Five quick hits: Marcus Foligno’s penalties, Stars get physical, where are the goal scorers?
Foligno #Foligno
Four games into their NHL first-round playoff series, the Wild and Dallas have two wins each, with the latest result being the Stars’ response Sunday night in a 3-2 victory at Xcel Energy Center. Instead of Minnesota taking a 3-1 series lead for the first time in franchise history, the series has boiled down to a best-of-three, with Game 5 Tuesday night in Dallas.
Here are five takeaways from Sunday’s game:
1. Foligno was in the spotlight again
Forward Marcus Foligno’s all-around play stood out for the Wild in their 5-1 rout of the Stars in Game 3 on Friday as he scored a goal, delivered four hits and did the gritty work needed for his team to take a series lead.
In Game 4 on Sunday, the fan favorite was the center of attention again, but not in the way he would have liked.
Foligno was called for two penalties Sunday — infractions he vehemently protested and coach Dean Evason passive-aggressively questioned, too — and the Stars scored power-play goals on both of them. The first, a deflection off Tyler Seguin’s left skate, gave Dallas a 1-0 lead in the second period. The second, with 3:31 left in the third, made it 3-1 and proved to be the winner.
To Foligno, neither penalty should have been called.
The first happened when he finished a hard hit on Stars defenseman Jani Hakanpää and was called for interference. The second came when Foligno was called for tripping as he delivered a shoulder-to-chest hit on Mason Marchment, whose stick cut Foligno’s nose.
“It’s a joke,” Foligno said, peppering his comments with an expletive. “It doesn’t make any sense. I go to hit a guy. He touches the puck. It’s not interference. I get high-sticked in the face. It’s not a tripping call when you hit a guy clean-on.”
Evason didn’t directly comment on the penalties, but he did get his point across.
“Listen, everyone in the hockey world watched that game. We all know what happened,” he said. “I’m not going to comment on them. We have our opinions, but what’s the point?”
Later, Evason said he didn’t want his team straying from its physical approach in response to calls with which they disagreed.
“We’re not gonna stop playing hard just because of some calls. That’s not right,” he said. “You play the game hard; you play the game right. Play physical. That’s what you’re supposed to do; you’re supposed to finish your checks. … It’s just good, hard, physical hockey, and we’ll continue to do that.”
Dallas coach Peter DeBoer saw things differently.
“We’re a good special-teams team. We have been all year,” he said. “I’ve said this before: They take penalties, and when they do, we have to make them pay.”
Foligno’s frustrating night also included a second-period breakaway on which Stars goalie Jake Oettinger made back-to-back saves, and a would-be goal in the third period when a puck bounced over his stick as he was parked at the side of an open net.
“Oettinger played really good [Sunday]. That’s what it all came down to,” Foligno said. “We didn’t score. We played a hell of a game. It’s a great game by us, and we just didn’t get the result.”
2. Oettinger stands tall
Oettinger, the former Lakeville North and Boston University standout, was the No. 1 star of the game after a 32-save performance. Along with his breakaway saves on Foligno, he stopped Kirill Kaprizov when the Wild star was skating in all alone.
With the Wild pressing for the tying goal in the final minute, Oettinger stopped Marcus Johansson with 12 seconds to play.
“He was our best player,” Dallas coach Peter DeBoer said. “… He was our best player and he had to be.”
Oettinger made a combined 23 saves in the final two periods, beaten only by John Klingberg at 5:58 of the third and Frederick Gaudreau — with Wild goalie Filip Gustavsson pulled for an extra attacker for a six-on-four advantage — with 1:20 to play.
“I just want to step up,” Oettinger said. “Every guy on our team is going to have moments that they need to step up in the playoffs. It was my turn [Sunday], and we’ll have guys step up in Game 5.”
Oettinger estimated he had “probably 25” family members and friends in the arena.
“It’s great. It’s what it’s all about,” he said. “Just the fact we’re playing here, and they get to come watch me play is amazing. I wouldn’t be where I am without all the people up there watching me and helping me. I play for them and just had to get a win for them.”
3. Where were Wild’s top scorers?
Kaprizov and Matt Boldy were the Wild’s top two goal-scorers in the regular season, with 40 and 31 goals, respectively. Through four playoff games, the Stars have held both in check, limiting Kaprizov to one goal and no assists and Boldy to no goals and three assists.
“You always want to score,” Boldy said. “Everyone in this room wants to score, especially in this building in front of our fans. Just the energy you can get from it, everything. But, yeah, I’m getting my chances. The line’s playing well, the puck’s coming my way. It’s just [not] finding the back of the net, and it will come.”
Added Evason: “We played the right way. We didn’t get rewarded tonight, and you can make your evaluation of why we didn’t get rewarded tonight. But we didn’t. If we play like that, we will get rewarded.”
4. Stars get physical
In Game 3, the Wild had 26 hits to the Stars’ 17. On Sunday, however, Dallas made a point to be more physical, delivering 21 hits in the first period alone and having 32 to Minnesota’s 26 for the game.
The Wild weathered that early pressure, which included two Stars shots hitting posts in the game’s first six minutes, then settled in.
“We stuck to our game plan,” Evason said. “We were a little loose early in the first five or six minutes but then we got to our game in a hurry.”
5. Game 4 has been a struggle for Wild
With Sunday’s loss, the Wild dropped to 5-12 all-time in Game 4 in the playoffs. They are 1-8 in their past nine Game 4s, and their last win in that situation came in 2017 when they won 2-0 at St. Louis to avoid being swept by the Blues.
Boldy said the team just needs to reset for Game 5.
“Looks like playoff hockey for sure,” he said. “That’s what you grew up watching. Just hard hockey, back and forth, low-scoring game. It’s an exciting series, but back to square one.”
Added Gustavsson: “We’ll take this game, throw it in the garbage bin and then we’ll look at the video [Monday] before we travel to Dallas. We’ve been there. We’ve beat them in their own arena, and we know what it’s going to take.”
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