Years of playoff heartbreak fueled Marcus Foligno's breakthrough, finally finding relief and ending the team's first-round curse.
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Marcus Foligno has lived every version of this.
He’s been here since 2017. He has seen different cores, different expectations, but the same result. Seven playoff appearances, seven first-round exits. Always the same walk, heads down, handshake line and the summer starting too early.
So when the buzzer finally went and this time it was different, his mind didn’t go to the next round right away. It went backward.
“Just joy,” Foligno said. “I’ve been here now for quite some time, you come up short first round. You think there’s a curse. You gotta bring sage or something to this arena and start burning it.”
That’s not a guy celebrating a series win. That’s a guy unloading years of it. When he talked about finally moving on, it wasn’t over the top. It was almost relief.
“It feels really good,” he said. “It feels really good to hear that. Obviously it was nice to be on the other side of the handshake line this time.”
The Wild didn’t just beat Dallas, they handled moments that have tripped them up before. Games that get a little chaotic. Situations where emotion used to take over.
Foligno admitted that’s been part of the growth.
“Yeah absolutely,” he said. “There’s flak. You have a great first game. second game gets a little squirrely and you get back to what can bite you and we learn from it. you gotta have emotion but not be emotional, that’s what we talked about.”
That line, emotion but not emotional, that was basically the series. There were moments where it could’ve gone the other way. It has in the past. This time it didn’t.
Part of that is just who they are now. And part of it is who they added. The Wild were just more equipped and built to win a round. There added depth pieces along with the superstar Quinn Hughes who won them the game on Thursday night.
Foligno kind of laughed when asked why this group got it done. It was all because of his brother, wasn't it?
“My brother’s on it. No, I’m just kidding,” he said. “We’ve been going through it for a while now and you’ve got guys like Matt Boldy and Quinn Hughes and Brock Faber and Kirill, we have so many special guys on this team and we have a balanced lineup and an effective lineup.”
That balance showed up everywhere. Defensively, in the net, and especially with a player like Hughes.
There were stretches in this series where Hughes didn’t just play well, he tilted the ice and completely took over.
“Yeah… there’s things he does he pulls away from a team that keeps it close, right?” Foligno said. “Every time we play against other teams, there’s special players that do something special and we had an abundance from him… it was huge.”
And then he went a step further when talking about what makes Hughes different.
“No, honest to God… I don’t know a D in the league that just… even when you got guys that pressure him going back to our zone, he doesn’t throw it away… he’s probably one of the slipperiest guys in the league.”
Still, this wasn’t just about star power. It was about handling the pushback.
Game flow swings, momentum shifts, stuff that not only usually snowballs in the playoffs but also always derails the Wild. Instead, Minnesota bent and got it back.
“I just thought we see it, we bend, we don’t break and then we get it back,” Foligno said. “Nothing’s a cake walk. You’re not going to sweep teams and go 16-0. It’s going to be a grind.”
Even in those moments, they had a backbone behind it. Jesper Wallstedt.
“Wally’s Wally right now. He’s unbelievable. The big wall of St. Paul is coming through.”
For Foligno, there was also a personal layer to all of it. Sharing the ice with his brother in a series like this is something you don’t really get to script.
“It was awesome. It’s special,” he said. “To do it alongside your brother is really special for our family.”
You could tell, even when he joked, even when he kept things light, this one hit different. Because he knows how hard it is to get out of that first round when it keeps finding you.
Now, it’s finally not. And the tone has already shifted.
“The best thing about having this sweet taste of victory is you want more of it,” Foligno said. “It’s such a great feeling. So, we’re excited for Round 2.”
For a guy who’s been here for all the endings, this is the first time it actually feels like something’s just getting started.
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