putting up points.

So it was nice.

And the biggest thing,

without getting into all the details,

is that Bill Guerin traded

for Maroon with a seventh

round pick and flipped him

for way more than that.

And again,

I know not everyone likes the

trades that Guiren makes,

but the way that he's able

to do that sometimes is mind-blowing.

And then, you know,

the Deweys are officially split up.

It's always hard to see...

Players that have come up

through the system, you know,

who were drafted by the Wild,

came up through Iowa especially,

were here for a few years.

You know,

I feel like that's one of those

things that makes it even harder.

Because like, and I know part,

like when Matt Dumba was traded,

I know part of that, or not traded,

he signed somewhere else.

Sorry.

Part of that was that not

only was he here for a long time,

but he came up through the system.

He, you know, he was drafted by Minnesota.

He's been,

he had been a part of it for a long time.

And both of the Deweys,

that was the same thing.

And it was really hard to

see Brandon Duhaime in an Avalanche jersey,

especially playing against the Wild.

And

You know, I don't know.

I can't read his mind and I

don't know what he's thinking.

But most of the pictures

that they have posted of him in Colorado,

he looks so sad.

And I know he wanted to stay

in Minnesota because he

talked about that.

He's talked about it many

times that he loves Minnesota.

He wanted to stay.

At the same time,

we all knew it was coming

because if he wasn't traded

at the deadline...

know he was a a ufa coming

in the offseason and he

just he would be asking too

much money more than the

wild could pay him so we

all knew it was coming even

do him but I think it still

is just really upsetting

and knowing how loved he is

in the minnesota wild

locker room made it even harder and then

Everyone, again, Bill Guerin,

he is known for like these

last minute trades.

Remember last year when he

traded for John Klingberg?

And literally-

was like 30 seconds before it hit,

you know, was like three o'clock,

like 30 seconds before

trade was done is when he

got that one done.

Like it.

So Connor Dewar,

he traded him right before.

And what's so sad is that everyone on,

you know, social media was like, okay,

we did not lose both Dewey's.

We still have a Dewey.

We still have Dewar.

And even Dewar said, you know,

when my phone didn't ring

by that point in time, I thought, okay,

I made it.

And that's what he said.

Like, heartbreaking.

I made it.

And then he was traded.

Now, for him,

I'm a little bit different

about how I'm feeling

because he does seem excited.

Again,

he's a Canadian kid playing for Toronto.

So that aspect of it is exciting, you know,

and I'm happy that he's

found something to enjoy.

And you know what?

If Colorado and Toronto go

on like a deep playoff run,

I will be more than happy

for both of the Dewey's.

It's just a little bit hard

right now to deal with it.

And of course,

there's been this whole blow

up on social media.

And honestly,

I was not on Twitter last

night to see how this started,

how it went down.

But some basically people were like, oh,

Connor Dewar,

another white guy on the team.

And anyone who is a wild fan

knows immediately that

Connor Dewar is not white.

He might have lighter skin,

but he is from the Metis tribe,

which was formed when indigenous women

would marry um white men

coming from you know um

like france or french

canadian um english

whatever I you know I don't

know exactly all the

nationalities that anyway

it was a it was a forming

of a tribe and that's why

you know he looks white but

an interesting thing that

someone has been pointing

out is if you look at

dewar's facial structure

He has very indigenous features.

And I don't know a lot about

bone structures and that kind of stuff.

But if you do compare,

he has a bone structure

that once you compare it, it's like, oh,

yeah, you know what?

You're right.

Either way, you know what?

I understand if you didn't

know that he was indigenous.

I understand that.

But people,

when they were corrected on that,

doubled down.

We're like, well,

how was I supposed to know?

Well,

it's not that you are supposed to

know so much as when someone corrects you,

you just go, oh, okay.

Like I never knew that.

I learned something today.

It's as simple as that.

And I, you know,

I don't know where Dewar's

going to end up after this

season because he is an RFA.

I don't know if Toronto will

give him a qualifying offer.

I don't know if he'll sign somewhere else.

But I really hope that wherever he lands,

he's able to...

find kind of the connections

that he did here in Minnesota.

