In Which the Fourth Line Carried the Team in Chicago

In this episode, Mikki welcomes hockey back into her life after a Disney World vacation. She runs down the list of changes over the past week and also talks about Fleury's 1000th game celebration. And remember, everyone is welcome here and in the Hot Girl Hockey Club.

Links:
Her Wild Side Merch Shop!
Ticketmaster Affiliate Link

Social Media:
Twitter
Instagram
Facebook

For more from us, visit Inside The Rink

How to support us and our sponsors:
Columbia Sports Apparel
ESPN+ Subscription
Fanatics
Draft Kings - CODE ITR  

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, Nikki,

aka HockeySheWrote, and I am back.

I am assuming a lot of you

follow me on social media, mostly Twitter,

so you have probably seen

that I was gone in Disney

World for a week.

I posted quite a few

pictures of myself in

different places just because.

Anyway,

I'm not going to get totally into

Disney World stuff,

but I will say that we had

a really great time.

Both my kids like Star Wars.

My son really likes Star Wars.

My daughter used to.

She kind of was off that train,

but we rode both of the

Brand new, brand new-ish Star Wars rides.

And they were amazing.

They were absolutely amazing.

We also, as a family,

love the Haunted Mansion.

So we did that twice.

Overall, we just,

it was a really nice week away.

I really wish somehow I

could have timed it to be

the same as All-Star Break

because I did miss both

games that the Wild played last week.

To be fair,

I totally missed the Chicago one.

And the one against the Penguins, I did...

I did tune in and watch

Fleury's ceremony at the

beginning for his

thousandth game and 552 wins.

So I did watch that.

I watched the first period.

Like I wanted to try to stay

up and I just couldn't.

If any of you, first of all,

just being on the East coast was just,

you know, everything's an hour later,

which I am so sorry to all

of my East coast listeners,

because that really sucks.

especially when they play on

the West Coast,

as they are going to do tonight.

As I'm recording,

it is Monday in the Wild

Play in Las Vegas tonight.

And the game starts at 9

o'clock Midwest time.

And that's really late, you guys,

to start the game.

It feels a little bit like

last year when the playoffs, you know,

the Wild, they're playing the Stars.

And for some reason,

all the games started at

like 10 o'clock at night.

Anyway, I'm not going to whine too much.

I'm just excited to be home

and be able to watch

because I miss hockey.

I missed it.

It is really weird to go, you know,

more than a week without watching hockey.

And obviously they had the

all-star break before that.

And I was going to,

I'm looking at my calendar

here because I'm trying to remember, like,

did I, did I watch a game?

Nope.

No,

there were no other games like before I

left.

So it has been a really long

time for me without hockey.

I did watch some PWHL.

So it's not like it has been

totally without hockey.

But just, you know, besides having,

you know, NHL or PWHL, we also were gone.

So even my little mini mic

guy has not practiced hockey.

So, I mean,

it's just it's been really

weird to be outside of a

rink for that long.

I'm rambling, but that's okay.

So a lot of things happened

while I was gone,

because of course they did.

And actually,

I'm just looking now at my

notifications here on my phone,

and the Minnesota Wild PR just...

announced that they had

activated Connor Dewar from

the injured reserve list,

which we all saw coming

because he has been

practicing with them for a

little while here,

a couple of days or so.

And they have placed Marcus

Foligno on injured reserve,

which I do not like to see.

It's always... And that was

one of those things that I

missed because he was

injured in the second period, I believe,

of...

Was it the Chicago game?

No,

it wasn't because that was when he

fought the guy in Chicago.

It must've been during the

Pittsburgh game.

Again,

I'm just trying to get through all

of my thoughts here because

just a lot going on.

Um,

and I'm looking to see if there's

anything else,

but I don't think there's a

lot of other stuff going on here.

Um,

But also we got word that

Pat Maroon had successful back surgery.

We did not know that he

needed back surgery as far as I know,

but I'm glad that it's successful.

He'll be out for,

I think they said four to six weeks.

So hopefully he can heal quickly and, um,

Just be back.

I feel like he's just such a

large presence and not always on the ice,

although he has been so

much better than anyone

thought he would be.

He's been playing so well.

And they really need his

voice in the locker room, too,

because they are struggling.

