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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 and welcome to Her Wild Side Hockey Podcast.
I am your hostess, Nikki, aka HockeySheWrote on social media.
And I'm going to come here and say in the last episode I put out, I was like, you're going to get a new episode tomorrow.
And then two things happened.
Number one is that anyone who has kids or is around kids or was a kid knows that this is the time of year where everyone gets sick.
And then not only do they get sick, but they also pass the illness around to everybody.
Sometimes it goes around twice.
So my entire family has been sick.
And like for the past month, I think there's been at least one member of the family sick at all times.
So between that.
And the fact that the Minnesota wilds are in my least favorite time zone, the West Coast, it's just been a week.
It's been a long, long week with very late bedtimes for me because I also do that thing where at night and my kids are asleep.
And I'm like, I have so much time and it's all for me.
So then I end up staying up even later.
And, you know, blah, blah, blah.
I'm my own downfall, as we all are.
Anyway, so we have gotten through three games of this West Coast road trip so far.
As I'm recording this, the last game against the Seattle Kraken is tonight.
So I'm recording this on Sunday.
So I'm just going to do a quick overview because some of these games were quite a while ago.
We all know how they went.
But they won the first one and they've had two losses.
They're trying to come out of this at least 50-50.
It'd be nice to get two more points today, come out of it with four out of a possible eight points.
We'll see.
The first game against the Calgary Flames.
So this is when they were still on kind of that heater after John Hines came in, right?
They won that game.
And then
They went to Vancouver and then had a back-to-back where they then flew to Edmonton.
In both of those games, they played really well.
They weren't reverting to the beginning of the year, how they were.
But it's just like, what happened?
Anyway, there's just some fun things, some whatever things we've got in that first game.
Foligno scores the goal in the first period.
And the only person who seems to realize that it is actually a goal is Freddie Goudreau in front of the net.
He's celebrating.
Nobody blows the whistle.
Nobody says it's a goal.
Everybody keeps playing the game.
And finally, like.
I don't know, a minute later, like it was a long time.
They realized, hey, wait a minute.
That one time when Freddie was in front of the goal and he was celebrating, it's because it was actually a goal.
It doesn't take, you know, usually you don't celebrate your goal like a minute after you scored it.
But that's what it what happened with Foligno.
We've got Faber, Brock Faber so far has the most time on the ice.
for rookies in the league by far.
He's been putting in 24, 25, 26 minutes a game and just doing really well.
This Calgary Flames game, they also scored three by a minute, 30 seconds into the second period.
Those two and three goals were 45 seconds apart and they changed goalies.
which is always like, I get why they, I get it.
Like this has happened this year with the wild where they pulled Gus, put Florian, like sometimes you just have it an off night.
Right.
But it was kind of a significant thing where it's like, wow, wild are here while they're here and like doing it, you know?
Um,
There was a point in that game where Donis Brodine stumbled and still managed to break up the play, which just shows once again how he is an elite defenseman.
And we'll get to the sadness later that we're all feeling about Brodine.
We'll get there.
Now, Wes Walls made this comment during the Calgary Flames game.
And I don't know if this is true or not, but it was an interesting thought that
He says that he thinks European goalies are worse at catching the puck because there's a lack of baseball in Europe.
I can see where that could be true.
I am not from Europe.
I do not know how much baseball there is there.
I'm also just not a baseball fan in general.
But it was like this interesting idea where I thought it was actually some good insight.
I don't have anything to back that up.
Walls didn't have anything to back that up, but just a cool thought.
And this was a great start to the road trip, right?
We win, great start.
And then they have like a day off.
They go to Vancouver.
And this game starts great.
The Wild, in the first five face-offs, they win four of them.
They show off kind of this new set playoff of a face-off where they have Kaprizov go around behind the net.
Seems like it's going to be really successful.
I believe they did actually score with it at one point.
Anyway, great.
They are kneeling this set play.
And then...
