skibidi hrpf

first i wanted to give some background information on our two guys (feel free to skip if you want to go straight to the dynamic stuff!):

Wyatt Johnston (#53, “Johnny”)

Wyatt Johnston was born on May 14, 2003 in Toronto, Ontario to parents Chuck and Margot. He has an older brother (Austin) and an older sister (Quinn), who played hockey at Queens University. Starting at age three, Chuck would take Wyatt to frozen Lake Nipissing in North Bay to skate and play hockey (you can read an article about it here). Although Wyatt enjoyed running and was a member of his high school’s cross country team, hockey quickly became his focus. 

Wyatt played for the Toronto Marlboros in the GTHL in 2018-19, and the Windsor Spitfires in 2019-2020 before the season got cancelled in March due to COVID-19. Due to the pandemic, Wyatt did not play a single game in the 2020-21 season outside of his seven-game stint at the Under-18 World Championships. Still, in the 2021 NHL Draft, the Dallas Stars picked Wyatt 23rd overall, even trading down to get him. It was a bit of a risky pick—most projections had Wyatt going in the second-round, and with COVID preventing him from having a full season with the Spitfires, it was hard to really know what they were getting—but it paid off for the Stars. If a re-draft occurred today, Wyatt would go 1st. 

I was working out all alone in my garage in the cold and skating on any ice rink I could find outdoors, because all the rinks were closed. Just putting in the work. And I think if you want to succeed and you put in the work, you know, chances are that you’re gonna be successful. -Wyatt on the improvements he made to his game during the COVID year, 1/9/23

Wyatt played one more season with the Spitfires before joining the Stars in Dallas. In that season, he led the entire OHL in scoring. After a great showing at training camp and during pre-season, Wyatt secured a spot in the Dallas Stars’ opening night roster for the 2022-23 season at only 19 years old. Wyatt called his family to tell them the news, a phone call where, according to Wyatt, “everyone cried” and Wyatt himself even got “pretty emotional”. (Although not completely relevant, I recommend watching the videos of Wyatt’s family reacting to him getting drafted and Wyatt’s parents at his NHL debut, because they’re both pretty cute).

As the first teenager to play for the Dallas Stars since Miro Heiskanen in 2018, Wyatt became very loved by his teammates during his rookie season, often being referred to/treated as a little brother, or in the case of Joe Pavelski, who Wyatt billeted with for his first two years on the Stars, an honorary son. Wyatt is no longer that teenaged rookie anymore, but he’s still very beloved. Despite three straight 30+ goal seasons, Wyatt remains quite humble in all his media, and is also known for being sweet, soft-spoken, and not super chirpy on the ice (here’s one of my favorite videos of him, where he points at the jumbotron to settle a disagreement lmao). 

When reading a tweet for social media that said “Wyatt Johnston is like if an angel and a puppy had a baby,” all of his teammates in the video expressed their agreement. Jake Oettinger even said, “He’s like a little golden retriever. Like a baby golden retriever. Best guy ever.”

Wyatt is often propped up as a future leadership guy for the team and has been since his first couple of seasons with the Stars despite his young age. While Roope Hintz and/or Miro Heiskanen were out due to injury in early 2025, Wyatt wore an A at away games. This video is great at showcasing how Wyatt has already stepped up as a leader among the younger guys on the team.

I’ll be honest. You see young kids with arrogance. I had lots of arrogance as a kid. I just don’t see it in him. I think he’s got that swag, but he’s not an arrogant kid. He’s a guy that you could maybe one day see having a C on his chest. He’s just got that character to him." -Tyler Seguin on Wyatt, 5/10/24 “Yeah, that’s about as easy of a decision as I’ve had to make this month. You can tell he’s a leader, he’s been a leader all the way up, growing up.” -Former Dallas Stars’ Coach Pete DeBoer on the decision to give Wyatt the A, 1/19/25 He’s a great player, great kid, and obviously a huge part of the team, part of the future. He’s mature off the ice, too. That demeanor he has, I mean, you know, it feels the same age as me… he’s already a leader and he’s 21, so can’t wait to see what the future has for him. -Jake Oettinger on Wyatt, 4/3/25

A fun (and endearing) Wyatt detail is that outside of hockey, he loves to do jigsaw puzzles. He talked about it in this video, along with some of his other routines, like taking an exactly 1 hour and 6 minute nap before every game. (And here’s another article where Wyatt talks about the puzzle thing again!)