I know that he did work to help the,

I think it was the American

Indian center.

And, you know, he, he and Duhaime both,

they took over the hockey

camp that Matt Dumba ran

for four years and,

you know, I'm trying to think of what,

I don't remember the exact name,

but basically it's for

diversity in hockey.

It's in all sorts of different diversity.

And they ran it last year

and it was so cute.

I mean, last year, last month.

And it was so cute and they

looked like they were having so much fun.

And now that they're both gone,

I know one of the questions is, well,

who's going to run it now?

So that'll be something to

look forward to seeing who

will step into that role.

Now, there is one

big bright spot that we're

going to talk about before

we get into the nitty

gritty of the trades.

And his name is Marat Khusnutdinov.

Previously, I was saying Khusnutdinov.

I was wrong.

I thought I had it right.

I was wrong.

You do not pronounce the K.

It is Khusnutdinov

And I hope that I hope that

I have heard that correctly

because watch me have to

get corrected again.

Anyway, Marat is here.

He is here in Minnesota.

He seems super happy.

I know there were there was

one guy on the wild staff

who met him at the airport

and said that he was just like so happy,

so smiley.

He traveled here with,

I believe it's his sister,

his older sister.

She's like a fashion

designer from what I'm

seeing on Instagram.

I can't speak Russian.

But he also seems to maybe

have a little bit better of

a handle on English than Kirill did.

Just judging by the video

that they posted of him

when Marat got here versus

the video of Kirill the

second year he got here.

It just seems like maybe he

has a little bit better of a handle,

which is exciting because

then maybe we'll be able to

hear directly from him a little sooner.

Whenever he's comfortable, obviously,

we don't want to force

anybody to speak in a

language they're not comfortable with.

But it's very exciting to

see this morning.

It's Sunday today.

This morning,

they posted a couple of

pictures in a video of

Marat practicing with the scratches,

the guys that are injured,

the assistant coaches.

And he just like he looked

like he was excited and not

that he's like he doesn't

seem to be like a smiley guy.

But I feel like you can just

see that he is excited,

that he likes what's happening.

He's excited to be here.

He can't wait to kind of

like get in on stuff.

um I know they got him a

place to live near like

near Kirill so he will have

someone to help him you

know with anything that he

needs to kind of get

accustomed to america and I

am really excited to see

whenever he is going to

make his debut we don't

know that yet when that

will be uh you know we did

obviously lose three three

uh players I'm sorry I just

noticed that I wrote

instead of maroon I wrote

Mararoon.

I don't know where my mind goes sometimes.

But anyway,

we are very excited to see his first game,

whenever that is, or first open practice.

Actually, now that I think about that,

I'm going to look and see

when or if they have an open practice.

I would love to see him on the ice.

I've seen him in so many videos.

OK, I'm going to stop.

I'm going to stop raving now.

And while I prepare myself

to talk all about the

trades and the specifics,

I am going to have you guys

listen to just a really quick ad read.

All right.

I'll be right back.

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Hi, welcome back.

Okay, so trade deadline day.

We knew it was going to be

different than the last two years.

The last two years,

the Wild were in a spot where, you know,

obviously they hadn't

clinched a playoff spot, but we knew.

We knew they were going to

be in contention.

So the last two years were

really exciting because for the most part,

it was more adding.

You know, you were adding players.

It wasn't so much about

sending and getting things in return,

if that makes sense.

And this year,

a lot of what we got were draft picks,

which the Wild and the way

that they draft,

they are able to find kind

of these diamonds in the rough.

So I was on Leafs late night,

and I was asked about this.

And draft picks, what rounds?

Do you think they got a good

draft pick for this player, that player?

Honestly, I know that, you know,

you want a first round.

You want a second round.

You know, but you'll take any round.

I just always think about

how Kaprizov was drafted in

the fifth round.

And he is this superstar.

So whenever I'm asked about, like,

kind of the later rounds,

it's kind of like, to me,

it doesn't really matter.

Because I trust the way that

the Wild draft works.

I know some people are

having a problem with that because lately,

like,

Iowa has been having a really hard

time this year, Iowa Wild.