Halfway through the first period, the Canucks still did not even have a shot on goal.
Gus is just hanging out back there.
He's just kicking his feet.
He had nothing to do.
Now, this was the ninth game where Michael Rossi was on the top line.
Personally, I really like him on the top line.
But I know that the next night that kind of changed.
And it looks like Hines might be changing that again for the game in Seattle.
But I feel like he's really successful there.
And I think, I don't know, he's earned it.
And they somehow lose this game to Zip.
Which, considering the shots on goal and that the Canucks didn't have any shots on goal for a significant period of the game, it just doesn't make sense.
The Wild looked good.
They looked good.
They played good.
The one good thing I'm going to take out of that game, especially, was that Eric Sinek had a 52% on his faceoff percentage.
He is just getting better and better every year.
It's fun to kind of pay attention to his face-off percentage because it is steadily increasing.
So then the Wilds basically end this game in Vancouver immediately, get on the plane as soon as they can and fly to Edmonton for a back-to-back.
And you know what?
It showed.
The Wild looked tired.
They looked like a team that had played the night before, had flown, you know, how many, I don't know how far apart they are, but, you know, so they were, they didn't get to their hotel until 3.30 in the morning.
Obviously they didn't really do a morning skate or anything, but still like you have to try and get a good amount of sleep, but also you don't want to sleep too much because a lot of them take a nap before the game.
So you can't, you know, otherwise you're doing that thing where like you sleep in and then you're only up for like an hour and then you're running into your nap time.
But one thing I kind of, the only good thing to come out of the 3.30 a.m.
arrival was that anyone watching that game in Edmonton can tell that Wes Walls, that got under his skin.
Because that man right there mentioned the 3.30 arrival time like dozens of times.
I would say like more than a handful.
Like more than a dozen.
And I get it.
Like I would not be happy with that.
I would not be okay with that.
But again, this is a game where things are looking really good.
In the second period, again, they have, they score two goals, 41 seconds apart.
They are keeping, they are either ahead or keeping up with the Oilers the whole time until the third period.
And here's where we're going to get into it.
Because this is when Vander Kane just throws a dirty hit to Jonas Brodine.
And not only did he not get a penalty for it, the, you know, player league safety, whatever, took a look at it and they were like, you know, we're just going to give him a warning, which I'm sure Kane will take with a grain of salt.
Because he's Evander Kane.
But because there was no penalty, that kind of leads to, you know, right after that, Hartman taking a penalty for going after Kane and he gets called for roughing.
During that PK, the Oilers score puts him up 4-3 and that's where the score stays until the end of the game.
This is something and there have been more instances of this over the weekend.
Some have been very, very similar boarding plays where they are not only like they're just shoving the opponent's head into the board and it's just so dangerous.
And I don't like that they are trying to say, well, Brodine shoulder checked.
You know, he knew that Kane was coming.
OK, if you watch the video.
He does see him coming, but you know what?
He's far enough away from the boards that he probably figures, at least somewhat, okay, he's not going to smash into the back of me because he can see my numbers.
And Cain has ample time where he can see Brodine's back and does not do anything to stop it, to stop himself, to slow down, to nothing.
We know now that Jonas Brodine is out.
I've heard like significant time.
He is week to week.
This is just not what we need.
Jonas Rodin is an elite defenseman and to be without him, this is going to, we already saw kind of how the team was doing without Spurgeon, which I know that they play different roles, but Spurgeon is a large part of the defensive core.
Rodin is a large part of the defensive core.
So how is this going to affect the rest of the team?
Thankfully, we've got Mermis along.
Bogosian looks like he's getting to the end of his injury, possibly.
He was skating with the team this morning, looked like he was fine, like participating in all drills, was out there the whole time, left with the rest of the players, all of that.
So what is our defense pairings?
What are they going to look like?
I don't know, because
Middleton and Spurgeon, Middleton seems to only play well next to Spurgeon.
