Matt Duchene Talks Falling on Marcus Foligno, Digging into Minnesota's Edge at 5-on-5, and the Philosophy of Playoff Penalty Calls
It's all about learning
Good morning! Also, it is the afternoon, and we have all been up for a while. But after that double overtime extravaganza, the whole day kinda feels like mornings, so go ahead and have that extra cup of coffee. I’ll allow it.
On today’s off day, we’ve learned some small news: Roope Hintz began skating again yesterday in Dallas, but he’s not playing in Game 4. He’s doubtful for Game 5 as well. For Dallas, reinforcements continue to be elusive. For Minnesota, they are beginning to look more and more vital, but John Hynes didn’t have a definitive answer on when or whether one or both of Trenin or Zuccarello might return to play.
Neither team practiced, so on today’s off-day, let’s take stock of a couple key points about the series we’ve seen so far, including a long talk with Matt Duchene about the incident with Marcus Foligno. But first, some hockey stuff.
Five-on-five play isn’t as one-sided as it seems
Marcus Foligno was well within his rights (and the data at hand) to declare the Wild the superior team at five-on-five through two games. But he’s missing something kind of important: he’s sort of been the problem for Minnesota at five-a-side.
Patrick pointed this out in the comments after Game 3, but just to drive the point home, here are the 5v5 numbers of Foligno the Younger through three games in this series.
For context: 50% in the far-right column would be breaking even. Foligno has, uh, not done that. He’s probably been the worst forward on his team.
At the other end of things, however, the Wild’s top guys have absolutely dominated puck possession at even-strength. I shall demonstrate that fact with the below eye chart:
Yes, you’re reading that right: the Stars have yet to score a single 5v5 goal when any of Hughes, Kaprizov, Boldy, or Eriksson Ek have been on the ice. So to see Boldy pulled off in the first period last night after Benn’s stick hit the back of his helmet, you can bet Wild fans were steaming. (Though not as much as Boldy was after he returned in the second and promptly created an all-world look for Eriksson Ek to bury.)
There’s more to the story, though. Because if you glance at the right-hand columns, you’ll notice that the Stars have still managed to generate high-danger chances against those players. They just haven’t gone in, which is a credit to how Jesper Wallstedt’s been playing. (Though it also raises questions about how you handle former starter Filip Gustavsson next season, as his five-year extension hasn’t even kicked in yet, but I suppose Minnesota will burn that bridge when they come to it.)
The goals are the thing, of course. The Stars will have to prove they can actually capitalize on chances more often when the numbers are even. But the Stars’ defensive work last night might have been a perfect encapsulation of this series: the allowed volume, but not of the lethal variety.
Sean said it well today in D Magazine: you can’t make a long playoff run without consistently being able to generate five-on-five offense. But as the Stars have shown before, you can most definitely win a single series on the back of goal-prevention and special teams. For the second straight year, they’ve grabbed a 2-1 lead in the first round by doing just that. Now they just have to get the horse into the barn.
Penalty calls aren’t designed to make you happy
Through three games, the Wild have taken 16 minor penalties, and the Stars have taken 15. Nearly half of those have been taken by either Mikko Rantanen (4) or Jamie Benn (3), and Benn probably ought to have gotten at least another minor for his conking Boldy in the back of the head last night.
It is not a revelatory statement for anyone to say those players need to avoid needless penalties, so I’ll not make it here. The chess speaks for itself. The penalty killed bailed the captain and the superstar out in Game 3, just as it did last year for Rantanen and Marchment against Colorado before overtime wins in Games 2 & 3.
The officials have obviously let some things go, and they probably got sold a bill of goods on a couple of the calls they did make last night. Game 3 colored outside the lines in almost every way imaginable, but that’s how series like these tend to go. Playoff hockey might be lauded for its culminating moments, but the road to game-winning goals is almost never a straight line. Even Brenden Morrow didn’t score his legendary goal until the Stars were on the power play.
I was talking about the goal of penalty calls earlier today with my brother, and he made a good point: Often, referees will use ten-minute misconducts to send messages and keep games under some measure of control, but as my brother put it, the teams did a good job of “laundering their misbehavior” such that a minor was usually all that could really be called. Or at least, it was all the officials had the appetite to do.
Sure, Johnston could’ve gotten something for his cup-check on Kaprizov, but given that Kaprizov was one of a few Wild players to take liberties with Oettinger’s glove hand after the puck was blown down, the officials considered the matter settled. Again, there is no way Minnesota feels the same, but that’s the series we’ve gotten: teams are averaging five power plays per game, and nobody is going to be happy when they’re on the short end of things.
