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, Miki,
aka HockeySheWrote,
and we have one game left
of the Minnesota Wild season.
I'm currently dressed in all
black in mourning of the season.
You know,
we'll do a deep dive into the
season kind of in the next episode,
which is episode 35.
Today,
I had a few things I just had to
jump on and address.
Now, first of all,
I want to say I like to put
out a couple of episodes a week if I can.
We'll see what that looks
like during the off season.
But I know I've been a
little absent and I just
want to quickly say that
while I might duck out here and there,
I will never.
You can't get rid of me is
what I'm saying.
You cannot get rid of me fully.
I will always be around.
We just have some medical
issues going on in my family.
Nothing major.
You know, it's not anything major.
Just some chronic conditions
that flare up.
And when that happens,
it just means that I have
to dump a few things off my plate.
And unfortunately,
work is the first thing to
be dumped because that's
why I work for myself in the first place,
because we need that flexibility.
So, yeah, I will never actually leave.
You will never.
Be rid of me.
Here's what I want to get on and say,
though.
This is the biggest thing I
wanted to talk about.
So we're going to start with
it right off the jump,
which is the Minnesota Wild
goalie situation.
This morning,
actually just a few hours ago,
the Wild announced that
they have re-signed
Marc-Andre Fleury to a
one-year $2.25 million
contract extension.
This is not a surprise.
Not a surprise at all.
It's been pretty evident in
the last few weeks here
that Fleury is still
playing at the top of his game.
Mostly.
And that he doesn't want to be done.
You know, he is still having fun.
He is still able to play the
way he's always played.
And he doesn't want to be done.
And honestly, you know what?
Good for him.
You know?
Watching him has been amazing.
I think it's very easy to
say what a good goalie he is.
It's very easy to rattle off stats.
But I think until you watch
some of his highlights and
watch him play in person,
do you really understand
how incredible he actually is?
I think it was a couple months ago,
I wrote an article about him
Just saying that he is the
last of his kind.
There is never going to be a
goalie like Marc-Andre Fleury again.
There just is not.
He plays in a style that is
not used anymore.
I mean, sure,
there are other goalies who
are definitely known for
their agility and their flexibility.
And they can make kind of
the big saves sometimes.
But that's all of Fleury's style of play.
Right now,
most goalies are depending more
on being able to read the
plays and know where to set themselves up,
you know,
square themselves off to the
play and go from there.
Whereas Flurry actually
enjoys a challenge.
I think...
While being out of place is not good,
I think sometimes he
actually likes it because
then he's able to make those big saves.
He loves to do the big
windmills and to just
really be the one sprinting
back into the net.
And he has fun with it.
He has fun with it.
I am not 39, 40 years old.
He's going to turn later this year.
But I hope everyone...
is able to have a job that
they enjoy like that.
I think Minnesota also needs
to realize how blessed we
are to have him here.
And not only here,
but the fact that he chose to be here.
He said that his two options
were to retire or to sign
one more year in Minnesota.
He was not about to let
himself be traded to a cup contender.
He was not about to sign a
one-year contract with another team.
He wanted to be here.
And that says volumes about
the wild organization,
the wild locker room and players.
And I think the state of Minnesota,
the state of hockey fans, all together,
I think that really speaks
volumes to how much he is enjoying it.
I don't have to say that
it's been a tough year.
It has been a terrible year.
This is probably the worst
hockey season the Wilds
have had in a long time.
A long time.
And that's not just missing
the playoffs either.
That's just...
one thing after another.
It's like every time something went right,
something else went wrong.
Every time we got an injured player back,
someone else was injured and out.
And every time we started to
get things back on track,
it's like something else would happen.
It just
It's just a great thing that
Fleury is so willing and
wants to come back for one
more year to an
organization that I think a
lot of fans were worried
about how that was going to
affect him long term, I guess.
But this goalie situation
that I'm talking about is
not just about Fleury.
Currently,
There is Marc-Andre Fleury
just signed the one-year extension.
Philip Gustafson has two
years left on his extension
from last summer.
And then Jesper Wallstedt is down in Iowa.
