Minnesota Wild veteran calls out Officials and Garnet Hathaway after reckless play
Minnesota Wild forward Marcus Foligno called out referee Chris Rooney tonight after a bad call in the game against the Philadelphia Flyers.
The Wild and Flyers had a crazy back-and-forth game tonight that ended in a 7-5 victory for the Flyers. The Wild were without their captain Jared Spurgeon as he is still recovering from offseason injury. His absence was felt in this one as things got heated between the two teams. The Wild were particularly upset when Flyers forward Garnet Hathaway intentionally elbowed Joel Eriksson Ek in the face, which is particularly bad considering Ek is still recovering from a broken nose.
Wild Reporter Michael Russo posted about the play, noting that it did give the Wild a brief 5-on-3 powerplay. However, it should have been more as Hathaway likely deserved a major penalty for the play. Even Russo himself called him one of the dirtiest players in the league.
Foligno was clearly not happy about Hathaway's behavior in the game. He even went so far as to say that he would not be able to maintain a job in the NHL if he was a clean player. He has to stoop to this low level, targeting injured players on purpose in order to 'stay relevant in this league.' He also complained about referee Chris Rooney who made the call, saying that it should have been a major.
Hathaway has just 3 assists this season playing in a fourth line role and has already racked up 10 penalty minutes, despite having just 81 total minutes of ice time on the season. Last year he racked up 132 PIMs and scored 17 points, a good indicator of the kind of player that he is. Unfortunately in this case, he seems to have gotten away with one as his team still emerged with the win. However, this is not a recipe for consistent success and John Tortorella likely will not be happy with his tendency to take bad penalties. After all, next time it could be a major or even worse. Furthermore, he could get a call from the Department of Player Safety tomorrow. Be sure to stay tuned to see if that comes.
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