In Which the Wild and the Jets Now Hate Each Other

In this episode, Mikki feels bad for Kaprizov because he probably doesn't want to go to the All-Star Games. Then, she breezes by a quick discussion of the Wild game against the Lightning. After some miscellaneous hockey news, she breaks down her thoughts on the Ryan Hartman high-sticking and the new rivalry between the Wild and the Jets. (In case you're worried, Mikki is firmly camp Everybody Sucks.)

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Wild vs. Lightning Recap (Including Vibes Recap)

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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, Miki, aka HockeySheWrote, and I am coming at you right after USA just won gold in the World Juniors.

I feel more patriotic now than I think I ever have in my life.

Anyway, we're going to get things rolling because I have been trying to record this podcast all day long and it just has not worked out.

So here I am.

First, we're going to talk about the all-star games.

So once again, the third year in a row, poor Kirill Kaprizov is going to be the Wilds all-star at the games.

Now, obviously, you know, other Wild players could be voted in and hopefully,

will be voted in.

But Kaprizov does not want to go there.

This is not his cup of tea.

He does not want to do it.

Last year, he flew to Florida.

At least it was somewhere nice and warm, you know, so he could like vacation on the beach.

He flew to Florida.

somehow conned Kevin Fiala into taking his speed skating event, I think was what he was supposed to do, which is like Kaprizov was, I agree.

He basically said like, that's not what I'm known for, which yeah.

And then he just like hung out with other Russians, but this year it's in Toronto.

So he doesn't even get that nice warm, like, okay, at least when I get a vacation thing, it's,

You know, it is what it is.

Now, who I think should go and who I wish could just like replace Kaprizov is Brock Faber.

Because Brock Faber is a puppy.

And he would love to do all of this stuff.

He would be just like eyes wide, smile plastered on his face, just like having the time of his life.

So hopefully we can maybe vote him in.

And just poor Kaprizov.

I don't know what to do about him.

I did see someone say that they were voting for the players who they think most don't want to be there, which is so hilarious to me.

I mean, it was like Ovechkin.

Who else was on there?

Like Gino.

I mean, that is certainly a way to go.

And that would be really funny.

And I also feel bad for poor Connor Bedard.

And, you know, there's just so many things that are set up around him.

And...

This poor kid, he's only 18 years old.

Apparently he's like the youngest to be declared an all-star.

And I'm sure that when they were picking all-star game, you know, locations, they had one in Las Vegas.

What was that?

Two years ago.

And they were probably like, okay, well, we definitely can't go to Vegas again because Bedard is only 18 and could do nothing in Vegas.

Absolutely nothing.

the all-star games need something to like kick them in the behind i don't know what that thing is but it just they just need to market it more grow the game actually grow the game so i started with some fun stuff now here's the middle of the sandwich you know where you put like the bad parts um the game against the lightning last night

First of all, I loved the fact that they gave Bogosian and Maroon the A's because, you know, it just felt like such a like, hey, lightning, like we're on the wild now.

We are definitely not with you.

And then and then Boba goes out and scores.

It's his first goal of the season and first goal as wild player against his old team, like just perfect.

One stat that I actually wrote it down this time, folks.

I learned my lesson.

One stat that I thought was super interesting was the cap hit of the team that they put on the ice last night during the game against the Lightning was only 39% of the cap hit, the total cap hit.

They were $29.1 million under the salary cap floor.

Let me say that one more time.

They were $29.1 million under the salary cap floor.

That's supposed to be the bare minimum of you have to spend at least that much on your players.

And they were $29 million under that.

And honestly, you know what?

They put on a good show.

The Wild, I have to hand it to them that they really are trying hard.

They are pushing hard.

and they are you know they are there they're not like i mean oh what are we gonna do about this like oh this is terrible i mean they're like yeah you know what it really sucks but we're still gonna go out there and play and they're showing that unfortunately in the for 56 seconds in

Ryan Hartman is hit into the boards right where the curved glasses like smashes his head.

And then as he gets to his feet, he's like unsteady.

So the ref immediately was like, yeah, no, we're done.

We need to go see about a concussion here.

And just watching him walk down the tunnel.

I don't know, guys.

I was like about to have a breakdown because it's just like, how many more can we stand at one time at one time?

Thankfully, he came back and he was fine.

But that's kind of, you know, that's about all I want to say about the game.

They lost 4-1.

They played really hard.

You know what?

They're trying their best.

They play the Columbus Blue Jackets tomorrow in Columbus.

So we will see how that goes.

Now, and actually, you know what?

I'm going to skip ahead in my little notes here because I'm going to talk about the Jets versus Wild thing.

And I will save that until last so that, you know what?

If you are sick and tired of listening and reading about it, you can just stop after my little miscellaneous notes here.