I believe he's got one more
year on his ELC before he
will be eligible to sign
another contract.
And there are a lot of
people calling for Gus to be traded.
I think part of that is just
the whole Minnesota fan mentality.
Oh my God.
He had an off year, a terrible year.
And even though sometimes he
did play great, actually,
I'd like you to remember that.
Let's move him out, like pack him up,
ship him out.
Like, let's go.
I think you need to look at
the whole picture here.
I think people are
forgetting the entire situation.
First of all,
yes flurry can still play at
an amazing level but even
he himself says you know he
is almost 40 years old and
while he is an incredible
physical shape he just he's
been playing in the nhl for
21 years that takes a toll
on his body and it will
take him longer to recover
from things it will take
him longer to um get over
injuries and I think that
needs we need to remember that now
Volstead has come up.
He started two games.
We're not going to talk about Dallas.
We're not going to talk about that one.
But he started two games in the NHL.
They were against the
Blackhawks and the Sharks,
who are arguably two of the
worst teams in the league.
But he looked great.
He looked ready, and he was...
He was ready for that.
But I don't think that means
that he is ready for a full-time NHL job.
I do not think that
necessarily means that he
is ready to go up against
some of the better teams in the league.
I think he's getting there.
One more year in the AHL and
another year of development
is going to be great for him.
People seem to forget how young he is.
And part of that, I think, is that,
you know, he is a big guy.
He's got a very deep voice.
He seems like an adult.
And technically he is, but he is only 21.
And, you know, for that matter,
even Gustafsson is, gosh,
I want to say 25.
They are both so young.
So having Fleury around for
this other year is really
going to be great to mentor
these two young goalies.
It's been great so far for both of them,
for both of our Swedish goalies.
Trading Gustafsson right now
is the dumbest thing that they could do.
He has shown that he does have
that ability.
He's got, he had Vesna level stats.
And even this year,
there was a chunk of time
where he played like that.
But just because he had a
more off year than on does
not mean to ship him out.
We need a younger goalie, um,
to back up flurry and be
able to take on some of
those harder teams,
which we know that Gustafson can.
And, uh,
also to be able to mentor
Volstead once he moves up to Minnesota.
Because if we trade Gus and
we have Fleury leave after
the next season,
who do we put with Volstead in the NHL?
This is not just like something, you know,
there's not NHL level
goalies just ready and
available for good prices.
You know,
I think thinking that we will
deal with that later on
down the road is a mistake.
Bill Guerin even said something about,
you know,
when you have the chance to sign
a Hall of Fame goalie, you sign it.
And I agree.
So he signed Fleury and he kind of said,
like, after that,
we'll figure the other stuff out.
And he mentioned that the
one thing that Gustafson
needs to work on is his physical fitness.
That was the same thing last season.
And you know what?
He did.
He went back to Sweden.
He worked on his physical fitness.
When he came back into training camp,
he looked totally different.
He had slimmed down.
He had put on muscle.
And he did what they wanted him to do.
Now,
I think it's not so much fitness that
they need, but the...
They need him to be more,
I don't know what the word
I'm looking for.
It's not so much the
physical strength as just
being able endurance.
They need to,
he needs to build up his endurance.
So he has shown that he is
able to take feedback over
the off season and put in
the work and he will do it
again this season.
I think coming into this season,
the 2023-24 season,
he had also just become a father.
And that's something, becoming a parent,
bringing a new member into your family,
especially one that does
not know how to talk,
can only cry to let you
know they need something.
And you are 100% in charge,
in control of all of their needs.
I think that puts more
stress on a person than
people might think,
especially because it seems
like Gustafsson would be a
more hands-on dad.
You know,
I could see where some of the NHL
hockey players,
I could see where maybe
they are not as hands-on.
But I just, you know,
I get the feeling that
Gustafsson is hands-on and
that it really affected him
more than he maybe thought it would.
So,
The Wild and their goalie situation.
The Wild need to, you know,
have Fleury run for this one more year.
They can cut down kind of
the games that he's playing potentially.
And he is available to
mentor the two young Swede goalies.
