The Minnesota Wild and Edmonton Oilers met for the third time this season on Wednesday, Jan. 15, and the second time in St. Paul. The Wild were still missing Kirill Kaprizov, Jakub Lauko, Jonas Brodin, and Jared Spurgeon, and the Oilers were without Evander Kane. The Wild did lose Marcus Johansson later in the game after a collision with Connor McDavid. The goaltending match-up was between Filip Gustavsson for the Wild and Calvin Pickard for the Oilers.
Despite missing some of their core group, the Wild got on the board first and kept pushing. The game went back and forth, with the Oilers getting the final goal and the 5-3 win plus McDavid moved into second place for all-time points with the Oilers with 1,044. This moved the Wild to 27-14-4 and the Oilers to 28-13-3.
Game Recap
The Wild scored first as Matt Boldy recorded a power play goal just minutes into the game to put his team up 1-0. Mats Zuccarello and Joel Eriksson Ek assisted him. That goal was followed by another late in the period, as this time it was Marco Rossi who scored a power-play goal, and Boldy and Zuccarello assisted him.
Then it was the Oilers’ turn as Zach Hyman scored to make it 2-1, and Leon Draisaitl and McDavid assisted him. The Oilers then recorded a power play goal of their own by McDavid to tie it up, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Evan Bouchard assisted him. That score held to the end of the period, and it was 2-2 going into the second.
The Wild got things going to start the second period as Ryan Hartman scored his team’s first even-strength goal of the night and was unassisted. The Oilers responded with a goal late in the period by Nugent-Hopkins to tie it at 3, and Ty Emberson and Brett Kulak assisted him. The tie was held throughout the rest of the period, and it was 3-3 going into the third.
In the third period, the Oilers scored first, with Vasily Podkolzin getting credit for the goal that went in off Declan Chisholm’s skate. Viktor Arvidsson and Joshua Brown assisted him in making it 4-3 and gave their team the first lead of the game. They continued to build off that lead as McDavid tallied his second goal of the night to make it 5-3, and he was unassisted. That would be the final goal of the game and they would win 5-3.
The Wild will have a couple of days off before they head on the road to face the Nashville Predators on Saturday evening, Jan. 18. The Oilers will not have any time off as they’ll remain on the road to face the Colorado Avalanche in the second game of their back-to-back on Thursday evening, Jan. 16.
