NEWARK, N.J. — A glance at the Wild roster will tell you that when backup goalie Marc-Andre Fleury retired earlier this year, Jesper Wallstedt took his place in the Minnesota crease. But Fleury’s jokes and pranks also kept light-hearted off the ice.
Tough guy winger Marcus Foligno has taken that position.
Philadelphia Flyers’ Nicolas Deslauriers, left, and Minnesota Wild’s Marcus Foligno, right, fight during the first period of an NHL hockey game, Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Derik Hamilton)
A case in point came on the team’s recent road trip. At a hotel in Dallas, one night around bedtime, Foligno took the time to call every member of the team, on speaker, with a camera recording it all, to wish each of them a good night. The teammates’ reactions varied from sincere thanks, to confusion, to insider knowledge that a prank must be in the works.
“I knew something was up,” Wild rookie defenseman Zeev Buium said a few days later, after the “goodnight buddy” video was posted on social media. “I didn’t know he was making a TikTok, but I knew something was going on.”
As he gets used to life in the NHL, Buium was one of many Wild players who acknowledged a player like Foligno — deadly serious on the ice, the class clown off it — is an important part of any team.
“You see that with a lot of the bigger, tougher guys who are so scary on the ice, and then off the ice they’re like a teddy bear. You see that with Moose,” Buium said. “He lights up every room he comes in, and I feel very lucky to have a guy like him on my team my first year in the league. I’ll look back in 20 years and say, ‘I had Marcus on my team,’ and tell stories.”
Family business
Marcus was born into pro hockey. His father Mike played more than 1,000 games for a quartet of teams. His older brother Nick is a mainstay with the Chicago Blackhawks. And when they visited Madison Square Garden recently, Foligno wore a sticker on his helmet in honor of his great uncle, legendary New York Rangers goalie Eddie Giacomin, who died last month.
“I think a lot of people don’t know the relationship and that my mom’s uncle is Eddie Giacomin,” Foligno said later. “Everyone talks about my dad, but we’ve got a lot of bloodlines on the other side, too. So, every time I play in New York, I think when I stepped in MSG for my first game, you look up, you see the Giacomin banner and Uncle Eddie’s been at a lot of games.”
It’s been a challenging fall for the Folignos, first with Giacomni’s passing then with Nick taking a leave of absence from the Blackhawks in October to be with his 12-year-old daughter as she battled a health issue. Things are better now, Marcus said, admitting that he and big brother are in communication daily, and visit each other’s homes when the Wild play in Chicago and when the Blackhawks come to Minnesota.
“We’re super close. Nick’s my best friend, and he’s my brother,” Marcus said. “We talk every day, we text and there’s not a day that goes by that we don’t talk to each other. We have three kids each, and they love each other, cousins, and it’s been a special relationship for sure.”
Taking, and giving, a licking
In a 3-1 win by the Wild in Manhattan, perhaps the biggest thing Rangers fans got to cheer that night came at the end of the second period, when Foligno was leveled with an open-ice check by New York defenseman Braden Schneider, snapping Foligno’s stick in half. More accustomed to being on the giving side of big hits, Foligno bowed his head and acknowledged that in a physical game like the NHL, it’s OK to receive now and then.
“I got caught. I normally don’t get caught, and I try to be a skilled player in certain situations. But he baited me great,” Foligno said, acknowledging that a video of the hit made the rounds among the players’ group text chain. “Hey, I’ve hit many guys, and it’s one of those where you just tip a cap and say, ‘I wasn’t injured, it was all good.’ Just laugh it off and get back out there and take another run at each other.
“We’d rather have hits like that than the other way, with an elbow or something involved. It’s all good, and don’t complain.”
When teammates get hit, Foligno is usually the first one over the boards to defend them, unafraid to drop the gloves when it is called for, as he has done once already this season. Wild fans fondly remember about this time four years ago, when Foligno and Winnipeg’s Brenden Dillon threw hands in a game in St. Paul and Foligno left his skates to deliver what became known as the “Superman punch.”
Fun is a good thing
Contrasting the fisticuffs with off-ice humor is by design. The players almost all are making multiple millions a season to play a children’s game invented to help pass the time in the winter. But NHL franchises are billion-dollar businesses, and the pressure to deliver is real. Supplying a mental break from that pressure was Fleury’s role, and it’s been handed down to Foligno.
“It’s just a long season, right? It’s just so many ups and downs. I’ve always been a guy like that,” Foligno said. “You bring in a guy like Flower, and he does that stuff and it makes it fun and before you know it, everyone’s enjoying themselves and trying to bring a team together. It’s always good to keep things light.
“It’s such a stressful, high end, pressure game we play, and when you don’t get results, you think the sky’s falling down.”
After their first handful of games, the sky is definitely not falling on the Wild (3-4-1). But there is work to do in terms of consistency and cohesiveness. On the ice, Foligno offers a consistent game, manning the wing on the third line and sending the constant message that you could meet his fists at any moment. Off the ice, there is always a smile, as he works to bring that cohesiveness — one joke or prank at a time — to a team still learning how to play together.
“He’s a leader for our team, but he does it in his own way,” coach John Hynes said. “On the ice, we know the physicality and the details he plays with, and what he brings to our team from an emotional standpoint. But I think off the ice, he’s such a good leader. He’s got a great personality, he’s talkative, he gets along with everybody, and that’s what you need. He brings a lot of energy to the team, on and off the ice.”
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