I will just give you one thing for everybody before I get into the meaty stuff, which is just that neither play should happen.

The high stick to the face, the illegal cross checks to the back.

They were both bad.

They were both bad.

Okay.

Moving on for now.

So we had the Toronto Sun who decided to call Lucas, I think it's Dostal.

Dostal?

I should have looked that up.

I'm learning my lesson, folks.

In many ways.

Calling him a no-name goalie.

And to be fair, he's a rookie, yes.

But that rookie stopped over 50 shots in the game.

Like, he deserves to have his name there.

And someone was like, you know what?

I love when all of hockey Twitter unites under something like this.

Because everybody, no matter your fan base, everyone was like, what is this?

I mean, even Toronto fans.

This was not their thing.

They were also like, Toronto Sun, what in the world?

One thing that, unfortunately, I did not see until after I wrote my recap and my vibes recap last night after the Lightning game was...

Fleury was exiting the warm-ups before the game yesterday and fell over.

And someone said that he's really not beaten those grandpa accusations.

But at the same time, this is really bookending his career, folks, because he has the other time where he fell coming out of the bench, you know, out onto the ice.

And I love, I think it was Hartman and Rossi, maybe.

There were two other players standing there, and they both just kind of looked at Fleury.

They were like, stand up.

Like, I don't know.

Yesterday, I was able to watch part of the Becoming Wild Mason Shaw, which, gosh, we all miss our little farmer.

You know, I know he's getting closer, but we need him back.

Anyway, we all know that he loves farms and that he lives on a farm and he works on a farm when he's home.

But I love that he was apparently just a progressively bigger cow for Halloween every year as a child.

And that's so endearing, especially because most hockey players, you're like, hey, what did you dress up as when you were a kid?

And they're always like, a hockey player.

Which, you know what?

I get it, but also not creative.

You know what?

Shaw was like, nope, I'm going to be a cow.

I love cows.

Cows for life.

Tomorrow, besides the wild game against Columbus in the evening, there is an afternoon game for the PWHL Minnesota team.

And this is their home opener.

They are already, they have already sold more tickets to break the record for the most spectators at a professional women's hockey game.

And gosh, I wish I could be there.

I almost bought tickets because even like club level, $19.

I, and I wanted to be there.

Don't worry.

I will still be watching on TV.

I just, I can't be there, but that's,

The state of hockey is turning out.

I saw someone else, Jessie Pierce, who I love reading her tweets and stuff and her social media.

But she said that she was at a watch party at a bar for the world juniors.

And there were four like 20 something guys talking about how excited they were for the PWHL game tomorrow.

And that's amazing.

I am really hopeful for this team, this league.

I think it has so much potential.

They are so physical, which I think is going to help bring in more people.

Because you know what?

That's a part of hockey.

And to take that out in other places where there's girls hockey, women's hockey is just something that I've never understood.

But they've already sold over 10,000 tickets.

I believe the Excel Center has seating capacity for somewhere around like 17,000, 18,000.

So that's a significant chunk of chairs.

I can't even.

The one other thing in my future considerations in a bag of pucks miscellaneous column is that Minnesota is hosting the World Juniors in 2026.

And that's going to be fantastic.

I mean, this is, you know, some of the young prospects like today, even just on team Sweden, watching Liam Ogren, one of the wilds top prospects, you know, it's nice to get that.

Just an idea of how they play and seeing them, you know, up close.

I think hosting hockey stuff in Minnesota is always great because Minnesota is going to turn out and they are going to put on the best show they possibly can.

So here it is.

I will give you fair warning that if you do not want to listen to the Jets slash Wild discourse, you should turn off the podcast now.

And I still love you.

It's okay.

You're still a beauty.

You're still a hot girl in the hockey club.

I get it.

But here we go.

The first thing I wrote in my notes under this is that everybody sucks.

Everybody sucks.

Like, the high stick was gross.

The illegal crosschecks to the back were gross.

The way people have responded is gross.

Everybody sucks.

Now, the one thing that they can do to help tamp down these plays is make sure that refs call things they need to call.

If someone had, or if they had called a penalty on those crosschecks to Kaprizov, it would not have gotten so big.

You know, it wouldn't have continued to grow.

It wouldn't have become this story that we're all getting, you know, sick of hearing.

And

So the Sportsnet panel, which if you are online, you have probably seen, there were two women, two men on the panel discussing what happened, what physical play, like what's the role of physical play in hockey today?

And here's the thing.

The men, the two men were gross.

I did not like to hear what they had to say.

They were talking about how like,

Violence is good.

It was kind of like their their point.

But there was a point in all of the grossness that I did agree with, whereas on the other side, the women were really well spoken.

And I did agree with most of what they said, but.

They avoided part of the issue.