Whatever it is, they just have this chemistry and they need to keep that together.
Faber, I feel like Faber can skate next to anyone.
Now, it's fun to watch him skate next to Brodine because they are just such a great shutdown pairing.
But Faber is good enough that you could put someone with him.
And as long as the person, I mean, you may, I might not want to put like the
the worst defensive player with him, only because Faber is a rookie and that it should not be on him to cover for a veteran's mistakes.
But, you know, some other kind of middling defenseman, I think Faber would be fine with.
Now, we've also got, like I said, Mermis was called up for this trip.
I believe, so he stepped in last game for Goligosky.
And
I've said before, I am an Alex Goligosky fan.
I think that he does bring something to the team.
I feel like he is a defenseman who is able to step in when needed.
And I know he wants to be a full-time player, but I think he needs to kind of accept his role that he's a healthy scratch and less needed.
Now, this might be that circumstance where he is needed.
We will see.
But we've also got Merrill back there who's been... He's had some good games earlier.
He's had some really bad games.
He's been very, very unpredictable.
You kind of don't know what you're going to get.
And then there's Zach Bogosian who was injured, is injured.
We don't know yet.
They have not announced whether he's going to play tonight or not.
So that's kind of an unknown.
But...
And then there possibly you could have Damon Hunt pulled up at some point also because Russo was just Michael Russo from The Athletic was just talking about on Twitter that it seems like they might have to put Rodin on long term injured reserve to be able to pull up Hunt from Iowa.
And just the fact that that's already kind of an idea in everyone's head.
I don't like that.
I don't like it.
And I'm upset that Kane did not get any punishment at all.
And it seems like over the weekend, there have been more instances where players are taking bigger liberties with roughness.
doing things that walk the line in a way that they shouldn't, boarding calls that are very obviously boring, have had kind of a range of punishments attached to them.
There have been no penalties.
There have been a penalty.
There have been warnings.
There have been five minutes.
There's been two minutes.
I mean, it's just this whole wide range.
And then the very scary situation with Dylan Larkin yesterday,
Which I didn't want to watch the video, but I've watched it a few times because I'm not exactly sure what happens.
And I don't think anyone can really make a determination.
Was it intentional?
Was it accidental?
Was it kind of a mix of both?
Yes?
No?
But the fact that not only did that happen and Larkin
is just sprawled on the ice.
But the fact that then David Prawn takes it upon himself to attack Artem Zub, who, sorry, I hope it's Artem Zub, who is basically the only person who has recognized what's happening with Dylan Larkin and has skated over to see if he's okay, because he is laying in a very distressing way on the ice and is not moving.
And so
Perron just takes it as like, oh, that's probably the guy that did it and attacks him.
And it's just like these situations are getting out of hand.
I don't know what to do about it.
I am not paid to figure out what to do about it, but it's a problem.
It needs to be addressed.
Now, here are my takeaways so far on this road trip.
Felino, Marcus Felino's game is on the up and up.
Two years ago, he had a career year.
Like, just great.
It was the grief line year.
They didn't have any line.
They were just – they were everything.
They were scoring.
They were physical.
They were hard checking.
They were everything.
And then last year, he really struggled.
The grief line was eventually broken up.
He struggled to kind of find a line to be on and line mates that he clicked well with.
But this year, he is at least –
during the Calgary Flames or like before the Calgary Flames game, it was mentioned that he is on pace for 40 goals this year.
I'm not sure that's going to happen, but he is really clicking in a way that he didn't last year.
I think having a new contract might be part of that.
I think, you know,
I don't know.
He's just but he's just clicking in a way.
And I really like that because I know that he really struggled with that last year.
You could see that in his interviews.
I'd like to also say that I think Brock Faber is a hockey robot because, again, I've talked about this.
I'm it blows my mind that he stepped out of the NCAA straight into an NHL role.
And he has not looked back and he hardly makes mistakes.
