The refs got this one right. Matt Duchene was called for a major Wednesday night after Marcus Foligno went down bleeding, but the review flipped it.
Foligno had blocked a shot and tripped Duchene into him on the way down. The contact was incidental. The officials wiped the penalty off the board.
What happened next is where the conversation should actually live. Foligno threw his helmet off and went straight at Duchene, and somehow that part keeps getting ignored.
Removing your own helmet to initiate a fight is a specific infraction. It's written into the rulebook for a reason. Nobody seems to want to bring it up.
Duchene skated back over to check what happened. Foligno swung. Only the Stars center is the one catching heat from the Minnesota side.
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Minnesota's veteran winger gets a pass he didn't earn
Foligno at 34 plays an emotional brand of hockey. He posted 8 goals and 13 points across 56 regular-season games with a minus-12 rating. He's not out there to produce, he's out there to set a tone.
Duchene, the 35-year-old Stars center, has been carrying Dallas. He's got 2 points with a power-play goal through the first two games of this series.
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Losing him to a retaliation scrum from a fourth-liner would be the worst kind of trade for Glen Gulutzan's group. That's exactly the math Foligno was playing with.
Is this where Wild fans want to complain about officiating? Tough sell. The refs got the first call right.
The second one is where it gets awkward. A helmet comes off, a player charges in after a no-call, and somehow the rulebook stays shut.
John Hynes won't discourage that energy. Why would he? Foligno did his job. He fired up a bench, he pulled Dallas into the scrum, he tried to flip the emotional script.
Dallas walks away mostly intact. But a precedent was set. If you can take a run at the Stars' best player without consequence, somebody else on Minnesota will try it next.
Should Marcus Foligno have been penalized for removing his helmet and going after Matt Duchene?
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