They're not doing great.

A lot of the prospects just

aren't quite ready.

They're not NHL ready.

But I don't think that means

that they did a bad job drafting.

I think it just means that

there are struggles that you can't see.

You don't know.

It's like last year with Rossi.

Or even last year pulling up Beckman.

Or at the beginning of the year,

Sammy Walker, Beckman.

You don't really know some

of these other struggles.

But one of the things I

noticed is when they were

interviewing Bill Guerin...

about all the trades, how it went down,

he looked visibly bummed.

Like,

I completely believe him when he said

that it was really hard to

have to make these trades.

I could never be a GM and do

trading and stuff because I

would literally just like

collect players.

And you can't do that, obviously,

because you can only have

23 roster spots.

But I would just be like, I'd be like,

nope, nobody can leave.

I am the mama hen.

I'm just going to keep gathering chicks,

hockey player chicks.

And you are all going to

stay in the fold here in

Minnesota in the Excel Center.

And that's not how it works, obviously.

But I did think that it was

kind of touching to see

that he was upset because

he liked the Dewey's.

He loved the Dewey's.

We all love the Dewey's.

And to lose them was upsetting.

So we are going to talk.

Let me I have a couple

little graphics here.

So if you're watching,

you'll be able to see them.

But I will talk about them

in case you are just listening.

So we're going to start with

the Nick Petan to the Rangers.

And in return, we got Turner Elson.

So, Elson is a forward,

and he was sent straight to Iowa.

He is kind of a career AHL player.

He's played three different

NHL games in his career.

And from what I see, he can produce points,

but he's just a really hard worker,

and he

It's hard to lose Petan

because Petan puts up points.

You know, like he was, you know,

like the leading scorer.

He's putting up points.

He was doing great.

He was kind of the one

person consistently scoring, I think,

in Iowa.

And in return,

we get Elson who isn't really a scorer.

But I think at this point,

they are just trying to get

some more veteran presence in Iowa.

And...

This was an opportunity for

Petan that kind of is like,

this is like a bigger

opportunity for him.

So, you know, this trade, what do I think?

Yeah,

I don't really have strong feelings

either way.

I think that hopefully Petan

will find success in New

York and hopefully Elson

will be able to maybe just

bring a little more of a

presence to Iowa.

Trade number two,

which was actually the

first trade that we learned about,

was Brandon Duhaime to the

Colorado Avalanche.

And in return,

the Wild get a 2026 third round pick.

And I think this is a good trade.

Duhaime is a really hard worker.

Obviously,

he's not someone that you're

going to get a first or

second just because he produces points,

but it's not as high as

maybe someone else would

get a first round for.

But a third round pick, I think,

is really good because he

does bring a lot that's not

just scoring or putting up points.

Yes, he mostly plays on the fourth line,

but he's played up the

lineup to the third line.

He is good on the penalty kill.

He, it was, I mean,

that was what was really

hard was losing both to

like two of the best

penalty killers on the wild,

but he's good on the penalty kill.

He's tough.

He'll drop the gloves.

You know, he's a hard worker.

So to get the pick in return.

Yeah.

I mean, a third round was great.

And I,

Like,

I never know how far out does it matter.

Meaning, so this is 2024.

Obviously,

this draft pick is for two years

from now.

So, you know, if I'm like a GM,

I don't know, does the year matter?

Or does it only really

matter depending on what else you have?

Because to me, it's like, okay,

it doesn't really matter

when the third round pick is,

but we have it.

So let's see.

I'm going to switch over to

the next graphic.

So I'm going to talk about

Pat Maroon first because or

as I accidentally wrote down Mararoon.

Pat Mararoon is now with

the Boston Bruins,

who apparently he thought hated him,

which makes me a little bit sad.

You can come back, Maroon.

That's fine.

We received Luke Toporowski.

and a 2026 sixth round pick

but um it's that one's

conditional it's only if

maroon plays a playoff game

for boston because he is

still currently injured

he's rehabbing from back

surgery he is supposed to

be coming back in the next

few weeks from what I

understand so this should be uh

A pretty easy, you know,

like this should be fine.

We should get that draft pick.