Thomas Harley (#55, “Harls”)

Thomas Harley was born on August 19, 2001 in Syracuse, New York to Canadian parents. He has two brothers (Stuart and Greg) and one sister (Emilie), all of which have played hockey growing up and at the collegiate level. He was described by his sister as being the most “hockey mad” of the bunch. Despite growing up in New York and retaining dual citizenship, Tom has spoken multiple times about how he feels he was “raised Canadian”, and has represented Canada at both the Four Nations Face-Off in 2025 and the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics in 2026. 

“I grew up in the states, played in the states. And when they picked their US program when everyone’s fifteen, I didn’t get invited to that. And that was it. I said screw them, I’m going to Canada, and the rest is history, I guess” - Thomas Harley on choosing to represent Canada during international events, 2/27/25

Tom started playing hockey at age 4, often coached by his own father, Bryan. He started out playing forward and goaltender but was switched to defenseman by Bryan to fill a gap in the lineup on the line-up, and has stuck with the position ever since. Tom played for the Vaughan Kings in 2016-17, the Mississauga Steelheads from 2017-2020, and was drafted as the 18th pick of the 1st round of the NHL draft by the Dallas Stars in 2019. 

Compared to Wyatt, Tom’s journey to a permanent roster spot with the Stars was not quite as immediate. Tom spent four training camps and pre-seasons with the Stars before he finally attained a permanent roster spot ahead of the 2023-2024 season. During this time, Tom moved consistently up and down between the NHL and AHL, often joining the Stars during playoffs but spending most of the season down in Cedar Park with the Texas Stars. On October 9th, 2023, he was named to the Stars’ opening night roster and has remained with the Dallas Stars since (and now has an eight year, $10.5 million AAV extension that begins in the 26-27 season!). 

And a fun bonus detail: Tom wore #48 with the Steelheads, but when he got to the Stars, he adopted #55. Which, notably, is the number Wyatt wore with the Spitfires. So Tom essentially stole Wyatt’s number, forcing Wyatt to take up #53 instead. A funny coincidence, right? 

Tom has carved out an important role for himself as an elite, young defenseman (here’s a great video of his teammates talking about his play and his importance to the team). But personality-wise, journalists, teammates, and coaches have all often characterized him as a quietly confident, a more reserved force in the locker room, but also someone with a great dry sense of humor. 

“He’s quiet and introverted and sometimes people take that the wrong way. Sometimes when athletes are quiet, some people think they’re conceited and he’s not. He really wants to learn every day, he’s just a quiet kid. He’s a wonderful, wonderful guy to work with.” - James Richmond, Tom’s coach on the Steelheads, 6/27/19 “He’s one of those you gotta go talk to him, but once you get him going, he’s funny. You probably won’t get a lot out of him until you sit down and ask him, but we’ve sat down a lot.” -Scott Wedgewood, ex-teammate, 3/5/24

Here’s one of my personal favorite quotes from Tom himself: 

“Not to quote Shrek, but I’m like an onion. You got to peel me back a little bit every time. When I first got to Mississauga, I was quiet and didn’t say much. I just came out on the ice and do my business [and] head home. The past two years, I’ve definitely opened up, started cracking jokes with guys and started letting loose.” -Thomas Harley, 6/27/19

Tom’s dry sense of humor journalists and teammates can’t help but mention isn’t hard to see. It comes out a lot with Wyatt (which I’ll go into more later), but is also sort of a constant with this guy. Some great examples: 

he told reporters that he likes when coach Neil Graham explains why they’re doing certain drills “Because we’re stupid,” (a quote that prompted this graphic, which is an all timer to me) – article link 

this post-game interview after a 4-3 win against the Devils where Tom says, “If they’re upset, that’s their problem.” (as an aside, here’s Tom’s game-winning goal from this game, and look at how excited Wyatt got on the bench. aw.) 

after signing his 84 million dollar extension with the Stars, he told reporters he would be celebrating by eating Digornio Pizza. Link

this fun encounter with Stars’ teammate Radek Faksa while they were playing for different teams at the Olympics. Tom said he knew it was Radek, but Radek didn’t know it was him.

