Wild's Marcus Foligno hoping leg feels better soon after scary shot block

CHICAGO – Wild winger Marcus Foligno was scared.

As he crumbled to the ice after blocking a shot from Blackhawks defenseman Brent Seabrook in the third period Sunday at United Center, he couldn't feel his right leg.

"From that position, with the outside of the bone, I was kind of worried," Foligno said.

But after getting helped up off the ice, Foligno was evaluated and tests came back negative – a silver lining for the Wild in a 3-1 loss to the Blackhawks.

"I'm hoping to ice it, and hopefully this thing is feeling better tomorrow and the next day," he said. "It's nice that we have a couple days before we play again."

Foligno was still hobbling after the game, but the result looked like it could have been much worse judging by the sequence in the game.

After falling to the ice, Foligno remained down and struggled to get to his feet – at one point crawling before he was helped up.

Getting in front of shots has been a regular occurrence this season for Foligno, whose 14 blocks are among the most for Wild forwards.

And it sounds like he'll be able to resume that role soon.

"It looked like he got it on the inside, like he turned his foot, and those things hurt," coach Bruce Boudreau said. "But he's a tough kid."

A day off Monday won't just help Foligno recover; it'll be a reset for the entire team after it squeezed just three goals out of 79 shots over the weekend.

"It's frustrating," winger Zach Parise said. "But at the same time, we're in their zone. We're getting chances. It would be a lot more frustrating if it was the other way and we couldn't generate anything. At least we're generating things and getting shots and chances and things.

Screening the goalie more often is one remedy Boudreau has in mind, a focus the Wild could hone in on once it gets back on the ice Tuesday for practice.

Perhaps the team will roll out a new look on defense then; after the game, Boudreau said, "We're going to have to reevaluate that," when asked about the performance of the Ryan Suter-Matt Dumba pairing, since it was on the ice for all three of the Blackhawks' goals.

What has found a groove is the power play, though, as it chipped in its fifth tally over the past four games