Marcus Foligno says he felt disrespected by the referee who slapped him with a roughing penalty and then an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty following his fight with Arizona's Liam O'Brien on Sunday.
First tagged with five minutes for fighting, Foligno was on his way to the penalty box when he found out one of the refs hit him with a two-minute roughing minor for giving O'Brien a shove after O'Brien came off the bench and skated directly at Foligno in an apparent attempt to escalate the situation into a fight.
"Felt a little bit disrespected there. I don't know how you give a guy an extra two for something that, there's really nothing there. Just give each guy five minutes and move on. Sometimes these referees try to be bigger than the game," Foligno explained.
But Foligno lost his cool after learning of the extra two-minute penalty. He slammed his helmet in an incensed moment, getting so angry that he was assessed a 10-minute unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. Do the math: That's 17 penalty minutes all because, in his mind, the ref had it out for him.
"He's T's me up from the corner because I'm yelling at him from the penalty box. Just fired up a little it. It's tough. You don't want to put your team down, but there wasn't any need to be in that position in the first place," Foligno said. "I thought that was just a terrible call."
Wild head coach Dean Evason thought Foligno had every right to defend himself against O'Brien.
“The guy comes off the bench and skates right to Moose and he gives him a push,” Evason said. “What are you supposed to do? Just stand there? You just don’t do that as a hockey player. He gave him a little push, like, ‘Get out of my face.’ I understand why Moose was rattled.”
The Wild killed off the Arizona power play and won the game 4-3.
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