As the penalty calls last night became more and more unpredictable, it became increasingly apparent that every situation was being judged less about whether the rules had actually been broken, and more about the stakes involved in the penalty call. Did Rantanen trip someone behind a play in the second overtime? Sure, but it didn’t cost Minnesota possession, so we played on. Did Foligno hit Arttu Hyry in the back well away from the puck, whether accidentally or knowingly? Absolutely, but it wasn’t quite violent enough or impactful enough to change anything about the play at the time, so it was let go.
That’s why you have to toughen up when watching the playoffs. The penalties aren’t being called to reinforce your sense of justice, but to prevent the game from being perceived as ruined. Whether the means of modern officiating actually leads to those supposed ends is another matter entirely, but anyone who remembers Game 7 in 2007 or Game 6 in 2024 knows that injustice lurks around every corner. The team that tends to win a series is usually the one who forces the issue.
Matt Duchene talks friendship with Folignos after falling on Marcus in Game 3
Duchene went into the Marcus Foligno incident more today on the Ticket, and he gave a ton of detail, so I wanted to share it here.
Here’s the incident again, just to refresh your memory:
And here’s Duchene coming back to check on Foligno after the fact:
For posterity, I transcribed Duchene’s entire response from his interview today when asked about the altercation, starting with his answer about whether it was accidental:
“Completely. That was funny. First of all, I’m tight with the Foligno boys, especially Nick. Like, Nick is one of my best friends in hockey. Marcus, I know a little bit just through Nick, and I went up to their charity game they used to have for their mom up in Sudbury, Ontario, and I stayed at Nick’s house. I know those guys, I know their dad. They are the most salt of the earth, great [guys]. I’m a Christian, they’re Christian, so we connect on that level. You wouldn’t know it by the way they play I guess (laughs), but as soon as you put the gear on, man, everything’s out the window.
So when that happened, I felt him underneath me. I literally felt his nose crunch on the ice, and I was like, oh man, that’s not gonna be good. And then he was down, and I’m like, oh man. Like, here’s the thing. You have a hit like Blackie where he hits Trenin, and he’s concussed or whatever’s wrong with him, and that’s part of the game, that’s part of the playoffs. You don’t want to like, fall on a guy. I felt bad. So I skated up to check on him, truthfully. Like, what the heck else was I gonna go do there? Marcus’s one of the strongest, biggest guys in the league. Like, I’m not gonna try and go poke that bear, right? Like, what would I be doing? And again, I have ultimate respect for the guy. I love both those boys. I legitimately was going up to talk to him, and he just snapped. He saw red. It’s funny, he snorted blood all over my jersey. I had his blood all over me the rest of the game.
But then, Spurgeon, who I know a little bit too, he’s an awesome guy, and even Nick, they thought maybe I cross-checked him, because they didn’t see the play. I was like, ‘Boys, come on, I fell on him.’ I said, ‘Watch this.’ Obviously they reviewed it, and they showed it on the Jumbotron, and I watched all their faces when they saw on the Jumbotron, and they were like, ‘Ah, okay.’
So anyway, third period, Marcus and I lined up at a draw, and he came right up to me, right away, and said, ‘All good man, I know you didn’t do that on purpose. It just felt like it when it happened, but all good.’ And I said, ‘Dude, honestly, I don’t blame you. I felt you underneath me, and I could feel what happened. I was literally coming to check on you. Like, I felt bad.’ I said the same thing in my press conference.
You know, it’s war out there, but at the same time, like, within confines, in my opinion, right? We’ll do anything to win the series, but I have never been that guy, that is gonna be like, I would never cross-check a guy’s head into the ice. (pauses) I mean…I don’t wanna say never, but they would have to really, really, really piss me off (laughs). Marcus, I don’t think he’s a dirty player by any means, so that’s how I look at it. He plays hard. There’s not many guys who hit that hard in this league, and he’s hitting to hurt. Not in a dirty way, but he’s hitting as hard as he can, but I respect that. That’s doing it right. I’m not gonna go out there and look to cheap shot anybody for anything like that. I’m not that guy anyway. That’s not my style.”
-Matt Duchene, April 23 2026
“The Sweet Spot” on 1310 the Ticket.
Anyway, I’m sure the audio will get uploaded later today, but it’s always fascinating to hear about both the intensity and the brotherhood we don’t always see on the ice.