Early Encounters

Wyatt’s first year on the Spitfires coincided with Tom’s last year on the Steelheads during the 2019-2020 season. Windsor and Mississauga played each other twice during this season, a 4-3 win for the Steelheads on 10/6/19 in Mississauga and a 5-4 win for the Spitfires on 12/19/19 in Windsor. However, at this time Wyatt was only averaging about 10 minutes of TOI per game, so the amount of actually playing against each other they did was limited. 

Likely, Tom and Wyatt met for the first time at the Stars’ 2021 training camp, which was Tom’s fourth camp with the Stars and Wyatt’s first. During the 2021 preseason, they only played in 1 game together (9/29/21 vs. Florida) before Tom was cut to go back down to the AHL and Wyatt returned to the Spitfires. They would meet again at the 2022 training camp and pre-season, where they played 3 games together. Prior to this training camp, Tom was expected to finally make the Stars’ opening night roster, but after the Stars acquired defenseman Nils Lundqvist and Tom had a not so good performance in training camp and pre-season, he was sent back to the AHL with the Texas Stars. Wyatt, however, made the opening night roster, and thus spent most of his rookie season on a Tom-less Dallas Stars team. 

Tom was recalled to the Stars for the last six games of their regular season and stayed with them throughout the playoffs, which means Wyatt and Tom played together for about a month and a half before the Stars were eliminated in the Western Conference Final. There’s not much RPFable content about this era outside of some basic proof that they existed on this team at the same time (some examples if you care for crumbs: them being next to each other in the handshake line, exiting the tunnel together, and this one celly where you can see Tom looking at Wyatt as he skates up). But there is this photo, taken only seven days after Tom came up from the AHL:

But no matter how fond of each other they look here, the 2023-24 season is when they truly started to become the close friends they are now and when all of their fun shenanigans began.

Their Dynamic + Shenanigans!!! 

Since Tom secured his permanent roster spot in the ‘23-’24 season and he and Wyatt started becoming close, the biggest staple of their dynamic has been them chirping/teasing/messing with each other, or more accurately… Tom chirping, teasing, and messing with Wyatt. They seem to love messing around and rough-housing during/after practice and during warm-ups, and Tom specifically seems to enjoy being in Wyatt’s space, being a general nuisance to him, and trying to get under his skin. Over the past three seasons, Tom has vied for Wyatt’s attention in increasingly absurd ways, and I personally find it one of the more compelling (and entertaining!) parts of their dynamic. 

So here’s a chronological collection of Tom flirting gently-bullying/messing with Wyatt (and yes, you should watch all of these. Written word doesn't do them justice!): 

2/9/24 - Tom and Wyatt playfully throw punches during practice. Tom kicks Wyatt’s stick out of the way when he goes to reach for it. Then, they argue about who won the fight. “Johnny’s soft. Johnny’s as soft as it gets”. 

12/28/23 - Tom knocks Wyatt’s stick away, goading him to go pick it up, and then knocks it away again when Wyatt does  (you can tell in this one that by now, Wyatt already knows the types of games Tom likes to play) 

4/11/24 - the infamous “Let me love you” video

5/21/24 - Tom bullies Wyatt at practice, "I'm surprised your head even fits in this rink" This one is funny to me because Wyatt clearly does not have an over-inflated ego about his goal-scoring, and Tom knows that too. He’s just chirping for love of the game (aka love of terrorizing Wyatt). 

