In Which the Wild Players Think They Can Land a Plane

In this episode, Mikki discusses the game against the Seattle Kraken, what the Wild should do about trades, and needing more content from the Wild Gala. She also groups the players into those who think they could land a commercial aircraft and those who think they couldn't.

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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 on social media.

And I am coming to you on Wednesday.

We have not had a Wild game for two whole days.

Sunday was when they played the Seattle Kraken, the last game on the road trip.

So now we are all just waiting.

We are waiting for the game tomorrow night.

Anyway...

it is always really hard when they go three days between games, three days, four days, the all-star break is like kind of terrible.

I mean, it's almost, it's like a year long.

Cause it feels like once you get into the season, like really into the season, I know my life kind of revolves around the hockey schedule.

I know I like, it's a certain sort of privilege to say that, but for the most part, I do schedule around hockey games.

And I'm sure a lot of you do the same, at least as much as you can.

So when there aren't any games, it feels like you just, what do you do?

You're like untethered.

We are untethered.

We are floating through the stratosphere and we do not have hockey to anchor us.

But we only have one more day.

So, you know, we don't need to panic or anything.

know not that i'm panicking anyway um so first i'm gonna just do a quick maybe quick recap of the Seattle Kraken game the best part let's just say is that the Wild one so they ended their four game road trip with two wins and i'll take that you know what i'll take it now here's i think

I think the big thing about it is I'll take it because it's a win and because we saw a lot of good things and a lot of good potential.

So let's start with, first of all, Joel Eriksson-Ek, who I have said before is my favorite player and I typically wear his jersey to home games that I go to.

He is on pace for, yet again, another career year.

Now, understand that

every year that he has played for the Minnesota Wild has been a career year for him.

Literally every year he gets better.

He scores more goals.

He gets more points.

His face off percentage gets a little bit better.

He just, he still has not, he is nowhere near his ceiling.

Let's say that he is nowhere near the ceiling.

He has so much more potential to go because he's not slowing down.

He's on pace right now for 40-plus goals this year.

It doesn't matter how the team is playing.

Joel Eriksson-Ek is always on his A game.

Now, we've also got Matt Boldy is starting to heat up again.

He had a hard stretch at the beginning of the year.

He was injured, so he was out.

He came back.

He had a hard time kind of getting back into the swing of things.

He was getting assists, not goals.

But in the last five games, he has five goals.

And he has six goals in the last eight.

That was before the Seattle game.

Before the Seattle game.

Um, and one thing to remember is we have to remember that Seattle was coming off of a back-to-back.

This is the second game in a back-to-back.

So the Wild were playing, uh, um, a team who was a little tired while they had had a rest day.

So keep it in mind, but this was the first test without Jonas Brodin in the lineup because he was injured in the game on Friday in the third period.

And overall it went well.

I felt like the defensive core really stepped up.

And when they came out with the lines before that game, I was not sold.

And I think I even talked about that on the last podcast.

I was not sold.

First of all, if we're just talking about defense, they had Alex Goligoski and Jared Spurgeon up on the top pairing.

The second pairing was Jake Middleton and Brock Faber.

And then they had Zach Bogosian coming back from injury alongside Jon Merrill on the third pairing.

I just didn't know if that was going to work.

Now, I know that Alex Goligoski can skate top pairing minutes.

That's not the issue.

But I know he's struggled in other areas.

Now, Jake Middleton, on the other hand, he has been doing really great once Spurgeon came back.

He struggled without Jared Spurgeon.

I think they've got some kind of, you know,

It's kind of like Kaprizov and Zuccarello.

Spurgeon and Middleton just have this connection where they are able to play so well together.

And it's like they just know where the other one's going to be, and they really kind of gel together.

So I was not sure how it would go to have Middleton next to somebody else.

And I know they put him next to Faber on purpose because he is a little bit bigger, and he is also a veteran presence.

And they played well.

They played really well together.

The other thing is that Brock Faber really showed that his good play is not just because he's next to elite defenseman Jonas Brodin most of the time.

I think people were not sure how he would do without Brodin.

But every time...

People think like, oh, well, maybe he's got good numbers because he was sheltered.

Maybe he had good numbers because he's not playing very many minutes.

Maybe he has good numbers because he's next to Jonas Brodin.

I mean, everyone knows he's good, but this was a showing that he's good no matter what.

I called him a hockey robot in my last podcast and I will stand by that.

He is a hockey robot.

He is good.

It doesn't matter who he's with.

It doesn't matter who he's up against.

He is good.

Like I said, Zach Bogosian came back from an upper body injury and he was an absolute bad man.

He had like, like,

Four hits, three blocked shots.

I mean, he was just like throwing his body around in front of Gustavsson and just like blocking everything he could, hitting anything that skated by him.

He was just, he was there.