The Chicago game, again, I didn't watch it,

but I heard that even though they won,

it was a terrible game.

like a terrible game.

The first and second lines,

like the top lines just

absolutely did not show up.

I, they were still on vacation, I guess.

Thank goodness for the third

and mostly the fourth line

is who really saved that game.

That was the game where, uh,

Jake Luchini had his first

goal in a wild sweater,

which was very exciting.

Uh, and just, uh,

Lataria believe also had a goal, uh,

Just having the fourth line

score is always so joyful.

It was those two in Duhaime

and they really just pulled

the weight of the whole team.

So, you know,

thank you to the fourth line

and be sure that if any of

those guys are your

emotional support fourth

liners that you thank them or you just,

you know,

send them some positive thoughts

or something.

We also, yesterday,

they once again recalled

Adam Beckman and there was

like a big uproar.

So they recalled Beckman at

the end of the all-star

break for NHL and brought

him up and healthy

scratched him twice and

then sent him back down.

But the worst part was that

there was this whole big thing about like,

this is Beckman's chance.

This is his big shot.

You know,

he last year just really wasn't

able to harness his power

to really show what he had and, you know,

spent it in Iowa and that's fine.

He did like, he played great.

He was good down there.

He kind of needed some more

time to get his footing under him.

And this year he has really,

He was injured for a little period of time,

but he's really come back

from that and playing well in Iowa.

So they had pulled him up again.

They made this big deal

about how it was his shot.

This is, oh,

he's got to really make an

impression here.

And then they didn't even

put him in the lineup.

And I do understand why, because, you know,

in that Chicago game, like I said,

the fourth line just was phenomenal.

And if anyone,

he would have been replacing Luchini.

They would have sent Luchini

down and put Bachman in.

And Lucini played like an absolute pro.

So there was no way they

were going to take him out

for the Pittsburgh game.

So Beckman got sent back down to Iowa.

They played over the weekend in Iowa.

And he's back now.

So we will kind of see where he's at.

As I said,

they have Dewar back in the

lineup and Foligno out.

So let's see.

Trying to quickly do all this, like,

arranging in my head here.

it just, uh, Latari is also back.

Like I said, in Chicago, you know,

he had a broken foot.

He's healed from that.

He's back.

He's doing good.

Um, Adam Rasko was sent back down to Iowa.

I'm excited to see if he comes back.

Cause I do really enjoy his game too.

I feel like he just has so much energy,

even in Iowa,

some of the social media stuff,

he is just like

bursting with energy.

He just seems so happy and

joyful and just kind of a

positive presence.

And that, you know,

that that's always

something that I enjoy to see.

So we also have Declan Chisholm,

who should be in the lineup soon.

I don't believe he's going

to be in tonight.

But he was the defenseman

from the Winnipeg Jets that

the Wild picked up off of

waivers right before the

NHL All-Star break.

Maybe right after.

Again,

all these weeks are blending

together for me because

there was no hockey.

And then I spent time in

Disney World where everything is just

I don't know what that's supposed to mean,

but you can take that how you want it to.

But he should be in soon.

And I was just listening to

the We're Seats in the

House podcast from this past week.

So, like, you know,

it's probably five days old or so.

And Russo was saying, like,

he doesn't really have a

lot of insight on Chisholm,

but he would compare him

almost to like a Carson

Lambos kind of a style.

Yeah.

So I'm really interested to

get him in and see how he is doing.

I was also listening to the

Ride in the Bus Iowa Wild podcast.

I have only gotten a little ways in,

so I have not actually

gotten through the Mason Straw interview,

which I really want to

listen to right after I'm done with this,

probably.

But.

Will Butcher was the

defenseman that they traded for,

and it sounds like he is

fitting in well in Iowa,

and he's really making a

presence as a veteran.

I'm not sure how he's doing

on the ice or anything,

but I know that it is

already nice to have

another veteran player down

there to help while

Minnesota keeps pulling them up,

pulling up the rest of the veteran guys.

And as I mentioned, Mason Shaw.

So he is back on the ice for

his first few games.

He kind of he was lacking speed,

his normal speed.

He just needed some more

time to kind of get back up to pace.

It sounds like he has done that.