1/5/25 - Tom pushes Wyatt over the boards

1/23/25- Tom and Wyatt go weeee during practice 

4/18/25 - some more bullying 

1/4/26 - Tom and Wyatt messing and lightly wrestling around at practice. Tom gets Wyatt’s stick, pretends he’s going to give it away to fans, then drop-kicks it back to Wyatt. 

2/25/26 - Tom slaps the back of Wyatt’s neck while Wyatt is doing post-game media

2/26/26 - Tom sticks the blade of his stick up Wyatt’s jersey during warm-ups

2/27/26 - Tom yanks Wyatt by his jersey

bonus:

As much as Tom nagging and bothering Wyatt is a huge component of their dynamic, that’s not to say it’s only component of their dynamic. Here’s some shenanigans of theirs that don’t necessarily fit in that category: 

11/12/23: Wyatt interrupts Tom’s post-game interview while Tom looks at him with fond eyes (+ bonus wyatt wink from the same post-game that may or may not have been directed toward Tom)

3/10/24: Wyatt and Tom messing with goaltender Jake Oettinger

4/22/24: This adorable video of Wyatt and Tom celebrating scoring on ex-Stars goaltender Scott Wedgewood 

3/2/25: Tom ties Wyatt’s skates for him after losing at rock-paper-scissors

4/28/25: Wyatt winks at Tom (and look at Tom’s reaction!) 

Moreover, they’re also really good friends and are super sweet about each other. On 10/1/24, Tom said this about Wyatt (which is probably one of the most Tom quotes ever):

“My best friend on the team is probably Wyatt Johnston. He’s a rascal, but we have fun together.” 

It’s pretty clear to see that they enjoy each other’s company and gravitate toward each other both on and off the ice. They are always super chatty with each other. They love to yap or just generally be close together, whether that being during games, warm-ups, or practice! Here’s some examples in chronological order: 

2/02/25: during the kings game

2/28/25: post-win vs. kings + little bump

3/1/25: chat w/ robo

4/30/25: gossiping during warm-ups, game 6 vs. col

5/3/25: chatting after game 7 win vs. col

5/14/25: “gossip & giggle”, game 4 vs. win

3/2/26: before the anthem @ canucks + different yap sesh from same game

3/14/16: chatting in tunnel post-win against det look at those smiles!!!!

They are pretty touchy with each other too (if everything else didn’t already convince you of that): 

1/26/24: little head-pat from Wyatt

2/8/25: Wyatt wrapping his arms around Tom’s waist

1/19/25: Tom touching Wyatt’s waist + little bumps

3/24/25: trading bumps w/ each other

No date for this, but Wyatt trapping Tom’s legs between his skates. as they gaze into each other’s eyes, of course. 

And can be attached at the hip! Here’s three separate occasions of Wyatt being abnormally close to Tom in the handshake/goalie-taps line: 3/4/25, 5/3/25, and during this mic’d up video of Wyatt from 1/17/26. They also often wait for each other and walk down the tunnel together, which you can see here and here. Additionally, there’s lots of pictures/videos of them together during walk-ins or walking onto the plane prior to road-trips.

+ this gif from 11/12/23

Finally, Tom and Wyatt are great friends off of the ice as well. Wyatt lived with teammate Joe Pavelski for his first two seasons in the league, but after Pavelski’s retirement, Wyatt moved into the same apartment complex as Tom, along with ex-teammate Logan Stankoven. In this video from the 2024-2025 seasion, we learned that Tom and some of the other younger guys like to come over to Wyatt’s apartment to hang-out and play ping-pong. The video also features Tom, looking very very comfortable on Wyatt’s couch, and this fun exchange between the two of them. 

(bonus detail: while Wyatt and Logan Stankoven are at the ping-pong table, you can see someone searching up Wyatt Johnston highlights on the TV off screen. The Dallas Stars’ twitter account confirmed it was Tom in this tweet). 

In this post-game interview from 3/2/25, Wyatt talks more about living in the same apartment complex as Tom and Logan. 

“It’s nice to have some of those other guys around to help each other out and cook for each other when that kind of stuff comes up.” 