Everybody makes mistakes sometimes, but he honestly, you could probably count the number of mistakes that he's made.
Mistakes he's made that have led to something, you know, because there are mistakes that he or Brodine will make and they will correct it themselves.
And it's not a big deal.
You know, you do see that sometimes.
But it's amazing.
People thought maybe he would struggle coming into a full season because not only is he used, you know, he doesn't have those games under his belt.
You know, he doesn't know the 82 game grind of the NHL schedule.
And last year at the end of the season, when he came to the wild, he was kind of in a sheltered role.
He was playing the third pairing and he was a bit sheltered.
So people were not sure.
When he steps in next to Brodine, who takes on some of the biggest stars in the NHL, how is he going to do?
How is he going to do with more minutes?
And Faber, just hockey robot.
He stepped in and he's playing 25 minutes a night.
And again, making very few mistakes.
He's also actually been putting the puck on the net.
Last I looked, I think he had 10 points.
For a skater who was not really known as an offensive player, that's great.
Offensive.
I always hate when I have to say that because offensive, offensive, it sounds like, you know.
Anyway.
The first two games of this road trip, they had so many broken sticks that it was almost amazing.
The Wild...
I wonder, was someone trying to sabotage them?
Did the sticks get left in a cryogenic freezer and then they took them out and they just snap really easily now?
It's been amazing to see how many broke.
I should have gone back and counted because it got to the point where it's just ridiculous.
That should not be that many sticks breaking per game.
Faceoffs are better, especially for Ek.
we've got this terrible back-to-back schedule that West Falls is not okay with, but you know, they've been, they got to go to Seattle and they've been there for a day.
So I think he's probably happier for this broadcast tonight.
We are all very sad for Brodine.
I wrote a little, um, sad face next to that in my notes.
But one thing I do want to say that I am excited for is that Connor Dewar at this point in the season, we are, you know, um,
22, 23, 24 games in something like that.
He has already matched his career high goal total at this point in the season.
He has just gone on what would be a tear for a fourth liner.
He had the hat trick.
He scores, you know, how many times during this road trip so far?
I love that for him.
And he talked about like when he got the hat trick, why is everyone so surprised?
you know, he can score.
And I'm really glad that he's been able to kind of step outside of that fourth line grinder personality and kind of show like, yes, I can do that, but I can also score goals.
A few more things before we wrap this up.
The big rig commercial.
Now, this has been something that's been very controversial for wild hockey fans.
The original big rig commercial starred Jordan Greenway, who was our big rig at the time.
That commercial is classic.
You've got Spurge sitting next to him.
Jordan Greenway, breaker, breaker, Spurge.
And then that was kind of the that was the Billy G cameo that just launched a thousand ships.
He walks in front of the truck, the truck, the horn beeps, and he like spills his coffee.
Amazing.
Amazing.
So this week they came out with a new version of the Big Rig commercial because it is under new management.
And that management is obviously the original Big Rig, Pat Maroon.
Some people were really offended that they would redo the commercial.
But it's not really a redo.
You know, it's not quite a sequel.
I guess it is a redo, but it's like...
An homage to the original.
Because it's not the same.
It's not like they did the exact same thing.
And I love the cameo of Billy G at the end where he's just like, nope, you're not going to get me twice.
I liked it.
I thought it was funny.
And I think people just need to accept that Jordan Greenway is not here anymore.
And not only that, but he seems like he's been doing really well in Buffalo, except he was injured for a while, I know.
So I don't know how he's doing currently, but he has been thriving there from what I can see.
We also had this picture of when they were getting on the plane originally to leave for this road trip.
And Jules Erickson, he's got on his little like leather luxury backpack.
And there's an empty hanger hanging from it.
And I feel like I have not seen anybody else say anything about this.
And I just want to know.
Was someone pranking him?
Did he bring it on purpose?
Like, does he have a purpose for this hanger?
Like, he brings an empty hanger and it is for his coat because he doesn't want it to wrinkle or something.