And I think he's gotten four

points in the last game.

like nine games or so,

he's really been a big

presence on the ice.

He's gotten that extra step back.

So he's, his speed is there.

And originally it was kind

of this whole like, well, you know,

if he takes some time to

get his speed back,

he probably won't come up

to Minnesota this season, which is fine.

You know,

obviously he's back on the ice

and he's making strides,

but then all of a sudden

now he's been just

leaps and bounds, you know,

from this surgery, he has, let's see,

he scored an overtime winner,

I believe this past weekend.

And just overall,

it's looking more and more

like if Minnesota has a

playoff spot or hopes for a playoff spot.

And I'm just going to say

with my rose colored

glasses that I believe they will.

But they will most likely

sign Shaw to an NHL

contract now because with Spurgeon out,

they do have that $7 million,

$6 million or so cap space

that they can exceed the salary cap now.

So they could very easily

fit in an NHL deal for Mason Shaw.

simply because he's not going to, you know,

he just came off of his ELC.

So he's not going to, you know,

he's probably going to be

like just above league minimum,

maybe a little bit more than that.

Uh,

but I would say at the most he'd be

maybe 1 million.

Now don't trust me for, um, contract, uh,

advice or anything just like my, uh,

refusal to deal mostly in stats.

I also am, first of all,

terrible at estimating

anything numerical.

And second of all,

don't know that much about contracts.

Mostly what I know is just

by reading and listening

widely and then putting all

the information together

that people think is going to happen.

So hopefully you understood

what that meant.

I'm just,

I'm getting back in the swing of

things with the podcast too, you know?

So one more thing was that

Jonas Brodine was sick.

He was out.

He was sick.

He is back in the lineup now,

but I know that he lost

weight while he was sick and that I mean,

he's not a guy that has weight to lose.

So I know that was a bit concerning,

but he has looked pretty good.

From what I hear, because again,

I didn't watch.

Anyway,

I am excited to see how he's doing

tonight against the Vegas Golden Knights.

Tonight should be

interesting because the Knights,

while they might not be... I'm sorry,

I'm shaking this camera.

The Knights are still a very

competitive team.

You know, they have...

they're going to be tough.

They're going to be tough to beat.

And Minnesota really needs

to step up their game.

And thankfully against Pittsburgh,

they did because, you know, Chicago,

they managed to win, but just barely.

Now they won against the

Penguins and that was great,

but they really need to

step up even more.

So there were, and I guess, you know what,

I'm going to jump ahead in my notes here.

Not that you guys can see that.

Marc-Andre Fleury,

he had his 1000th game

celebration and celebration

for his 552nd win on last

Friday before the

Pittsburgh Penguins game,

which turned out so well.

Like,

I wonder when the NHL put the

schedule together,

I have no idea how far in

advance they plan some of these things.

But I wonder if that was

kind of a thought on their mind.

Do you know what I mean?

Like if they were like, you know what,

Fleury is going to reach

these big milestones.

And wouldn't it be cool if

he could also celebrate

with his old buddies in Pittsburgh?

So let's make sure that we

can get all that lined up.

I'm sure that had nothing to

do with it and it was just

a happy coincidence.

But I'm going to prefer to

think that somebody had

that in the back of their

mind as they were making the schedule.

So a few other things.

This is kind of... I'm kind

of... You know what?

No, I'm not done.

I'm not done with Celebration.

It was really fun to watch

the Celebration.

I was actually... I've

talked about this 10 gazillion times,

but I was in the rink for

the Celebration for Alex

Goligosky's 1,000th game.

And no matter what, it's such...

There's so many emotions

that surround these

ceremonies because these

really are elite milestones.

You know,

it takes a lot to play a thousand

games in the NHL.

And that's just as a skater.

And I've talked about Flurry

and he no one else is ever

going to reach these milestones again.

It is not physically possible.

It is not numerically possible.

It is not it's not going to happen.

And so having that kind of

added extra layer on top of

what is already an amazing accomplishment,

really.

Just it was special to watch even on TV.

You know,

I cried at Goligosky's ceremony

when I was there in person.

I cried watching Fleury's ceremony on TV.

And, you know,

they pulled out a win for him,

which is really overall just amazing.