And again,

he we traded for him with a

seventh round pick and are

getting back a sixth round pick.

Plus, we've got this this Toporowski,

which I feel like people

call him Topper or Toppy.

We'll see what he likes.

He's another forward.

He is, I believe, 22 years old,

so he's still pretty young.

He's going straight to Iowa.

And he is the first player

to play for the Iowa Wild

who is actually from Iowa.

So that was just a really

cool kind of side bonus to us all.

Someone kind of compared

him... I was reading

through scouting reports.

Someone compared him to... They said,

think of your favorite

small NHL pot stirrer.

You know, so like in my head immediately,

I'm like, well, Brad Marchand.

You know,

so maybe we have another Marchand

on our hands.

I would be okay with that.

Apparently, he's got like a quick,

powerful shot, quick hands.

He's got some good speed.

And he...

He's in the age on now, but he's young.

And I'm excited to kind of

see how he develops down there.

And our last trade, our number four trade,

Connor Dewar to Toronto

Maple Leafs in exchange,

a 2026 fourth round pick,

plus Dimitri Ov... I knew I

was going to do this.

I psyched myself out.

Ovchinkov.

Ovchinkov.

Okay.

So again,

I think this is another great trade.

I do think Guerin made great

trades with what he had

because for Duhaime got a third round.

Dewar comes with a little

bit more of an upside than Duhaime does.

So he gets a fourth round

and another player prospect.

And that works because again,

Dewar has a little bit more

of a scoring edge than Duhame does.

He had that hat trick

earlier in the season, which was,

you know, kind of out of the blue,

but at the same time he was like, yeah,

I can score whatever.

Why is everyone making a big

deal about this?

Now, the prospect that we got,

he actually just left the

KHL and signed over here

with the Marlies.

So he is not actually going

to Iowa right now.

He is staying with the

Marlies because he's with

them for their playoff run for the AHL.

And scouting reports,

what I read is that he is speedy.

He's got a good release.

He's got great potential.

He just needs to add some strength.

And I feel like that is something,

you know,

I don't know what his future plans are,

but when we have guys who

kind of stay over the

summer and work on strength

with like the wild staff,

they are stronger.

Like every, like look at Rossi.

Rossi stayed over the summer,

and he put on like 15,

20 pounds of muscle.

I mean,

you could visibly see that he was

beefed up.

So, you know, again,

I don't know if this guy

would come to Minnesota or

what he would do,

but if he's able to kind of

continue over the offseason

and add some strength,

it would be really interesting to see.

Hopefully we see him in Iowa next season.

um I know we just we need

more prospects to come over

and see if we can improve

this iowa team a little bit

because right this year

they're just not doing

great and the problem I

guess I can I can take this

graphic off so you can look

at my beautiful face

instead um the problem is

that is this a good way to

develop wallstead like he

is he's doing good

But there are games that they are just,

they lose terribly or they just,

it's just not great.

And it's not Wallstead's

fault necessarily.

You know,

he might have a bad day or something.

Everybody does.

But if you have the team

playing in front of him,

that Swiss cheese and was

letting everything through

and Wallstead can only

stand on his head so much.

You just have to think that.

What's better for him?

Keeping him down there

another year or bringing

him up to the NHL?

Because we have this really

interesting situation.

And I'm trying to think of.

So we've got the three goalies.

We've got Fleury.

We've got Gustafson.

And we've got Wallstead.

Fleury, we all thought,

was going to retire after this year.

And I don't think he's going to.

I don't think he's going to

retire anymore.

And I do honestly think that

at the beginning of the season,

he made a good decision to not...

make an announcement because

he has played so well he

looks like his old self so

I could see him signing

another year and I would

love to have him here in

minnesota I know that one

of the reasons that he did

not want to be traded is

not only because he feels

like the wild are his team

they're his boys he wants

to stay but also because he

wants to stay with his

family that was the whole

reason why like when he

signed he wanted at least a two-year deal

Because he deserves that.

He deserves to not have to

move his family all the time.

You know,

his kids are getting older and

that's got to suck for them.

So moving on, we've got Gustafsson,

who last year was just an

absolute enigma.

