Disclaimer: All off-the-wall comments are meant with love—the fans who bond over the vibes part of hockey love every player. Everything typed below or in other Wild Lore pieces is meant with affection.
The Minnesota Wild is a hockey team with amazing vibes. With a family-like feeling that has resulted in an elaborate yet shockingly accurate family tree, their closeness makes it even more fun to watch and speculate about their off-ice personalities.
To be clear, this family tree is all about the vibes. The players aren’t raising other players as children, and there aren’t any divorces or separations between the players. This is all in fun, and if you stop and think about it, it weirdly makes sense.
To start, this family tree was put together by two wonderful Twitter/X friends, @Spenceshawtylvr and @Maciemarv11. They are both a big part of the vibes side of Wild Twitter. Here is the original post that was shared on X:
Now, here’s a version that I cleaned up a little bit. I left some of the extra notes because I wanted to discuss them more in this post.
Starting from the top, we’ve got Alex Goligoski and Jon Merrill as the grandparents. This doesn’t have anything to do with age. It has to do with the fact that they are distanced from the rest of the team. But, they’re definitely still a part of the Family Team.
Anyone who has followed the vibes side of the Wild knows that Marcus Foligno is also known as Mama Moose, while Jared Spurgeon is the father figure of the locker room. Together, Ryan Hartman is their child. Hartman has that grit from Foligno while he’s inherited a sort of sweetness from Spurgeon that he only shows up off of the ice, unlike the captain.
But Spurgeon is out for the season, so Marc-Andre Fleury has become sort of a step-father to the team. But Foligno and Fleury have created a set of children known as the “chaos kids.” Between Foligno’s outgoing, golden retriever energy and Fleury’s mischievous side, they have a whole group of players who fall into those categories. That group consists of Jesper Wallstedt, Matt Boldy, and the twins Connor Dewar and Brandon Duhaime. Dewar is also connected to Mason Shaw, while Boldy is connected to Freddy Gaudreau.
Filip Gustavsson is Fleury’s kid that Foligno has adopted. Gus Bus is also a chaotic kid but of a different type. Fleury and Mats Zuccarello are connected, while Zuccarello is in a platonic relationship with Kirill Kaprizov, which is self-explanatory. Their child is Marco Rossi, also self-explanatory.
Matt Dumba (RIA=Rest In Arizona) is a brother to Kaprizov and paired still with Jonas Brodin. Dumba might not be in Minnesota, but he’ll always be a part of the Wild in spirit. Together, their children are Jake Lucchini and Vinni Lettieri. Just trust me on this one.
Spurgeon is also connected to Jake Middleton in their “opposites attract” partnership. Their children are Brock Faber, Dakota Mermis, Marcus Johansson, and Joel Eriksson Ek. (Although Ek was a child that they found in the woods and raised together. That’s why Ek is the way he is.) Why aren’t they chaos kids? Because these four also inherited Spurgeon’s more laid-back personality along with Middleton’s goofy side.
Middleton bonded with Pat Maroon over facial hair. Maroon is paired up with Zach Bogosian, as they both moved from the same place. They are sort of family friends of the team. Maybe they are known as found family because they fit right in.
For more on Minnesota Wild vibes, listen to Her Wild Side Hockey Podcast. It’s updated 2+ times a week.