You know, and against his old team,

some of his old buddies got

to kind of be front row to that.

And in some ways,

they almost couldn't be

upset about a loss, you know,

because it still meant that Fleury won.

And Marc-Andre Fleury is amazing.

To still be doing what he

does at his age and not

look like he's missing a step.

You know,

he had a little bit of a slump at

the beginning of the year,

but it wasn't a slump because he's aging,

you know?

So just seeing him win that

game and seeing him,

seeing his kids and his

wife and everyone just so excited and

I don't know.

I'm kind of run out of words

because it's just, again, so emotional.

And even just watching the

video that the Wild put

together is emotional.

Seeing his passion on the

ice and how much he loves

the game of hockey.

He is not out there just

because it's a job.

He is out there because he

loves what he does.

I am going to segue a little

bit because this is kind of

a tangent here.

But one thing that my

husband and I were

discussing while we were

away on our Disney trip was

about how much it isn't

great to see when people love their job.

Because at Disney, for the most part,

I mean, everybody is happy.

All the all the employees, everybody,

you know, from the people who are

cleaning or emptying the

trash to the security

guards outside of the park to, you know,

any of the character

performers or anyone who is

selling food or souvenirs.

You know,

everyone is just happy and it's

just a really fun atmosphere.

But it even went to,

we had a bus driver at one point driving,

you know,

shuttling us from the hotel back to,

or like from the park back

to the hotel or something.

And he was just,

he would come on the loudspeaker and, oh,

he was just like having so much fun.

And we sang someone happy birthday.

And then he told us that it

had been his anniversary the day before.

And so we are all

congratulating him and just, yeah.

So much fun.

And then we also on the

flight home before we took

off from Orlando,

the pilot came down the

aisle and any kid that he saw,

he gave them a coloring

sheet of an airplane,

a little pack of crayons and then,

you know, like the little wing pin.

And he said,

if you color this in and you

give it to me at the end of the flight,

then I'll give you a little rubber duck.

So both of my kids colored it.

And I think almost all the

kids on the flight did.

And they got a little rubber

duck at the end.

And he was telling us that

he does this on all of his flights.

And when he retires in a few years,

he saves all the pictures.

He plans on bringing them

all into the Delta

headquarters and hanging

them up and just showing people.

And it's amazing when you

love what you do.

This pilot was just so passionate.

And he also...

made two like balloon animal

hats that had like a

balloon airplane on the top

that he even used like a

marker to draw um like a

happy face on it and then

like windows on the sides

and I mean like somewhat

intricate balloon hat I and

I'm not a balloon artist

but just the fact that

He likes what he does so

much that he brings those

things to work every day.

We did have a good laugh

when we were imagining how

he goes about telling his co-pilot,

you know,

if it's a co-pilot who flies

with him for the first time,

how do you think he

broaches this subject of like, hey,

by the way, in the middle of the flight,

I'm going to need you to

take over because I need to

make a few balloon hats for the kids.

So just be aware.

I just love that visual of that.

So I have already rambled quite a bit,

but I have one, two, three more things.

So this is starting my, oh,

future considerations in a

bag full of pucks section,

AKA miscellaneous.

So first of all,

the Foligno brothers

managed to anger Taylor

Swift fans by saying that

their wives were hotter.

And the fact that I actually

angered people,

I hope no one was actually

angry because they

literally were just saying like,

we're married and we love our wives.

And again,

that was the Chicago game that I

didn't watch,

but I did see the fight

where Foligno was fighting to Norti,

who is like a huge guy apparently.

And then at the end of the fight, they,

they zoom in on his

brother's face on the Chicago bench.

And he is just like,

just out of it like just

staring into space out of

it and it even just

thinking of it again makes

me laugh there has also

been even more with the

coyotes and their arena and

moving to south lake city

and if they do that then

that means that probably

atlanta will get another

team which I you know I i

don't know did we need to

expand I don't think we need more teams

And maybe that's just me.

But I mean,

there are places that have two

or three teams.

And I guess, you know,

not that I necessarily want

to move the teams, but...

It's such a weird thing for me.

And someone else said that

instead of expanding the league,

maybe they should work with

the PWHL to extend that

league and in tangent with the NHL.