Wyatt also mentions how he, Tom, and Logan like to get Doritos Locos Tacos together when they have a couple days off between games. 

The Ritual

If you’ve looked up Tom and Wyatt while on tumblr or twitter — or just stumbled upon them — you’ve probably come across videos of Tom shoving/checking Wyatt into the boards during warm-ups. You might’ve asked, what is this weird display of physicality between teammates that has seemed to happen so many times? Well, that would be Tom and Wyatt’s pre-game warm-up ritual. It started sometime during Tom’s first full season with the Stars (although I haven’t been able to pinpoint an exact date) and has been a staple ever since. 

The ritual I’m talking about here is part of a larger routine they do before every game (and here’s a longer post about it if you’re interested), but the main part involves Wyatt skating towards the boards as Tom tries (and succeeds) at checking Wyatt into the glass. Usually, Tom will hold him there for a second or two before they both skate away. There’s small variations to the ritual from game to game, but the shove into the boards has been a constant for the better part of three seasons. 

There’s a lot of questions you might have about this that I don’t have answers to, namely “how did this come to be” and “...why?” As far as I know, Tom and Wyatt have never talked about it to the media, and there’s not a lot of documentation of its earlier days that would let us see how it developed. Still, there’s a lot of conclusions about their dynamic you can draw from the ritual alone, and the beautiful thing is that it happens before every single game!

There’s lots of videos of it out there, and if you want to look through, the best resource is probably @rosecoloredmax’s warm-up tag. But I’m also going to list two of my favorite examples of it below for a quick snapshot: 

10/10/24: look at these smiles in this one!!

12/31/24: I love this one because it’s even more physical than usual. Tom gets multiple shoves on Wyatt here. 

And here’s one of my favorite photos of Wyatt from 2/2/26, delighting in being shoved into the boards by Tom: 

Since the start of the main ritual, Wyatt and Tom have developed more pre-game routines as well (including another shove into the boards on the other side of the ice!) Now, they spend a very large chunk of warmups together. Again, I would recommend checking out this post by @rosecoloredmax if you want more details on all of their pre-game rituals. 

The Cabo Trip

In February 2025, the NHL hosted the Four Nations Face-off in Montreal. Neither Tom nor Wyatt made the initial roster for Team Canada, so they decided to use the break to go on a trip together to Cabo, Mexico. But during the Feb. 12th Canada vs. Sweden game, Canadian defenseman Theodore left with an injury and was ruled out for the rest of the tournament. Team Canada, of course, needed a replacement. Tom was flown out to Montreal at the last minute, and Wyatt was left to go on the vacation without him. 

Tom ended up having a great performance at the tournament, especially considering how last minute of a replacement he was. His performance helped him secure his roster spot a year later at the Milan Cortina Olympics, but the beautiful thing about the Cabo trip (even though it actually didn’t happen) is how many quotes we got of them talking about each other out of it. I recommend watching this media Wyatt did on 2/18/25, which gave us these quotes: 

“Right as I was getting back to our building, he called me, so I went to his room, and he was kind of in the midst of, you know, getting all the calls. So yeah, we weren’t there yet, but it was probably about 8-10 hours before the flight.” “Yeah, no, I wasn’t alone, but it would’ve been nice to have him there. At the time it was… upsetting, you know, ‘cause we were both pretty fired up to, you know, have a trip there.”  “I talked to him a bunch, gave him a couple Facetime calls. I think he was pretty jealous in some ways.” 

When asked about whether he regretted missing out on the trip at all in this interview, Tom said this: 

“I’ve made a couple jokes over the past couple weeks that I should have turned my phone off, but I think it worked out well. I made the right choice. Um…but yeah. Johnny was a little lonely in Cabo.” 

Although Wyatt said he hadn’t been alone, it was pretty clear that no other teammates went on the Cabo trip with Wyatt. However, in this media posted on 1/6/26, after the announcement of the Olympic roster, Tom did reveal that his girlfriend was there too. Whether anyone else was with them as well is unclear, but it is funny to imagine Wyatt and Tom’s girlfriend on a vacation together without Tom. This media also gave us this quote from Wyatt: 

“I wanted to be mad and upset and angry at him for ditching our vacation, but for him to get that call was super awesome.” 