They need to keep Gustafsson
and keep shaping him and
help him with the areas of
his game that he needs.
I think it's also going to
be very telling that next
year he will be playing
behind a more defensively sound team.
I'm going to knock on some wood,
but I'm going to say I
don't think there's any way
we can have as many
injuries next year as we did this year.
People are forgetting the
kind of team that these
goalies were playing behind sometimes.
So I think Gus will show
that maybe he's not Vesna level,
but I think he is much
better than he was for the
majority of this year.
And then Wallstead,
he can be in Iowa one more year.
He can take more time to
develop and he knows that.
He even just developed like
between his start in Dallas
that we're not going to
talk about and being pulled
up for these two starts at
the end of the season.
There was even just in those few months,
it's like he knew what they
needed him to do and he did it.
He came back and he was more prepared.
Again, he's going to go back.
He's going to take this
summer to develop what
needs to be developed.
Next year,
we could have almost not quite a
three goalie rotation,
but pull all set up more,
give him more games,
harder opponents and judge
from there throughout the season.
I think letting go of
Gustafson would be a huge mistake.
And I think people who are
saying to trade him are
being very short sighted.
All right.
We're going to close the
book on the goalie situation.
I am going to quick just put
up my little plug.
Let's see.
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And now...
Back to me.
One of the funniest things
this season has been
figuring out how much the
Wild live rent-free in other fans' heads,
like fans of other teams.
Now,
we're not going to get into the whole
Faber thing and how
obsessed Chicago fans are with Faber.
But there was one,
I think it was a Kings fan,
who was just appalled with
Kirill Kaprizov and posted
20 different messages all
in a row about how much he
hates Kaprizov and how dumb
he is and all this stuff.
And I'm sorry,
if you're going to beef with
someone on the wild...
You pick Kirill like I know
that obviously we know why
he picked him because
Kirill has always played
well against the Kings.
He is always there to make
him look foolish and put in
some good goals.
So I get that sense of it.
But if you look at Kirill,
he is just a golden haired
baby face angel Russian man.
how can you hate him?
He just, he is the most happy person.
The only happier one is Flurry.
But like right after Flurry,
it is Kaprizov.
And so how you can hate that smiley man,
I don't know.
But you chose the wrong person.
You can hate Hartman.
Lots of people hate Hartman.
We don't.
We love him.
Hate on him.
He doesn't care.
He really doesn't.
The other thing that
happened this last weekend
was that I was able to go
to the Frozen Four with my dad.
And I don't think I've
talked about this in the podcast.
I did talk a little bit
about it on Twitter and stuff.
But my parents, as you know,
are huge gopher hockey fans.
They have been to the last
three Frozen Four tournaments.
Las Vegas, Florida.
Maybe this is the third one.
Anyway,
so they always get tickets right
when they are released.
And obviously,
they are usually assuming
that the Gophers will be
making an appearance.
And unfortunately,
that was not the case this year.
But my dad and I still went
and had a lot of fun.
I went with on Thursday for
the semifinal games.
My mom came up for the weekend,
but she was like, look,
the Gophers aren't playing.
I'm not going to go watch the games.
I will come up.
I will stay in a hotel.
I will eat at restaurants.
I will go shopping.
I will not watch the games.
And she did not.
We had great fun,
my dad and I. I've talked
before about how hockey is
a family thing.
That's how we show love.
And it was really fun to
just spend a day with my
dad at the Excel Center,
a rink that I'm at
frequently and know a lot about versus,
you know, he's usually at Mario G. So
I just want to say that, you know,
it doesn't have to be an
NHL game to be fun.
Hockey is hockey.
And it's going to be fun no matter what.
Even though...
I knew maybe two names of players.
I knew that on Denver,
they have a Minnesota Wild prospect.
So that was really fun to
watch him and just see how he was doing.
Ridley, Rieger, Lorenz.
I did think for a minute.
Rieger, Lorenz.
Number 14 on Denver.
Played great,
especially in the final game.
I believe he had a goal and an assist.
Really fun to watch.
Also fun to watch Macklin
Celebrini because we all
know that he is going to go
first overall in the draft, most likely.