Because, I don't know, it was just very odd.
We are getting way more Zuki without teeth content, which is very interesting.
I don't know if maybe Zuki is more comfortable in his own skin now with the missing teeth, but he does seem to still have the flipper that he puts in for the teeth because I have also seen him with teeth, which just makes me wonder why all of a sudden this year he's like, you know what?
There's just times I'm just I'm not going to put my teeth in.
Don't feel like it.
Not going to do it.
I mean, good for him.
Good for him.
This morning, there were I guess it was this afternoon because West Coast.
There are some really interesting lines at practice, and I don't know if I really want to see them at game time or not.
I don't know if this is just John Hines kind of mixing things up, seeing what happens in practice and kind of just, you know, going from there.
I don't know if this was actually like for like game time practice, but they had a top line of Kaprizov, Eck and Boldy.
And a second line of Johansson, Rossi, Zuccarello.
I get what he's cooking.
I understand his thinking.
But first of all, a Kaprizov-Ek together line has been tried in the past and just didn't seem to click.
And that's not a bad thing.
It just seemed like it just didn't work as well as other lines.
But the thing is, you know, if you get all of those stars on the top line, I feel like it lessens the other lines.
Again, I feel like Marco Rossi has earned his place on the top line, and I feel like he does well there.
It's also interesting to break up the Kaprizov-Zuccarello relationship.
Because previously this has been done when they are going through droughts where they are not scoring, they are not making plays together, or they're just doing the back and forth.
Like, let's just have fun.
And everyone else is like, we need to play a game.
So we will see.
He also had the top two pairings in practice for defense where the top was Goligoski and Spurgeon, Middleton and Faber, and then Mermis and Merrill with Bogosian kind of hopping in and out of the third pairing.
Again, I think you have to keep Middleton and Spurgeon together.
Middleton showed when Spurgeon was out that he just didn't play well with anybody else.
It's like he and Spurgeon can read each other's minds.
And they kind of know what to do.
They work really well together.
So, again, I don't know if this is a game time thing or what.
We're going to watch for that.
We're going to come back to that.
My one question.
that I'm going to ask a question.
And then I have one more thing that I want to say at the very end.
The question is, is it more frustrating when your team plays well but still loses?
Or if they're playing terribly and lose?
Personally, I think it's two different kinds of frustration.
It's really frustrating when your team is bad.
We all went through that for, you know, how many games at the beginning of the season where they they looked bad.
They were not playing well.
Yes, we know their potential.
Yes, we like we know the players, but they were just not doing well.
And so I feel like while that sucks, you expect them to lose.
You don't want them to, but you expect them to.
But now it's this different kind of frustration when they play really well and still lose.
Because then it's like, okay, what do they need to add?
What do they need to do different?
What do they need?
Who knows?
The last thing I want to say is right before I came down to record this podcast, I watched a little clip from the pregame interview with Coach John Hines.
And for the third time this season,
I have heard Erickson Eck called a horse.
This time he was a big, strong horse.
Gorg called him a big ol' horse before.
There was a third horse incident, and I don't remember who said it, but I feel like it was not Hines or Gorg.
So three people this season have called Eck a horse, and I...
Is it like a new thing where like the social media was like, you guys need to see how many times you can get that reference in this year, okay?
We need to get like, let's try and get to 10 different times where we reference Eck as a horse just for funsies.
Because like, is this a hockey thing that I just somehow have gone this many decades of my life not hearing?
I don't know.
Let me know.
Am I just out of the loop?
Let me know if I'm out of the loop on this.
Either way, let's put on all the strong vibes for tonight against the Seattle Kraken.
Hopefully, Erickson Eck will bring his big, strong horse ways and kind of drag the rest of the team through it.
Hopefully, Brodine will be okay and come back sooner than everyone thinks.
And either way, we just need to keep up the good vibes.
Think positively and let's keep up the good vibes.
See y'all later.