Marcus Foligno expresses frustration with Wild management.

The Minnesota Wild have struggled mightily since the turn of the calendar year and if it hadn't been for such a hot start to the 2024-25 National Hockey League regular season, we might be talking about them being in real danger of losing their spot in the playoffs.

Of course much of the Wild's struggles can be attributed to the major injuries the team has had to deal with this season with the likes of Kirill Kaprizov, Jonas Brodin and Joel Eriksson-Ek all out of the lineup for significant lengths of time, but one has to wonder if frustration may not have also set in for some of the Wild's more veteran players.

Many of those players have had to struggle under season after season of a roster crippled by the salary cap limitations imposed on the Wild by the buyouts of both Zach Parise and Ryan Suter respectively, and some of those players are starting to see Father Time catching up to them.

Recently, Wild veteran Marcus Foligno made some uncharacteristic comments when he expressed some frustration about the fact that the Wild had not made any major moves at the deadline to help their players make a deep run in the playoffs.

"It’s tough. We all want to win," said Foligno as per Wild insider Michael Russo. "We’ve been grinding for the past couple months, so it’s just — I think you always want to see yourself as a team that’s always going for it."

Part of what has made it so difficult for Foligno is the fact that he has watched as so many teams around the league have loaded up ahead of the playoffs, teams he may have to face at some point in order to advance further into the tournament.

"We have a great team, but we’re a different team without those three studs that we’re missing," admitted Foligno. "Would you have liked to add or done something? For sure. But when you’re kind of going with Billy’s plan and what we have to understand is it’s moving chess pieces right now, and if you lose something you might regret it. And Billy doesn’t want to be put in that position. We understand that side of it, too. But you look at other teams bulk up and it just kinda gives you a little bit of jealousy."

You can hardly blame Foligno, who is now in his 8th season with the Wild, for being a little impatient after so many years of playing on a team living in a salary cap nightmare. Foligno even acknowledged that he knows things will be better next year, when the cap penalties from those two buyouts go from $14,743,590 all the way down to just $1,666,666, but that doesn't help him right now.

"We know next year is next year and that we’ll have that off our plate finally, but it just feels a little bit frustrating when you always want to be in that position to succeed," admitted Foligno.

At 33 years of age Foligno is one of the older players on the team and despite his 865 regular season games in the NHL he has only ever had the chance to play in 28 total playoff games, and again I can hardly blame the man for realizing that he may be running out of time.

"You’re not getting any younger," said Foligno.