Because here's the thing, you cannot just look at the Hartman high stick to Freddie.

You have to look at the whole picture.

You have to look at the whole thing, including.

Caprice off and, you know, battling and then getting the illegal crosschecks and then it's fine.

You have to look at the whole thing.

This was not just like a high stick to the face out of nowhere, no reason.

And I have to say, so Michael Russo, I'm not like a super fan of his anyway.

Don't get me wrong.

I like to read his articles.

He's an incredibly good sports writer.

But I'm just saying, like, I'm not a super fan.

But to have a whole subset of people choose to misunderstand him and then kind of ramp everything up, like, it's just been so hard to see.

And sometimes I hate people, right?

I know we all feel that way sometimes.

But the big thing that came out this morning was Russo's article with Hartman's side of the story.

And of course, everybody right away jumps on, well, you know, oh, you love the wild Russo and you're like, you just write about them.

And to be fair, he writes a very equal sports writing.

You know, he's very balanced and it is only fair to give Hartman the platform to

Because the Jets have already taken their platform.

And he basically said that he didn't admit anything to Profetti.

Like, he didn't actually say anything to Profetti.

He knew that Profetti was wearing a microphone.

That Profetti spent the entire game trying to bait him into saying that he did it on purpose.

And what he was quoted as saying was that he was not going to say it wasn't on purpose.

Which is not an admission.

You know, it's not it's not an admission.

But this is all just like been drug out, and here is a point that I haven't seen addressed that I have been wondering, and maybe it's because sometimes I'm interested in conspiracy theories.

But the timeline of all this.

So this happens, I would assume.

that the discussion about the footage, releasing the footage, the audio, whatever, must have happened either after the game or the next morning.

Because then after their practice the next day, Perfetti, that's when he did his interview where he said, you know, that, oh, Hartman said he did it on purpose and that I'm a young star and he has to go after me and he just, you know, he's sorry about it.

But they even mentioned that like, oh, no, we can't take we can't give out the footage.

So that means that.

again, I'm just saying, I'm not saying this is what happened, but I'm saying that there's a possibility that they already know that the footage is not going to be released because even the NHLPA was like, no.

So then they are allowed to, uh, say whatever they want about it, exaggerate, um,

I'm not necessarily going to say lie, because I feel like that's a really heavy accusation, but because they know that it's not going to come to light.

So at that point, they can say what they want.

Again, I do not agree with what Hartman did.

I do not agree.

But I think they also knew that his reputation and...

He's usually someone who he's not going to let things bother him.

He wasn't going to stand up right away and be like, no, that didn't happen because he doesn't really care.

It was only after it's spun out of control into this whole thing that he finally agreed to sit down with Russo and clear the tables.

So do I believe Hartman?

Do I believe Profetti?

You know what?

It's a tough situation.

Hartman hit him in the face.

We know he did it.

We saw it.

You know, that part is not under examination.

Did he do it on purpose?

Yes.

You know, it might have just looked like it could be one of those things that was just like, when I take this face off, I'm just going to, you know, I'm not going to be super careful with my stick.

You know, and Profetti is way down there

I don't know.

It's this whole thing.

Like I said, everybody sucks here.

Now, the one thing it has brought up is I always like to talk about the physical play in hockey, like they were talking about on the Sportsnet panel, because the men in the video, they were correct in that.

Until the NHL is able to tamp down on things like illegal crosschecks, which are illegal, they are supposed to call those as penalties.

And they don't.

Until the league and the officials will do that, you're going to continue to have these situations.

Because, you know, someone takes out Kaprizov.

You need, I don't want to say justice, but you need to let people know that that's not okay.

And if they're calling penalties for that stuff, then the refs are doing that job.

The refs are the ones giving the penalty and showing that they can't do that.

But if you're not doing that, then someone else is going to have to stand up and say, this is not okay.

No, you go after our superstar.

I come after you.

And again, the women were really well spoken, and I totally agreed with that.

You know, there's hard physical play, but there is a gigantic difference between tough physical play and an illegal cross check to a known area of weakness in hockey pads.

This was not a normal board battle.

This is something that should have been called.

I did not like in the video that the women never addressed the crosscheck.

Besides trying to play it off like it's a normal board battle.

It's not.

So.

My watch keeps dinging, telling me that I need to be done and I need to stop ranting because you know what?

I could rant about this all day and I kind of did on Twitter yesterday and did nothing else for the rest of the day.

Anyway, let's wrap this up by saying that

I am super patriotic right now.

USA, USA.

Minnesota is going to host.

That's going to be really fun in two years.

And tomorrow, everybody make sure that you watch the PWHL Minnesota game, whether you are in person or on YouTube or Bali sports and then the wild after that.

So until then, I will see you later.