EDINA, Min.. — Alex Goligoski was driving his black F-350 King Ranch truck in early June, his wife Amanda sitting next to him as usual.
Free agency was about a month away, and there were still questions about whether Goligoski — the veteran Minnesota Wild defenseman and Grand Rapids, Minn., native — would try to play one more season. It wasn’t going to be in Minnesota, which had a full blue line and had healthy scratched the 39-year-old former Gophers standout for a good portion of the season.
‘Does he want it to end that way?’ Amanda remembers wondering to herself.
The couple treated every team event as their last, from the Halloween and Christmas parties to dinners with friends. She got emotional and cried when Goligoski was in the lineup for the Wild season finale at Xcel Energy Center. But she had seen this happen with her friends’ husbands before — and you never know when it’s time to retire, on your terms or not.
But that day in the truck, Goligoski turned to his wife.
“I’m done,” he said.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“I just want to do this,” he replied.
The couple then looked into their backseat, where their youngest son, their miracle, Luka Alexander, was nestled in a car seat. They were on their way to one of his regular pediatrician appointments. The Goligoskis have two older kids, son Roman, 7, and daughter, Mila, 6, but always wanted a third. After having fertility issues for years, they relied upon a North Carolina-based surrogate, who helped round out their family in a special way through IVF.
“We had that one last embryo,” Amanda says. “And it was him. It was meant to be.”
Luka was born six weeks early, May 22, at 4 pounds, 3 ounces.
But he was healthy. He was theirs.
Goligoski’s NHL career has ended, but his next chapter is just beginning. A father of a newborn, he’s getting used to middle-of-the-night lap naps and diaper changes. He’s also coaching Roman’s baseball team, the Perch, and chauffeuring Mila around. “I’ve never been busier,” he says, laughing.
When Goligoski told Amanda he was done on that morning drive, she says, she had never seen her husband more certain in her entire life. Goligoski is happily retired, and while he could very well end up working in an NHL front office eventually, he’s soaking this in.
He gets to finish his playing career where he started it — with an unexpected gift.
“It’s a crazy process,” he says. “With an amazing outcome.”
When Goligoski signed with his hometown Wild in the summer of 2021, he wasn’t sure if it would be his final NHL stop.
There was hope, of course.
He played three years with the Gophers before turning pro with the Pittsburgh Penguins, winning the Stanley Cup in his first full NHL season. But after five-year stints with the Dallas Stars and Arizona Coyotes, Goligoski relished the chance of returning home. His kids were young. His parents weren’t a far drive away. The couple had a summer home on Balsam Lake.
So when the Wild re-signed Goligoski to a two-year extension in March of his first season in Minnesota, he happily settled into an Edina home. The family rented their North Loop townhome to young forwards Mason Shaw and Connor Dewar.
But Goligoski soon found himself in an unfamiliar role: a reserve.
He played in his 1,000th game early in the 2022-23 season, but the night the team celebrated the milestone, Nov. 19, 2022, was his first game in 16 days. That’s what made what happened next such a surreal, emotional experience for his family.
Goligoski, streaking down the ice during overtime against Carolina, scored the winner, getting mobbed by teammates in the corner. He teared up in a postgame interview.
“That was probably one of my favorite moments, ever,” Goligoski says. “Maybe the favorite.”
“Oh my gosh, it was so exciting,” Amanda says. “I was so proud of him. We got one of the pictures of right when it happened and he’s sitting on the ice with the biggest smile on his face. That was a moment he needed. After the season and how it went, he needed that moment. Sucking it up the whole year, being a good sport, having a smile on his face. That was really exciting to see.”
Goligoski had an opportunity to get moved at the 2023 trade deadline, but he stuck with the no-move clause he was given by the Wild as part of his two-year extension. It would have taken a lot at that point for him to pick up and leave his family.
He had a pretty good idea going into the 2023-24 season that it would be his last, and he kept his attitude positive while getting healthy scratched and bag skated. But it certainly took a toll.
“It was really frustrating,” Amanda says. “That’s why I was so unsure. ‘You want to end on this kind of note?’ Nothing is guaranteed. Even if you go to a different team, it could be the same thing. The grass isn’t always greener. You have your family here. We went back and forth on that, as always. At the end of the day, he really liked the guys in the locker room. His role was being a vet in the locker room. The year before was harder. This year we accepted it. It’s special to end where you’re from.”
Goligoski says the coaching staff and John Hynes were good at communicating with him, but there was not much to say.
“It becomes a little bit of a job at that point, doing the bag skates,” Goligoski says. “If you don’t want to do it, it can be a bad feeling.
“But even if you’re the guy out there bag skating, I’ve still got a pretty good gig going. A good job, hanging out with my buddies every day. So what, I’ve got to suck it up for 20, 30 minutes at the end of practice? That’s not a big deal.”