So any city that has an NHL

team would also eventually

have a PWHL team and really

help grow that game.

And I like that idea a lot more.

Because, again,

on the We're Seats in the House podcast,

they were even talking

about the fact that even if

the Coyotes move to Salt Lake City,

The NHL still wants to keep

a foothold in Arizona.

And so they would eventually

bring a team back there anyway.

And I know that, you know,

they're having trouble with this arena.

They're playing in Mullet Arena.

They can't figure out where

to build another arena,

how they're going to build it,

how they're going to get the money,

whatever.

But it just I think it'd be

ridiculous to move it and

then just put a new team there.

And then Michael Russo also

had some kind of a quip

about the social media

Arizona page having gone rogue.

And honestly, they haven't gone rogue.

I feel like they are the

most in touch social media

page of the NHL.

I think it's okay to do hilarious,

funny memes.

And the last thing I want to

talk about is the slap shot

heard around the world.

And I know this has been

talked about and talked about.

I just want to mention it

because it's a thing that

happened and it's a thing

that spurred this

conversation that I don't

think needs to be a conversation.

So Ridley Greig, Senator's rookie,

was coming on the ice.

The Maple Leafs had an empty

net and he went to shoot

the puck in the net instead

of just like pushing it.

He did a slap shot.

And apparently that was so

egregious to Morgan Riley

that he had to cross check

him directly in the face.

And people are on Riley's side.

I, I don't get it.

Who cares how someone shoots

it into an empty net?

I, I guess I am not an NHL player,

but I still don't think I

would even think to do that.

Now there was also Ryan Reeves, um,

As I have said,

ever since he left the wild

and he injured Goudreau and

all that stuff,

he has been on my schnit list.

And then he comes up after

this because he's on the Leafs.

I don't know if people on the Leafs.

Sorry, I said leaves.

It's Leafs.

He's on the Leafs.

I don't know if people know

that because he's barely been on the ice,

but he does still play in Toronto.

But he came up with this whole, like, oh,

back in the day when I started, blah,

blah, blah, blah, blah.

No.

That... He cross-checked him in the head.

Now, you know what?

I get being angry.

And I get maybe going over

and starting a shoving match.

Or, I don't know, doing something.

Okay.

I would not...

I would not condone it,

but I would understand it.

But this was, again,

such a just wild response that no,

it's not okay.

And the fact that Ryan

Reeves is out here trying to blah, blah,

blah, it's fine.

No, it's not.

Okay,

I'm going to get off of these

tangents now because

I rambled enough about

hockey and Walt Disney

World and how excited I am

for hockey to be back into my life.

So with that, I have a few closing things,

which is if you are watching the video,

you will see as I stand up

that I am wearing...

my hot girl hockey club shirt.

If you are interested in any hot club,

hot girl hockey club merch,

or just general her wild

side hockey podcast merch, uh,

that link will be in the show notes.

Remember we have shirts,

but we also have stickers.

There are coffee mugs.

There's all sorts of just fun stuff.

And we are going to

continually work to put new

things in the shop because it's fun.

And that's the only reason also, uh,

If you are watching the audio,

I'm going to see if I can.

I always forget where it is

on my little thing here.

I'm going to put up an overlay.

So one of the ways that you

can support our show and

the Inside the Rink network

in general is to get your

Ticketmaster tickets

through our affiliate link.

So on the video,

I have an overlay with a QR code.

And I will also in the show

notes have a link.

Now, this is for any tickets,

not just hockey tickets.

If you are going to be

buying tickets through

Ticketmaster for anything, concert,

hockey game, magic show, dog races,

I don't know, whatever,

whatever you need tickets for.

I would love if you would

please use our link to help

support our network and get

these things going.

Again, that will be in our

in my show notes,

along with a few other

affiliate links that we

have for other companies

that still also help support us.

That was a lot of words,

but I think you got what I meant.

So anyway,

I'm going to end this recording

and I will be back in a

couple of days with another episode.

And until then,

I would like you all to put

the positive vibes out for

the Minnesota Wild and the

PWHL Minnesota team.

And just, you know what?

You are beautiful.

You are hot.

Everyone's in the hot girl

hockey club because

everyone is welcome here.

And I love all of you.

So until next time, I will see you later.