Spurgeon was able to kind of prop up Goligoski.

I hate saying that because I like goose, but it worked.

But the one thing that didn't work is that Jonn Merrill only saw eight minutes of ice time.

I really wish they would have put Dakota Mermis in.

And I know that, you know, Mermis is still a back and forth guy.

He's a back and forth NHL guy because they do need him in Iowa.

He's the captain there.

He plays good minutes.

He's a good leader.

So they really need him in Iowa.

But he's been playing well when he's up here.

And I wish they would have put him in because I wonder if he would have been able to play more than eight minutes.

Because everybody else played like 15 plus minutes.

I think there was one 12 minute and then after that it was like 15 plus.

And all the way up to like, I think Spurgeon had 28 minutes on the ice or something like that.

Something crazy.

And the other thing is the top lines were also shuffled.

So the top line was, let's see if I can remember this because I didn't write it down, of course.

Kaprizov, Rossi, and Ek.

No, no, no.

Kaprizov, Ek, Boldy.

There we go.

I knew I'd get it.

And then the second line was Rossi, Johansson, Zuccarello.

I was not sure.

And the biggest thing for me was that Kaprizov and Rossi and Zuccarello, those three together, have been working so well together.

They are one of the top scoring lines in the league.

Like I think at least in the top like 20, I believe I saw.

And that's good.

The one place that I think it didn't work, because these top lines, they also like gelled together.

They were good.

They are a possibility alongside the old lines.

But in the second period, they had a power play.

And they actually had to start with the second power play unit versus the top unit because all of their top guys that are usually on that top unit, they had already been on the ice when the penalty was called.

So instead of trying to get them on the power play while they were already tired, they had to put out the second unit.

Obviously, that's not something that we need to be upset about or cry about.

But it's just like something to think about, I think, when they are doing lines.

It's something to think about.

Face-offs were back to terrible in this game.

35%.

The Wild team-wide won 35% of face-offs.

But I'm going to say...

I really was influenced, I hate that word, this way by Ryan Carter on the Wild on 7th podcast talking last year about how face-offs are not necessarily that important.

Obviously, you want to win a face-off.

Obviously, you want to get in control of the puck.

But if you're not winning face-offs, you want to be able to get the puck from the other team.

And the Wild have been doing that.

If they can't win face-offs, we just need them to continue being that physical team and get the puck.

You know, take the puck away.

And they have.

So while face-offs would be nice, they're not everything.

At one point in time during the game, let me say...

Wes Walz has grown on me.

I like him.

I like him.

And he just makes me laugh.

At one point in time, he said something about backtracking.

And then he said, it's kind of a fancy word.

And it just made me laugh because I feel like that would be me or one of my friends.

Like if we're kind of like thrown on the spot, we're just like like just we're just spewing things.

We're just spewing things and going with it and trying to act normal.

I feel like that would be me, too.

All right.

So at the end of the second period, we were still up one zero.

So the offense, they'd been okay, but the defense had been great.

They had been keeping the Kraken to the outside.

They were doing a great job.

And then, so we get into the third period.

Marco Rossi, still just one of the best rookies in the league.

He nets another.

And then Eriksson Ek ended up getting an empty net goal right at the end.

But let's have a little applause for...

For Gustavsson, our Gus Bus.

Second shutout of this season.

Fifth shutout of his career.

And all five of those came in with Minnesota.

I always think back to an interview he did last year.

It was an after-game interview, I believe.

He was in the locker room.

And he...

I don't remember the exact quote, but in essence, he was saying that it was nice to find a team that believed in him and was willing to work with him.

And, you know, I don't know what that says about a previous team, but that's kind of the Wild for a lot of these players.

The wild end up kind of being this place where players that have struggled in other teams find a home.

And it's just really nice to hear that.

And it's nice to have our Gus bus back.

He has only allowed six goals in his last four games.

So, like I said, the old Gus bus is back.

And at the very end of the game, I wish the camera would have stayed on him longer because he jumped up on top of the net to sit.

Once it was totally obvious that the shutout was imminent, he jumped up there and it was just such a goalie move.

I'm assuming he was just like kicking his little legs and like waiting for his teammates to come.

So but they cut away so quickly.

I wish we would have had more time.

A few other takeaways from this game is that the defensive core, they're probably going to struggle without Brodin.

He's an elite defenseman.

He is one of the best in the league.

In fact, I think he's the top defensive defenseman in the league.

So obviously you're going to struggle.

But the defensive core really worked hard here.

And I hope that we keep seeing this because everybody and I mean, Merrill only had eight minutes, but all the other five defensemen were really just giving it their all.

So it'll be interesting to see in this game tomorrow on Thursday.

Do they put Jon Merrill in?

Do they call up Dakota Mermis or Daemon Hunt for that matter and let one of them play?

We will see.

