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Meet Jakub Lauko, the Wild's new 'grape dealer' and Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings fanatic

30 September 2024Last Update :
Meet Jakub Lauko, the Wild's new 'grape dealer' and Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings fanatic

ST. PAUL, Minn. — In Boston, for the past 50 years, there was only one “Grapes.”

That is, until Jakub Lauko came onto the scene and was instantly given the same nickname by teammates that former Bruins coach Don Cherry has had since his days in the minors.

Lauko, the 24-year-old acquired by the Wild from the Bruins in June, goes through at least one bag of green grapes a game.

Best yet? He’s willing to share with his friends.

He became what he joked was the Bruins’ resident “grape dealer.” Anybody who wanted the juicy snack got a handful, from Hampus Lindholm to Pavel Zacha, and he’s already started to find new customers inside the Wild room like Freddy Gaudreau.

“One day, I go, ‘Grapes, give me some of those,’” Bruins center Charlie Coyle recalled Saturday during a phone interview with The Athletic. “I had a good game and the next game he came in and just handed me a vine. He would just do it every day. I’d come in for games, and I would just have a vine hanging in my stall.

“I’d be like, ‘I guess ‘Grapes’ was here.’”

Coyle says Wild fans and especially reporters will love Lauko, the high-energy, fast-skating, bottom-six winger who’s big into MMA and fought Wild wingers Connor Dewar and Brandon Duhaime four days apart last season. Lauko was acquired for his former Providence teammate Vinni Lettieri, which was ironic because Lauko and Lettieri are such good friends that Lettieri called him immediately after the trade and offered up his St. Louis Park home for Lauko to live in this season.

Lauko is one fascinating guy, having grown up in a village of 200 people in the Czechia countryside near the German border. His dad, Roman, has been involved in hockey for 25 years, doing everything around the rink from equipment to team services for multiple teams. Lauko grew up playing every sport imaginable and, along with four of his friends, got into “The Lord of the Rings.”

They watched the movies, played the games on PlayStation 2, read the books and collected gaming cards and other limited-edition items.

He then got into “Game of Thrones” and “Harry Potter,” as evidenced by the sleeve of tattoos on his left arm inspired by all three series of books and movies.

“I’m telling you, this guy is one funny character,” Coyle said of Lauko. “Like, he has some hilarious quotes, whether it’s to you guys or to us in the locker room. He’ll say something and I’ll be like, ‘That’s good, I’ve got to write that down and use that for myself.’”

Late last week, Lauko stood in front of Wild reporters and happily explained his love for the fantasy books and movies. His personality was refreshing as he discussed his upbringing and adoration for fantasy writer J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote The Lord of the Rings.

He began giving reporters a tour of his left arm.

“This is ‘Game of Thrones,’ this is ‘Lord of the Rings,’ and I’ve got ‘Harry Potter’ here,” he said. “So, I have fantasy arm, I guess. That’s Aragorn, Legolas, Sauron. I’ve got Dobby here. I’ve got my Queen Daenerys here, and the Targaryen, and a little dragon. So, yeah, I’ve got a little fantasy sleeve.”

Bruins teammates used to give Lauko a bunch of grief for getting a tattoo of actress Emilia Clarke, who played Queen Daenerys in Game of Thrones.

“I’m like, ‘That’s pretty bold, Grapes,’” Coyle said, laughing. “I guess you got to be a big fan to have that on your body full time. But we’d say, ‘What’s your future wife going to think about that girl’s face on you?’”

Coyle, a 32-year-old veteran of the Bruins, didn’t know much about the 2018 third-round pick in the early part of his career. He remembers a bubbly, young 20-something who immediately acted like he belonged whenever he attended training camp in the early 2020s or got recalled from Providence two years ago.

Coyle says Lauko has a similar personality to superstar David Pastrnak, his countryman.

“It must be something over there in that Czech land,” Coyle said. “You’d see ‘Grapes’ in camp and I’d walk by him and he’d give me a big shoulder tap and be like, ‘How we doing, Charlie? What’s going on?’ I’m like, ‘Wow, this kid is pretty outgoing.’ I didn’t even know the kid and when you’re young, you’re usually shy and quiet and waiting for the older guy to say something first. But he acted like we were buddies, always slapping me on the back. He treated everyone like that and it’s why he became so close with so many guys so quickly when he became a full-time guy last season.”

Coyle said it was the same thing during games. Usually fourth-line rookies don’t say a peep, but Lauko “would go up and down the bench between whistles or TV timeouts being like, ‘Hey, hey, let’s go, keep it going, boys.’ Just always upbeat. He brought so much energy to us and it was contagious and something we really needed. And once he really got playing for us, he played his role really well.”

Lauko has had a strong camp so far, scoring two goals in three exhibition games, once on a breakaway in Winnipeg after blocking a shot and the other by intercepting Matt Duchene’s attempted outlet for a snipe in Dallas.

