Wild’s Ryan Hartman on getting engaged and going from Plan A to Plan C

MILWAUKEE — It was a big summer for Ryan Hartman as he prepared for a 2022-23 season in which he hopes to show the league and himself that last season’s career-best 34-goal season as the Wild’s No. 1 center won’t be a one-off.

What did he do?

“Worked on my faceoffs so we have the puck more … and I got engaged,” Hartman said, chuckling.

Advertisement

Oh, yeah. That, too.

That was the most nerve-wracking part of Hartman’s summer even though the 28-year-old and his now-fiancée, Lauren Storhoff, have been together since his junior year of high school.

Hartman, a native of Chicago, was in his second year playing for the U.S. National Team Development Program when he met Storhoff, a native of Lakeville, Minn., at a game 75 minutes south of the Twin Cities in Mankato.

Storhoff’s girlfriend was dating Hartman’s teammate, so Storhoff came along for the ride. It turned out to be fate. She hit it off with Hartman, so not long after, they met up again when Hartman was playing in Green Bay, Wisc.

So how did Hartman propose?

He grinned.

“I mean, you hopefully only do this thing once, so you don’t really know how to do it,” Hartman said, snickering. “When you do it, it’s a first time for everybody. So I didn’t know what to expect.”

Hartman thought he concocted a perfect Plan A, but Plan A turned into Plan B and eventually Plan C.

“I was going to do it in Minnesota. We went back there because Lauren was in a wedding,” Hartman said. “The night before the wedding, at the rehearsal dinner, I thought I’d do it then. But I got talking to Lauren’s friends and they thought it would be a better idea … not to do it. They’re like, ‘Uhhh, maybe wait ‘til after the wedding so you don’t take the eyes off the actual wedding going on right now.’ So … change of plans and I went to Plan B.”

Matt Dumba’s girlfriend, Blair, is close friends with Storhoff and helped set it up.

She arranged for all of Storhoff’s friends and family to come to Chicago for a surprise dinner in August.

“We had dinner at 5 p.m., which may have been a red flag because I never eat that early,” Hartman said. “I can’t tell you how nervous I was. I thought I’d stay pretty cool and collected, but I didn’t really eat anything at dinner. I just kind of pushed my food around the plate because I had no appetite.”

Advertisement

After dinner, Hartman told his girlfriend it would be a good idea for them to peel off so they could go watch the Chicago Air & Water Show. Storhoff explained to Hartman that the show ended hours earlier and there’d be no planes there anymore.

“So, she didn’t want to go,” Hartman said. “So Plan C, I guess. I had to think fast and lied to her and told her all our friends were waiting for us over there,” Hartman said.

Hartman and Storhoff walked into Lincoln Park to a bridge overlooking the city where Hartman got down on one knee and popped the question.

“I understood his logic thinking it would be fun (proposing at the rehearsal dinner), but so, so glad he talked to my friends first,” Storhoff said, laughing. “Not the right time.”

With all that stress out of the way, now is the easy part for the gritty, at times truculent, once Chicago Blackhawks first-round pick — the hockey.

Hartman, who made headlines last season for flipping the bird at Edmonton’s Evander Kane causing hockey fans worldwide to Venmo him thousands of dollars to pay off his $4,250 fine (he donated the more than $30,000 to a children’s hospital in Minnesota), has high expectations for himself and his line. That line includes Kirill Kaprizov, who scored a career-high and franchise-record 47 goals, 61 assists and 108 points last season, and Mats Zuccarello, who had a career-high 55 assists and 79 points.

Ryan Hartman has a meeting with @NHLPlayerSafety for flipping the bird

— Spittin' Chiclets (@spittinchiclets) April 13, 2022

He has noticed that some worry there could be regression from him and several of his teammates who also had career years.

“I’m confident in my game. I’m confident in my line. I don’t think it was a fluke,” Hartman said. “The puck still has to go into the net, but we built up a lot of chemistry with us three and I’ve worked on my same routine this summer to make sure we can keep it up. Faceoffs is the big area I want to improve on individually and, of course, special teams as a team. We have to be better on the power play and penalty kill. It killed us last year, especially in the playoffs.”

Advertisement

Hartman, who played in the Wild’s 3-0 win over the Chicago Blackhawks during Sunday night’s Home Away From Home Series game at a soldout Fiserv Forum, hasn’t gotten a chance to play with Kaprizov and Zuccarello in either preseason game he has played in so far. In Sunday’s win, which improved the Wild to 4-0 with three exhibition games to go before the Oct. 13 opener against the New York Rangers, Hartman skated with former popular Milwaukee Admirals forward Freddy Gaudreau and second-year right wing Matt Boldy. He assisted on Boldy’s short-handed goal in the third period.

#mnwild smoke #blackhawks in Home Away From Home game in Milwaukee, 3-zip, to improve to 4-0 this preseason.

33-12 on shots.

Connor Dewar 1 shorthanded GWG, assist; Brandon Duhaime 1 goal; Matt Boldy shorthanded goal.

Marc-Andre Fleury 12-save shutout. At STL on Tuesday.

— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) October 3, 2022

In his preseason debut, Hartman scored the overtime winner against the Colorado Avalanche, had an assist and won 13 of 19 faceoffs. Last season, Hartman won 44.8 percent of his draws. He feels if that improves, his line can be even more potent.

“I’m very frustrated by the end of last season,” said Hartman, who had five assists in the Wild’s first-round playoff loss to the St. Louis Blues. “We’re trying to come in and prepare for a long year. I just want to try to knock the rust off and get the timing back. It’s hard to turn the switch off. I don’t want to dip my toes into the preseason. When you’re out there, it feels like a normal game.”

The Kaprizov-Hartman-Zuccarello line will likely play together in the final two home exhibition games.

“We’re on a scoring line. But I think we can clean some things up as well,” Hartman said. “Defensively I think we started the year pretty well defensively. I think I can try to be better in faceoffs and just in the D-zone, getting the puck out quicker and getting the puck in the offensive zone for those guys. Less time we spend in our time, it’s going to be a lot more fun.

“I know what I can do. I know the player I am. I know I can have a good shot. I know I’m playing with a couple really good hockey players that can make life easy at times when they do their thing on the ice. I try to just get open for them.”

And Hartman’s not about to predict he can top the 34 goals he scored last year.

Advertisement

“If we have 100 points and I score two goals I’m perfectly OK with that,” he said. “I’m not too worried about that.”

Although, he added with a laugh, “If I do score, it would help us win for sure. I get that part. I want to help the team win. But if we’re winning and it’s not me necessarily scoring the goals, that’s OK, too.”

(Top photo of Ryan Hartman: Jeff Le / USA Today)