Just checking in: Marcus Foligno

While the COVID-19 pandemic has created all kinds of new downtime for some, life has remained busy for Wild forward Marcus Foligno.
Sure, he's had to adjust to some new normals. The frenetic offseason workouts back in Sudbury, Ontario, with his brother, Nick, who is captain of the Columbus Blue Jackets, have migrated to Zoom meetings with their trainer.
Instead of getting ready for the season outside, lakeside, on a warm summer day, Foligno has had to settle for indoors at TRIA Rink.

But he's also used the downtime to welcome another Foligno to the pack, as he and his wife Natascia welcomed Camila back in October. Now a father of two daughters -- Olivia is 2 1/2 -- the hashtag #girldad has special meaning inside the Foligno household.
"Honestly, I'd be lying if I wasn't hoping for one girl and one boy right off the bat, but I got two girls now and the #girldad tag is very strong in this house," Foligno said. "I'm loving it. It's been fun. Maybe this has been the plan all along and maybe it's meant to be that we'll have daughters. It's been great. It's pretty cool to be surrounded by all these girls. A lot of love."
While the pandemic has put the start of the 2020-21 season on hold, the delay has been a silver lining for Foligno, who has been afforded plenty of time to bond with both his newborn, and Olivia, who has taken nicely to being an older sister.
It's helped ease the burden on Natascia who, under normal circumstances, would have given birth right around Opening Night.
Instead, the Folignos returned to Minnesota from their home in Canada back in September even though there was no start date in mind for the upcoming season. With Natascia's due date in October, they wanted to come to Minnesota and get settled.
They also wanted Camila to be born a Minnesotan, a title she will now carry with her for the rest of her life.
And while there's no question that Foligno would love to be playing in front of a packed Xcel Energy Center right now, the extra downtime has allowed him to be a big part of Camila's first couple months.
"We've gotten lucky [with the timing] because with Olivia, the day after we lost to Winnipeg [in the playoffs in 2018], she was born," Foligno said. "So I was able to enjoy the first two or three months of her life and help out around the house and help my wife.
"That's the silver lining right now. Whenever I get anxious and feel like I should be doing something else, it's nice to just be home, to enjoy family time and be able to help my wife out. It's been tough, because we usually have some help when family flies in or you have a babysitter. But we've been on shutdown, it's been just my wife and I handling the kids and it's been huge that I've been able to be around."

As the season draws closer -- and the hope now is that the Wild could get going sometime early in the New Year -- traffic has picked up at what was once Foligno's own personal fitness center, TRIA Rink at Treasure Island Center.
Guys have filtered back into town more recently, and small group skating sessions commenced this week with Foligno joining about a dozen others for more organized, structured sessions.
Before, it'd be a workout then a spin around the ice -- about a two-hour morning routine that he did in relative solitude. Now, it seems like a new face is joining the group every day, a sure sign that hockey can't be too far away.
"The biggest thing was September," Foligno said. "Once that hits, your body kind of adjusts and says, 'OK, it's time for training camp, it's time to push.' You almost had to slow it down and pull it back a little bit because there were some times where it was ready to go."
Foligno said he's excited about the full group that will eventually skate together. With mainstays like Mikko Koivu and Eric Staal playing elsewhere, there are a number of new veterans and young players that will embark on their first season in Minnesota in 2020-21.
"I think we're a really solid team, I think that's the biggest thing," Foligno said. "We have a lot of energy, I think that's what we have coming in here. We have some guys on contract years, we have some guys who are new.
"We have a guy like Nick Bjugstad who wants to prove himself and prove what he once was. A guy like Marcus Johansson who is excited to be with the Wild and bring his skill and offensive play to this team. A leadership guy like Nick Bonino who knows how to score, knows how to play the game really well and is a Stanley Cup champion. Cam Talbot who wants to come to Minnesota and put on a show."
Foligno is one of those guys in a contract year, and he also happens to be coming off perhaps his best season ... not only in a Wild uniform, but his nine-year NHL career.
Despite playing in just 59 games because of the pandemic, Foligno had a career high 25 points. His 11 goals were two off his career-best, a number he may have come close to had the season not shut down early.

But he was also a plus-8 and was on pace to spend less time in the penalty box. His 86 shots on goal were only five fewer than he had in all of 2018-19, a year in which he played in 23 more games.
Foligno was a noticeable difference-maker every night.
"And I don't really know why last season sparked the way it did," Foligno said. "I think my confidence with this team has really grown, this organization and the fit. I feel really comfortable here. I think my role and the coaches behind me know what I can provide and when you gain that, you gain a little bit more of an offensive flair, you can feel that.
"It's good to be able to contribute, but I also feel that I have more to give. I feel like I haven't peaked and I'm getting to that really good spot in my career where I can build off it and improve from last season."

Now entering his fourth season in a Wild uniform, Foligno is one of the most tenured members of a very different-looking forward group. Among them, only Zach Parise and Joel Eriksson Ek have played here longer.
When the new season begins, he'll try and pick up where he left off and help this team win games, and hopefully secure a long-term future in Minnesota, where he's now -- literally -- put down some family roots.
"As a fan, you've gotta be excited about the situation that we're all walking into," Foligno said. "There's a lot of excitement in this dressing room and guys are ready to go. As many new faces as we have, we'll come together. It's going to be a perfect time to get know each other and take off from there. It's going to be a different team than we're used to seeing."