'I Was A Shell Of Myself': Blackhawks Forward Nick Foligno Looks Back on Disappointing 2021 Playoffs Run With Maple Leafs
The Maple Leafs acquired Foligno ahead of the 2021 NHL trade deadline but a back injury limited his impact on the club.
Nick Foligno wishes things could have been different three years ago when the Toronto Maple Leafs picked him up ahead of their 2021 playoff run.
The Chicago Blackhawks forward was a guest on the 'Dropping The Gloves' podcast hosted by former NHL enforcer John Scott and looked back on his short tenure playing north of the border.
"I was excited about playing in Toronto, I felt like I could really help on the ice and off the ice," Foligno said. "Just to get them over the hump and have some snarls, some attitudes, some personality in the room. And that's kind of why I picked going there."
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The Maple Leafs acquired the veteran forward on April 11, 2021, from the Columbus Blue Jackets as part of a three-team trade with the San Jose Sharks. Foligno waived his no-move clause to go to the team where his father, Mike, had previous success with the Maple Leafs in the 1990s. In exchange, the Leafs sent the Jackets a first-round pick in 2021, and a fourth-round pick in 2022. Toronto also sent the 2021 fourth-rounder to San Jose.
After having to quarantine for seven days due to Canadian COVID restrictions negotiated with the NHL at the time, Foligno made his debut against the Winnipeg Jets for a pair of games. But he felt his back act up on the flight to Montreal for the next game.
"I don't know if it was the plane or what, but my back just was tight that night. And I went to stop in front of the net and I have no idea why, but for whatever reason. Boom. Everything just locked up. I was completely stuck."
Foligno wasn't the same after that. His back injury lingered as he continued to play through it. He missed three of the club's seven games of their first-round upset loss to the Montreal Canadiens.
"I was just so frustrated because I knew I was really hurt and I knew how much they had invested in me and I was trying to play through it, but I was a shell of myself, and to know we were up again, 3-1 and to blow it the way we did, it was just baffling. I just couldn't help in the way I wanted to, I couldn't be in the room. I was always in the training room in between periods, I couldn't help galvanize the team. I couldn't do what I love to do and can do on and off the ice. And that was just, it was one of the hardest things."
Foligno tried to help the Leafs when he could. When Maple Leafs captain John Tavares was injured in Game 1 after an accidental blow to the head from Corey Perry's knee, Foligno fought Perry on the very next shift.
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Foligno also admitted he could see and feel the pressure rise after the Maple Leafs failed to close out their first-round playoff series with the Canadiens while up 3-1 in the best-of-seven.
"Yeah. I mean, it's the reality of it," Foligno said. Yeah. A hundred percent when you don't have that success, that's what I mean. When you don't have something to fall back on, when you don't have those meaningful games to know that we can do this, doubt definitely creeps in. It just does.
"It's human nature. Right? And, we just could not get over the hump in Toronto. You lose one and then oh boy. And then the media, they start to get up and roll and then it's up another level and that's up. And now you're in Game 7 and Game 7 anything can happen. Right? And the way it kind of went down for that team, you could just see that it was almost like we had no life in that game. That game in Toronto we had just no life. It was just like, you could feel the weight of it all just playing on everybody."
Things are only slightly different since Foligno departed. The Maple Leafs finally went on to win a round two seasons later when they defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning in six games in 2023. But outside of that, a lack of playoff success has seen the club go through a little bit of turnover.
But of all the playoff defeats, 2021 was a big one for Toronto and it's something that has stayed with the former captain of the Blue Jackets.
"I'm sure the Toronto fans were as disappointed in how it all shook out,' he said. "But I guarantee you, I'm more disappointed and that's something you have to live with. That's sports."
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