And then I thought it was interesting after the game that John Hynes kind of compared Matt Boldy to Joel Eriksson-Ek in the way that he's becoming more of a two-way center, which is really interesting to me because Matt Boldy, I always kind of figured he would just be a scoring guy, but he is kind of the longer he's in the league, the more kind of

tough he's getting, the more defensive he's being able to get.

And it's a little bit kind of like Rossi.

You know, he went down and got that FU in his game, came back, and he's been doing really good defensively also.

Anyway, so my takeaway was just that it was a good game.

I know that they struggled.

They had two losses, but let's see how they look on Thursday, especially at home.

Moving on to something a little lighter.

I read this tweet on Twitter that there was a survey and 50% of men think that they could land a commercial aircraft.

I hate to tell you, but if you are one of those, most likely you could not land a commercial aircraft and I hope you never have to try.

But it had me thinking, which of the Wild players would think they could and who would think they couldn't?

So for the wildfires that would think they could land a commercial aircraft, I think the very top one is is very obvious.

Marcus Foligno would be the absolute first one to jump out of his chair and race to the cockpit.

I have no doubt in my mind.

And he would be so happy to do it.

He'd be so excited.

He would also be like, OK, I need the pilot hat and I need like, is there a badge to go with this?

He would need those things.

I think Pat Maroon is just very confident in himself.

I think he would just be like, yep, I can do it.

Give me some directions.

Brandon Duhaime, I think he thinks he could do it.

I think he would sit down in the seat and immediately kind of have that, oh, crap moment.

And hopefully someone would take him out of the seat and back to where he was supposed to be sitting.

Mats Zuccarello has that insane confidence in himself, that insane self-esteem.

I think he absolutely would think he could land a plane.

Ryan Hartman was one I wasn't sure, but I did put him in think they could.

I don't think he would think that in like a cocky way.

I think he would just be like, you know, he would like debate and think he could.

Jake Middleton was also one that I wasn't sure about, but I did put him in the think they could.

I think he's just so happy-go-lucky that he'd be like, well, give it a try.

And then I did put Bogosian here.

He was one I was really not sure about.

But again, I think he would be like willing to try.

And the last one that I put in thinking they could land the plane was Filip Gustavsson.

And that's just because he likes riddles and puzzles.

And I think he would think this is like the ultimate life or death riddle.

Also, I think he's pretty smart.

So those two things together.

But people that think they couldn't.

Matt Boldy, I think he would be more like I don't want to.

Joel Eriksson-Ek, I think, is smart enough to know that he couldn't.

The same with Marco Rossi.

I think he's smart enough to be like, no, I know I could not do that.

Same with Connor Dewar.

Freddy Gaudreau, I think, would be just like, I don't know.

Marcus Johansson, I wasn't sure, but I went with couldn't.

Kirill Kaprizov, I think he would know that he couldn't land a plane.

Brock Faber, I put that he thought he couldn't land a plane.

And I think that is true unless somehow it's a Minnesota plane.

Does that make sense?

Because, you know, it just that makes sense to me.

Or maybe if there's like a gopher painted on the side or something.

Goligoski, I think with age comes wisdom and he would know that he couldn't land it.

Same with Spurgeon and Fleury.

So let me know if you do not agree with any of those assessments.

Some of them are kind of hard.

And can I tell you that I know.

that I could not land a commercial aircraft.

I would try to help if it was necessary.

I could not personally land it.

Yesterday, the NHL released a holiday video that was interesting.

They've really gone with this theme of cartoon players, especially cartoon players, but with the real players' heads on them.

And that's what this video was.

It started with the Tkachuk brothers asleep in bunk beds.

And I think both of them were like very enthused to be part of this project.

They just seem like players that are willing to do basically anything and have fun with it.

Not just do it, but have fun with it.

But about a quarter of the players were kind of like into it, and three quarters were not.

Matt Boldy, representing the Minnesota Wild, was definitely not enthused.

There's one part where he just has like, he's not really smiling at all, and he's just like, okay.

And I mean, I hope that they send someone else next year that...

to the you know the like the preseason interview whatever thing that is a little more like willing to do these things

I also was wondering, how did they pitch this to the players?

Were they like, OK, look, guys, since we're doing everything all at once today, we are going to record this holiday video.

Now, understand that it's going to be a cartoon, mostly.

But your head, like your real head, we put on the cartoon body.

So we need you to kind of look like you're OK with it.

And then you need to say these lines.

And they would feed them these lines.

And some of them actually had lines.

And some of them were like Matt Boldy, where he's just like, OK.

But I just I wonder how they pitched it.

And, you know, in some way, I feel bad for the players because it's not like they can say no.

I mean, they can't be like, yeah, I don't want to be a part of that dumb video.

I will also say that I liked it.

I like how ridiculous it is.