Especially considering the perspective he was getting off the ice.
Goligoski remembers a conversation he had with former Stars teammate Shawn Horcoff in Dallas years back.
Horcoff’s kids were 9 and 7 when he and his wife had their third. He told Goligoski it was the “best thing ever,” seeing his older kids with the infant.
The Goligoskis, however, struggled to have their third naturally. They first tried a surrogate a few years back with someone they knew in Arizona. It didn’t click.
“I still felt in my heart we had one more waiting for us,” Amanda says. “I couldn’t let it go. I’m like, ‘Let’s just try. If it didn’t work, I’d be done.”
They went through an agency this time. The surrogate they were matched with lived in North Carolina, a mother of two. They got consistent updates, including FaceTimes for the checkup appointments. Goligoski got up early while on the Wild’s Global Series trip in November to Sweden so he could see the heartbeat for the first time.
Only a few family friends and teammates knew what was going on. But you can imagine how the excitement of having a child on the way put getting bag skated and scratched in perspective.
It also put Goligoski more at peace with leaving the game.
“I think I’ve known for a while,” Goligoski says. “Do you hang around and see if some team wants to throw some money at you? I have no desire to move my family. No desire to go by myself and do all that. That’s the most amazing thing about finishing in Minnesota. It makes it easier to say, ‘Hey, I’m good.’”
“I think it’s the longevity of it, honestly. I can totally see where it’d be very difficult if you’re not planning on being done, where it’s like you don’t get a contract but you’re still younger. It feels to me like I’ve had my fun, I’ve done it long enough. I’m good to step away and move on.”
(Photo courtesy of Alex Goligoski)
The Goligoskis didn’t want to treat his season finale like any other game.
Goligoski’s father and brother drove with him to the game. Amanda made sure to get photos of the kids seeing their dad during warmups. It wasn’t a farewell tour like good friend and teammate Marc-Andre Fleury will get. “It wasn’t grandiose,” Goligoski said. “It was just like, ‘I think I’m done.’”
And then they focused on what’s ahead.
Instead of rehabbing to start the offseason, they were keeping tabs on their baby. They were in North Carolina for Luka’s birth in May and through a stint in the NICU. They had talked about whether it’d feel the same when Luka was born as it did when their other children were.
“We had the baby and had him in our hands. It’s like, ‘Oh my gosh,’” Goligoski says. “He looked exactly like Roman too (as a baby). It was uncanny.”
When Luka came home, there was a party waiting for him. A banner hung by their front door: “Welcome Home Luka.” Roman and Mila were more excited than anyone.
“I’m crying just thinking about it,” Amanda says. “It’s something we dreamt up for so long.”
Mila wanted to pick Luka up right away. Roman posed for a picture with his baby brother. They took a family photo on the couch. They’ve since been to their Balsam Lake house, to the Minnesota State Fair. There have also been quiet moments. Luka started smiling a few weeks ago, and one day when Amanda was feeding him, Goligoski popped over and playfully pushed the bottle away.
“Luka looked up and had the biggest smile on his face,” Amanda says. “Great eye contact. When they start to recognize you, it’s the sweetest thing.”
It’s the first summer in decades that Goligoski hasn’t been training. He joked that a few of his buddies are recruiting him to play in a pickup game.
He popped by the team’s practice rink, TRIA, to watch some of July’s development camp from the management booth. In The Athletic’s Wild player poll, Goligoski was a popular pick by teammates to be a general manager or part of a front office.
He said he’d love to be a GM someday, but he’ll take his time trying to learn more about all facets of an organization. He isn’t working for the Wild officially to start the season, but president and GM Bill Guerin — once Goligoski’s teammate in Pittsburgh — told him he’s happy to help him in any way once he’s ready to get back to work. It’s how Guerin started, too.
“I’ve always liked breaking down what teams do and why they do it,” Goligoski says. “I have a good sense of the right way to do things. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen the right way and the wrong way to do things. I think it’d be something I’m good at. So we’ll see.”
For now, he’s re-learning everything about being a dad to newborns.
“You forget everything,” he says. “It’s like starting over.” But he’s happy to be this busy in retirement.
“I don’t think the end of anyone’s career is going to be the funnest, hockey-wise, but it’s crazy to finish at home,” Goligoski says. “My kids have (had) the same friends and same schools the past three years. We’re in our house settled. We have our community here. The hockey part is just done, but it’s still the same I’ve been living the past three years.
“It almost doesn’t feel like a huge deal not to be playing hockey. It’s the same day to day. It’s totally amazing to get a chance to play for the home-state team and then finish and be done. It’s crazy. I’m very lucky. I don’t know how many people get to do that.”
(Top photos courtesy of Alex Goligoski and David Berding / Getty Images)
