Reusse: Another Pitlick returns home to Wild, making his ‘Punky’ grandmother happy

The addiction to playing their game might be stronger in hockey than in any team sport. There is evidence of this in the NHL, where players enthusiastically participated in an international event for 10 days that halted the 82-game season in 2024-25.

It was remarkable to see players out there brutalizing one another in the make-believe “Four Nations Cup,” knowing they immediately would be back in the grind of a crowded regular season, and followed by perhaps as long as two months in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

This season there will be dozens of star NHLers off to the Olympics during another February break, then hustling back for the playoff push and, likely, the playoffs themselves.

These hockey players — there’s something in the brain that causes them to get hammered into the boards and say, “Thank you, coach, may I have another.”

For sure, the hockey families here in Minnesota can’t stay away from it — and the Pitlicks are one of those, with some guidance required as to the family tree.

Lance Pitlick came out of Cooper, played a full four seasons with the Gophers, played most of 5½ seasons in the minors and then had seven seasons as a defenseman in the NHL. His sons are Rem and Rhett, with Rem having a grand moment with the Wild when he scored a pure hat trick early in the 2021-22 season at Seattle.

Rem’s time with the Wild didn’t last, and the brothers are now signed to start this season with the Bakersfield (Calif.) Condors in the AHL.

You know that part about “may I have another” — if and when he appears in the regular season for the Wild, they will be Tyler’s ninth NHL team, starting with Edmonton for 10 games in the 2013-14 season.

Rem played 20 games for the Wild in 2021-22 at age 24. That was a thrill for grandmother Punky Setten. And now with a chance to have Tyler, another grandson about to turn 34, skating for the home team on St. Paul ice … Punky would be over the moon.

Which is the way she lives life, according to friends and relatives who have watched Punky (nobody calls her Armella, the given name) was in action watching sons and grandkids at the rink.

I called a nephew, Joe McElroy, a former Armstrong hockey player, to get a tutorial on the Pitlick-Setten family tree. He gave a synopsis and then said: “Try calling Tyler’s grandmother, Punky. She’s the greatest. She’s hilarious.”

The McElroy brothers, T.J. and Joe, played hockey with Adam Setten, Punky’s son, who is six years older than his nephew Tyler.

“I have been going to hockey rinks for 53 years, since Lance started skating, and that’s not going to end anytime soon,” Punky said Friday. ”We have a little grandson and granddaughter just starting mites, and another who will be out there in a year."

How many “hockey mom” lifers could have a chance to say this: “I’d love to watch my grandson Tyler play for the Wild today, but I have to miss some of it because my granddaughter Lake has a mites game.”

There was an interview with Tyler in St. Paul on Thursday’s opening day of practice for the Wild and included this:

“Sources say that your grandmother Punky is quite the character.”

Pitlick immediately said: “She’s the best. We’re on the St. Paul side of town, so we don’t get to see her as much as I’d like, but she was there for as many games as possible when I was a kid.”

“He’s a big fella, but I stayed on my feet, skated off,” Pitlick said. “One more shift and the game was over. I went to the training room to get some ice for my shoulder. I told ’em, ‘By the way, my stomach feels a little weird. They pushed on it, checked some more, and sent me to the hospital.

“Luckily.”

Pitlick termed it a ruptured spleen. The media reports used the term “lacerated.”

He missed the rest of that season. He spent the whole season with the Oilers in 2016-17. That was the first of seven consecutive seasons (with seven teams) when Tyler was strictly an NHLer.

He played 80 games in Dallas in 2017-18, with 14 goals and a plus-9 rating; 63 games for Philadelphia in 2019-20; and 61 games with St. Louis in 2022-23.

“Let’s hope for a strong preseason,” Pitlick said. “That’s always the dream for a Minnesota kid … to play at home. Friends and family in the arena; that would be great."