I feel like that goes with my kind of vibe thing.

Moving on.

So back to my future considerations in a bag of pucks, which is my miscellaneous catch all at the end.

First of all, snaps for Mrs. Jessica Fiala for posting on her Instagram story.

Her wonderful husband crouched on some sort of an overhang, like a second story overhang.

Or I guess it'd be like overhang over the first story.

Looking like a raccoon.

And then she even like put a little emoji of a raccoon to make sure that we all understood, which I absolutely did before she even put that.

But thank you, Jessica.

I'm pretty sure he was doing something with Christmas lights, but he just looked so like he had just blank, blank, just like a raccoon doing Christmas lights.

And I just I always want to send out wonderful thank yous to Mrs. Fiala for always being willing to

Let us into how dumb Mr. Fiala looks sometimes.

We miss you, Kev.

The World Juniors rosters came out this week, and I don't really know a ton about the World Juniors.

I'm just going to say I feel like a lot of the teams kind of just throw darts at lists because some of them have picked players that, like,

Oh, OK.

He's going to play.

OK.

And then there are other players who are doing really well that they disregard.

So I just I think they throw darts and it is what it is.

There was one comment that I got on my YouTube that I wanted to respond to, and I responded a little bit in the comments.

Let me pull it up so I can read it to you.

So it said, hi, Mikki, what do you think is the best move for the wild in terms of trades between now and the trade deadline?

I'm not sure if I want them to sell this year or to buy yet.

The team should be much better, but you don't want to spend on players and miss the playoffs.

First of all, I agree.

So trades are really hard this year because most of the.

big trade targets have no move clauses.

So therefore they'd have to waive the no move clause in order to be traded.

And honestly, most of them enjoy where they're at.

Like they've just signed contracts.

So I'm thinking about Marcus Foligno.

I'm thinking about Marc-Andre Fleury.

I'm thinking about Marcus Johansson.

I'm thinking about Freddy Gaudreau.

Those are all guys that could be

could bring a good amount on the trade marketplace.

But you know that they're not going to do that.

You know they're not going to waive their no move.

And I don't blame them.

Now, what to do at the deadline?

It's so hard.

I know we're through a quarter of the season.

And by this point, they always say by Thanksgiving, you know who's going to be in the playoffs or not.

No.

Now, by Thanksgiving, yeah, there are some that you can definitely say, yes, these teams will be in the playoffs.

But you can't say that for everybody.

The while that, you know, just a few weeks ago that at Thanksgiving, basically.

We're terrible.

They were still terrible.

But since then, they have stepped up their game.

I do believe that they're going to make the playoffs.

I really do.

And that is me in my positive vibes.

I will think that every year until I'm proven wrong.

But if they keep up the way that they've been playing under John Hynes, I do think they've got a great shot at the wildcard spot.

Maybe third in the central.

Maybe.

That'll be tough.

But I think at least a wildcard spot they do have.

A good chance for now.

Right now, though, we kind of need more time to see.

I think in another.

What is it, December 13th today, even another two to three weeks, I think in another two to three weeks, I think by the first week of January, maybe we will have a better sense of.

OK, they've won five out of seven right now.

Is that the kind of pace they're going to keep up?

I think so.

Again, I'm an eternal optimist.

I wear rose-colored glasses all the time.

But it's also because, you know what?

I like our players.

I always get really sad when our players get traded away.

And I know that there are still a few players that they could trade come trade deadline.

Those would be like Connor Dewar, Brendan Duhaime, Pat Maroon.

Those would all be likely trade targets.

At the same time, I'm not sure that the Wild and Bill Guerin specifically, I don't think they would want to let any of those three go.

First of all, they all fit really well in the Wild system and the Wild mentality of gritty, hard, physical players.

And they bring a lot to the team.

All three of them.

So other than that, I don't I really don't know.

At the same time, you know what, Bill Guerin.

I know he doesn't always have a plan, but at the same time, I, for the most part, trust his judgment.

I think he has made more good choices than he has questionable choices.

And I know there are people that will disagree with me.

That's fine.

You can.

But I just think that at the end of the day, I'm okay with him being the one controlling

So lastly, last night was the Minnesota Wild Foundation Gala, which I would love to go to if anyone ever wants to pay a few hundred dollars to take me with as a friend, as a friend date.

I would absolutely go with you.

Absolutely.

Just so you know.

Well, we need more content from it.

We have gotten barely any content.

The best thing, though, is that we did, in the words of Brock Faber, it's a salad with dressing.

What a great waiter.

So I'm going to end this now.

As always, I went a little longer than I wanted to, but you know what?

I just, I can't stop talking about the wild.

That's why, that's why I have a podcast.

So anyway, you are all beauties.

I need you to keep the vibes immaculate and let's keep supporting our Wild team and all they do.

See you next time.