And this year,

and he knows this because

he's talked about it,

he has struggled so much

with consistency because

there are nights where he is amazing.

Like when they played, was it Arizona,

where they scored like

instantly on the first shot

in like 20 seconds.

But then after that,

he locked it down and he

did not make more stupid mistakes.

But again, he's either on or off,

and there's no gray medium this year.

But I want to continue to

have faith in him.

I hope that the Wild do not

try to move him because he

has shown what he can do.

And with a team where it

seems like we are doing a

little bit more of a

rebuild than Garen wanted

to or we wanted to,

I feel like we should keep

him around longer.

and see what more he can do.

Can he become more consistent?

Can he, you know, just,

can he become that number

one that we all think he

can and that he wanted to

prove he can be?

I think so.

But then we have Wallstead.

So originally the plan was

to pull Wallstead up to

Minnesota next season with Gustafson.

It would be the last year of his ELC.

And have Gustafson play

number one and have

Wallstead be number two.

But do you want Wallstead to

play in front of a team like this?

They threw him to the wolves

in that Texas game.

I hate that.

If there's one thing that I

hate that the Wilds did this year,

it's that.

It's having his first NHL

game be such a...

a load of crap and I feel so bad for him.

I do hope he gets a few more

starts here as we get towards playoffs.

If we become, you know,

if we get to a spot where

we know where we're going,

can we make the playoffs or

is there no way we will

make the playoffs then pull

him up and we'll see how

he's doing or do we leave him in the,

in the AHL?

I mean, okay.

It's just, there's no right answer.

There's no right answer.

Um,

But honestly, if I had to make the choice,

as of right now,

I would try to re-sign Fleury for,

you know,

he might be amenable to a

one-year contract,

knowing that time is coming up now.

Maybe a two-year contract,

but I don't think we want

to sign him to a two

because we want to pull up Wallstead.

I think we keep Gustafson around.

I think we keep Wallstead in Iowa.

But see if we can give him a

few starts here or there.

You know, we have to wait and see.

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So I'm going to wrap this up

because this is getting really long,

but there are two things

that I want to say.

Number one,

Adam Beckman is up here.

He's actually getting some ice time.

It's not always great,

especially on what was it?

Saturday.

No, Friday, Thursday, Friday,

Friday was so many special

teams and he's just,

he's not on a special team,

but I'm excited to kind of

have him get a little more

ice time up here and just

prove that he can stay up here.

The last thing I'm going to say is that

If you remember, I do have a merch shop,

which I will link below in

the show notes.

There is plenty of stuff

with my Her Wild Side logo,

which you see on my screen

if you're watching me.

And I have all sorts of different stuff,

like my...

hot girl hockey club shirt.

And these things are available,

not just shirts.

There's also coffee mugs, there's stickers,

there's all sorts of things.

Again,

this is a way if you think that

these are fun, you would wear it,

you'd use it.

This is another way to

support my show financially.

And I will say the shirts

that I've gotten are very comfortable.

So this is, you know,

I'm literally telling you

like these are good, good shirts.

So

I will leave you with that.

I hate doing a hard sell.

I used to... Side note.

For a little while, I did... Sorry.

I did a mommy blog.

This was before mommy blogs got weird.

But obviously,

I was trying to make a

little money from it.

And so I would do sponsored

posts and stuff.

But I had such a hard time

doing them because it would be like...

Take these weird,

awkward pictures of you

holding a product and like, you know,

so the labels facing the camera or like,

oh,

like having to do a video kind of like

this.

I hate a hard sell.

So just know that I am only

hard selling things that I use myself.

Like Ticketmaster and my merch.

All right,

I'm going to leave you because

I'm sure you're annoyed of

me and you don't want to

listen to me anymore.

I don't blame you.

I will be back sooner than a week.

And until then,

I want you to keep the good

vibes going for the

Minnesota Wild because we

can make the playoffs.

Good vibes for the Deweys and Maroon.

Thank you for your service.

Hopefully we see you again

on our bench and not the other.

And everybody is a part of

the Hawkgirl Hockey Club.

I love you all.

And I will see you next time.

Bye.