He was with some friends at a big European film festival in Karlovy Vary, Czechia in late June when Bruins GM Don Sweeney called him from the draft floor at the Sphere to tell him he had been traded to Minnesota. He was “three or four beers in,” so to say he was shocked was an understatement. He thought his Bruins career was just in its infancy, but he couldn’t be more excited for the fresh start.

“I just felt the last few months in Boston I was stuck in one place with no really big chance to move (up in) the lineup or move from the same spot that I’ve been for past couple months,” Lauko said. “So I was very happy with a change of scenery. It’s a breath, a fresh start for myself, and I just want to establish myself at a different role, different position, and I feel I’m able to give (the) team more than I was given.”

He’ll still likely start the season at left wing on the fourth line with Marat Khusnutdinov and Gaudreau, and be one of the new additions with former Nashville Predators and Colorado Avalanche forward Yakov Trenin on the penalty kill. While a team trading for a player means the management, scouting staff and coaching staff have respect for that player’s game, the player still wants to make a strong first impression.

Lauko has done that so far for coach John Hynes, who says he’s been just as advertised.

“He’s a strong, competitive player,” Hynes said. “His speed is better than I thought. He pushes the pace, he’s quick, he accelerates fast, he’s strong and escapes. The other part is his attention to detail is pretty good and he’s done a nice job on the penalty kill. I think he’s picked up some of the things we’re trying to do without the puck. He seems like a very hockey-smart player.”

Hynes also confirmed what Coyle said: “Even on the bench, he’s a vocal, high-energy player, and he talks,” Hynes said. “Those are all the little things that we felt we needed a little more of. A little more personality at those times in the games and things like that. He certainly seems to bring that. That’s another component you don’t necessarily know.”

Lauko scored two goals and eight assists in 60 games last season and says he wants to bring more of the offensive production he had in his early hockey days. He says he has a knack for getting under the skin of opponents and delivering “three or four hits a game,” but, “I was working hard this summer to get myself into positions where I can score, and work on my shot — just scoring in general.”

Wild fans also learned last year he can fight. On Dec. 19, he fought Dewar in Boston. On Dec. 23, he fought Dewar’s sidekick Duhaime in St. Paul.

Nothing on the ice precipitated the Dewar fight, but it was premeditated.

On Oct. 24 in Chicago, Lauko took a skate to his face and thought he lost his eye. Thankfully he didn’t, but after returning to the Bruins lineup on Nov. 11, doctors told him he was not allowed to fight.

Dec. 19 was the day he was cleared to play hockey unencumbered. Lauko is big into Muay Thai and is friends with some UFC fighters, and after months of “boiling up” not being allowed to drop the gloves, he coincidentally had a couple of his UFC buddies in attendance for that Dec. 19 game.

“So I was like, ‘OK, guys, I’m going to fight for you and there’s no way I’m going to lose that fight,’” Lauko said. “So, I basically asked Dewar if he wants to fight; he said yes. The fight against Duhaime, I kinda knew that was coming. I jumped on the ice and right away, he was coming right at me. So, I was like, ‘I’ve gotta fight you now?’”

Coyle says Lauko is “grit in the best way possible.”

“And he motors, too,” Coyle continued. “He can skate, he can fly. Some guys are really graceful, fast skaters. He just gets there, and it’s just explosive and powerful. And it’s like, ‘Oh my God, look at Lauks go there.’ There was one goal (late last season) he scored where he blocked a shot or something and went end to end, and I’m like, ‘That was incredible!’”

It was a disappointing one-goal-in-five-games playoffs for Lauko. Two games into the Bruins’ first-round series with Toronto, Lauko, in a game in which he had six hits, put his body in front of a Simon Benoit shot with two seconds left even though the game was basically over.

Lauko broke his foot and didn’t return until Game 3 of the Bruins’ second-round series loss to Florida.

But as Coyle said, “That’s just Lauks. Never hesitates to block a shot or make a hit.”

Coyle, who played seven years for the Wild before being dealt to his hometown Bruins, still has a special place in his heart for the Wild. He loved his time in the Twin Cities; his wife, Danielle, is from Minnesota and he comes back at least once a summer.

So not long after Lauko was traded to the Wild, Coyle sent Lauko a long text to tell him how much he’d miss him in Boston, how much he loves the way he plays the game and, most importantly, how much he’d love Minnesota.

“I said, ‘Dude, you got to play in Boston. And now, you’re going to Minnesota, another hockey market,’” Coyle said. “I told him, ‘They love their hockey out there. They’re going to love you, the way you play. You’re going to do great.’ And, ‘Who knows what this could do for your career? The way you play sometimes, you can just take off in a change of scenery.’

“I think ‘Grapes’ has that in him.”

(Photo of Jakub Lauko celebrating a goal with teammates: James Carey Lauder / Imagn Images)

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