The Wild are right — the officials were bad — but they have to move on against Dallas

One of the Wild's problems on Sunday was that they didn't stay out of the penalty box.

Of course, you're screaming at that line because the two penalties called on Marcus Foligno — one for interference on Jani Hakanpää and the other for tripping Mason Marchment — were questionable calls that led to power-play goals by Dallas' Tyler Seguin. Goals that made the difference in Dallas' 3-2 victory over the Wild that has turned his series into a best-of-three scramble.

In most cases, games are played by humans and are officiated by humans. And humans make mistakes.

But, as someone who has been on skates but never while holding a stick or shooting a puck, I came away from Sunday wondering what constitutes interference and tripping in the National Hockey League.

It sure looked as if Foligno was guilty of neither on Sunday. And social media after the game already had indicted the officials for improper use of a whistle. Foligno sure felt that way.

"It's a joke," he said. "It doesn't make any sense. I go to hit a guy who touches the puck. It's not interference. I go, I get high-sticked in the face. It's not a tripping call when you hit a guy clean on."

Both calls looked equally dubious, as Foligno hit Hakanpää a split-second after he handled the puck. And the second penalty was not tripping. The two players got tangled up, with Foligno getting hit in the head, and both fell to the ice.

"Listen, everyone in the hockey world watched that game," Wild coach Dean Evason said. "We all know what happened. I'm not going to comment on them. We have our opinions but what's the point? You can all write about it and talk about it. There's no point in whining about it now."

Evason is right, but it's a crummy way for an outcome to be determined. Sunday's game was tightly contested with plenty of punishing hits and a few quality scoring chances.

Foligno plays a bruising game while contributing a few goals. He was the spiritual force on Friday in the 5-1 win over Dallas that gave the Wild a 2-1 series lead. They were in position on Sunday to go up 3-1 — which would have been the first time in franchise history that the Wild had led any playoff series 3-1.

But Foligno could only passionately state his beef with the two questionable decisions that led to the Stars' first and last goals of the game.

"This is playoff hockey," he said. "You go and hit a guy and it's not illegal. It's clean and you're getting called to the penalty box. I don't know. I think in that sense maybe they got to them before we did."

Foligno will shake off Game 4 before the teams meet in Dallas on Tuesday for Game 5 which — thank heavens — will start at 7 p.m. There are a few veterans of playoff hockey, such as Marc-Andre Fleury, Ryan Reaves, Gustav Nyquist and Marcus Johansson, who have been on teams who have made postseason runs. They will flush this game and remember the things they could have done to avoid losing games because of dubious calls.

Like the 2-on-1 rush they had in the first period that came up empty. Like breakaways by Foligno and Kirill Kaprizov in the second that were thwarted by Stars goalkeeper Jake Oettinger. Like Johansson's shot with the goalie pulled late in the third period that was turned away by Oettinger. Oettinger, the kid from Lakeville, was a bigger reason the Wild lost than questionable calls by the officials.

"[Oettinger] was our best player [Sunday]," Dallas coach Peter DeBoer said. "And he had to be."

The way the Wild have played in this series suggests they will respond in kind in Game 5. They will try to crack the code on Oettinger like they did in their Game 3 victory.

And maybe Foligno will hit someone without ending up in the penalty box.

"We just gotta capitalize, get to Oettinger," Foligno said. "Again, he played great. That's it. There's no negativity out of this game besides just burying our chances. It's onto Game 5, and we won in their rink before."

Five quick hits: Foligno's penalties, Stars physical, scorers don't score

The Wild came up against all kinds of difficulties in Game 4, from Dallas goalie Jake Oettinger to questionable officiating and absent offense from their top scorers. Here's what stood out to hockey writer Randy Johnson.