And here’s this tweet about Tom getting to play in the championship game of the tournament versus the US: 

Cellies

Despite being a forward and defenseman duo, Wyatt and Tom have great chemistry together on the ice and often connect for goals, which has led to some cute cellies over the years.

12/13/24: blackouts celly, wyatt goal w/ tom assist vs. buffalo (stick around for the head pat at the end!)

1/4/25: celly after tom’s ot gwg against utah 

3/2/25: celly after wyatt goal vs. stl

10/27/25: butt pat after mikko’s goal against nashville

3/14/26: tom’s ot gwg against detroit w/ wyatt assist 

Bonus: tom talking about his and wyatt’s matching jump cellies 

Part of the Dallas Stars’ social media shtick is to give a cowboy hat to the star of the game after a win. Here’s a collection of Tom and Wyatt in hat pictures together: 

The picture on the top right also gave us this important video, where Tom beckons Wyatt over to take the picture by saying “Come here, guy.” As far as I know, this is the only recorded example of Tom referring to Wyatt as “guy” we have, but what a nickname…

Miscellaneous Events + more shenanigans! 

Wyatt and Tom appearing together to announce the Stars’ 2024-25 schedule (and it turns out they are absolutely terrible actors) on 7/2/24

Wyatt taking a picture of Tom for the Stars’ social media on 9/14/24, and then Tom doing the same for Wyatt on 12/5/24

During his post-game interview on 12/21/23, Tom shouts out a play Wyatt made during the game vs. Vancouver: 

“I don’t want this to go unnoticed, Johnny won a 1v2 pick battle on the boards…so I just—give him his credit.”

On the Stars’ 25th Annual Casino Night (1/23/25), we got these:

In the Stars' shut-out loss to the Avalanche in game 4 of the playoffs (4/26/25), Wyatt gets in a scrum in the last minute of the game. In this video here, you can see Tom skate up and yank Toews off of Wyatt, and then trade little shoves with him afterward.

After being eliminated from the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Tom and Wyatt showed up for the first time on 6/1/25 with a pair of matching mustaches (here). Whether it was coordinated or just coincidence is unclear, but I wouldn’t put anything past them.

In August of 2025, Wyatt and Tom were both invited to the Team Canada orientation camp for the Milan Cortina Olympics. You can see them together during it here and here.   

Tom suffered a foot injury that had him sidelined from 11/13/25 to 12/9/25. When he returned to the ice, Wyatt and Tom were seen messing around for a while after practice was over (according to the reporter here and here, there’s no pictures unfortunately). Tom said this about it: 

“It’s a lot of fun to be out there with the boys. No, I mean, it’s why we’re still playing this game, we love it. I was away for three weeks, missed it. You get a little bit lonely.” 

The Dallas Stars had their annual Dad’s Trip in December 2025. You can see Tom, Wyatt, and both of their dads hanging out around each other and chatting while boarding the plane (here and here).

Tom comes up with a New Year’s resolution for Wyatt, 1/31/25

“What’s a topic you know more about than your teammates”. Tom answers “jigsaw puzzles” for Wyatt, 1/31/26

Why you should care

the future is limitless: Tom and Wyatt are both key pillars of the Stars' young core and crucial parts of the future of the franchise. They are likely to be playing together for many many years to come. That means anything could happen! There's so much possibility for what they could do, both hockey-wise and rpf-wise, so get your stocks in now!

a fun dynamic: Tom and Wyatt are great friends who have an extremely entertaining teasing relationship. Over the past three seasons, we've gotten so much fun content of them, and I'm sure we're only going to get more! They're such a fun pair to keep an eye on, even if you don't care for the RPF you will at least get a laugh out of some of the videos they are in together!

a great community: despite the 5355 shipping community being on the smaller side, there's absolutely so many lovely and amazing people on this site and others as well. lots of great gifs, fics, etc!