The Minnesota Wild may have gone down to the Washington Capitals 5-2 but they sure weren’t going without a fight; Marcus Foligno squared off with Tom Wilson midway through the second period.
This wasn’t the first fight of the year for Marcus Foligno either. Since the start of this season, he has been involved in 3 of the 5 fights listed against the Minnesota Wild on hockeyfights.com.
That same website currently puts the fight as a win for Foligno; though some of that voting could just be disdain for Wilson realistically!
Now I’m not about to say that fighting should or shouldn’t be allowed in the game, that’s a whole different debate, especially considering the effects a traditional ‘enforcer’ role has had on some former Minnesota Wild players.
I do however have to say that I enjoyed seeing Marcus Foligno drop the gloves with Tom Wilson. Wilson is not a well-liked player by fans and thus its enjoyable to see someone throwing punches, as harsh as that sounds.
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We suggested that Foligno’s line might be a good one to shut-down Alex Ovechkin, but it seems shutting down Tom Wilson by dropping him to the ice is just as good.
The fight itself wasn’t anything to write home about, both players knew how to hold their own and limited each other from landing any sort of decent hit.
Marcus Foligno was the one that was able to drag Wilson down to the ice though, if you’re seeking some sort of nod on a winner or loser.
Possibly the biggest takeaway from this is that Foligno took on Wilson in a bid to stir up the Minnesota Wild bench; the fight occurring immediately from the face-off following Mikko Koivu‘s goal to make it 3-1.
It was pretty clear to most people watching the game that Marcus Foligno told the bench ‘let’s go’ immediately following the fight; showing that the experienced winger had his team in mind when he dropped the gloves.
You could also argue that it was some measure of revenge for Tom Wilson running over the Minnesota Wild goaltender, Devan Dubnyk in the first period. Unfortunately on that occasion, the goal stood for Tom Wilson despite a penalty getting called for the goaltender interference.
It’s fair to debate whether fights do actually give a team energy or change the momentum, but watching Foligno trying to fire up the bench certainly suggests it still has some effect. Nothing like a good old-fashioned donny-brook!