Mats Zuccarello throws Brock Faber under the bus in end-of-season interview.

On Sunday the Minnesota Wild conducted their end of season exit interviews and generally speaking the players appeared to be in good spirits despite being eliminated in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

You can hardly blame the players for reflecting positively on the season, one in which they gave the Vegas Golden Knights all they could handle despite still being crippled by the buyouts of Ryan Suter and Zach Parise to the tune of $14.7 million in cap penalties. 

Perhaps the best sign that the players were feeling relatively positive on the day was a wise crack from Wild veteran Mats Zuccarello who decided he would throw teammate Brock Faber under the bus during his exit interview. Zuccarello was asked a seemingly innocent question about how his body was feeling heading into the summer, and he used the opportunity to take a jab at Faber regarding an incident that occurred earlier in the season.

"I'm 37 so I always got to take care of something you know?" said Zuccarello. "I feel good, I felt good all year, but obviously Brock shot me in the balls, that was the only little hiccup I had this year."

Zuccarello smiled right before he made the comment about Faber which leads me to believe that he may have prepared this one ahead of time, fully intending to give his teammate a little bit of grief at the end of the season. That being said a little jab during an exit interview is probably a lot better than being on the receiving end of a shot "in the balls" as Zuccarello so eloquently put it.