And just to see kind of the
plays that he can put together,
that was really fun.
He's just so young.
He's 17 and he was playing
on the college team.
Now,
as much as I would love the Wilds to
draft him,
I know that they're not going
to be able to because
there's like no way the
Wilds are going to win the
lottery for the draft.
But, you know, who knows?
Right.
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Welcome back.
Now, as I said before,
we still have one game left of the season,
so I'm not going to totally
close the coffin lid yet.
But as sad as it has been,
kind of going into this last stretch,
knowing that they're not going to make it,
and even before that,
knowing that it was a large, like,
it's just so unlikely that
they would make it anyway.
There was still just, you know,
there was still hope.
There was still fun.
And it's been really fun to
watch the prospects that
Minnesota has brought up, brought over.
Kuznetdinov has been really fun to watch.
I think he's having...
A little trouble adjusting
to NHL versus KHL,
but he is getting there.
He's been really fun to watch.
He's very physical.
I really liked that they put
him on a line with Liam
Ogren once Ogren came over from Sweden.
The two of them together...
Just they seem like maybe
they could have some chemistry.
Ogreen is kind of also just
big physical guy.
He's already shown that he can score.
He's had a goal and assist.
And I think he's played
maybe even two assists by
now in just a handful of games.
It was fun to get well said
a few more times.
Starts in the net and not just starts,
but like good games.
His second game,
he had his first shutout in the league.
And against San Jose, he played great,
too.
So really just trying to
boost those stats so that
they don't look so terrible
after that Dallas game.
Who else will we be seeing?
Beckman was here for a while.
He was a little in and out of the lineup,
but it was still it was
nice to get him some some play time.
And now this is not a prospect,
but Alex Goligosky,
he is on expiring contract.
He is 38 years old.
He has shown that he just he
has slowed down.
But it's been nice to get
him out for his last few games.
I think he's played the last
two games for sure.
And I want to assume he will
play tomorrow also,
just to kind of shut out his career.
So as sad as the end of the
season has been,
I think we can kind of look
at some of that as a positive.
watch this last game and
just see how they do.
I also think it's fun to see
that even once it was
totally impossible for the
wild to get a playoff spot,
they're still competing.
You know, they are professional athletes.
That's what they do.
They're not just going to like, Nope,
no playoffs.
Okay.
Let's just phone it in.
Like, no, that's, that's not how it works.
And one more last thing
before we say goodbye is I
have kind of talked about
this a little bit on social media again.
I am working on a hockey romance book.
And while it will be a romance,
I think I really want to
make it tongue-in-cheek a bit, you know,
because there's just so many...
other hockey romance books
that have the most
ridiculous situations or
are written by somebody who
has never been like on an
NHL ice rink and like does
not understand how it works
or they don't know how the draft works.
They don't know how
contracts work or any of that.
So I kind of, you know,
I'd like to write one that
is a bit kind of, you know,
like winks at itself.
and is supposed to be silly
and I've gone back and
forth because I didn't want
to totally make like a like
a satire like a parody
because I don't want to
actually like anger people
who actually like hockey
romance books but I would
like to kind of like
balance that line so all this to say
I don't know.
I'm working on it.
Again,
kind of an off-season project that I
can work on since I've been
focused on articles and
podcasts and stuff during the season.
Although I am going to pick
some teams for the playoffs
that I'm going to follow.
But again,
we can talk about that more in
the next episode.
But who we are going to talk about here,
who we're going to follow,
and the end of the season.
So before I wrap up,
I would just like to give one more plug,
which is for my merch shop.
There's a link down below in
the show notes for
incredible merch that helps
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and the podcast network.
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And there are Hawkgirl
Hockey Club same shirts, stickers,
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Just a fun way to support the show.
And if you ever have any ideas of...
other merch you'd like to
see from my show I would
love to hear it because you
know why not um but until
then let's all enjoy the
last minnesota wild game
tomorrow night and we're
going to put all the
positive vibes out there
and then we will talk about
who we need to shift the
vibes to once the wild
season is over so until
then I will see you all later bye